You might describe it as a concept store on steroids. At 10,000 square metres it’s almost certainly the largest bicycle showroom in the world.
Yet despite employing 16 full time staff, De Fietser, which opened late last year does not sell a single bicycle… yet.
At first glance De Fietser (‘The Bicyclist’) appears to be located in the middle of nowhere. It’s just outside the town of Ede which may be small, but it’s in the geographical and population centre of the Netherlands, with good road and rail connections that put about 10 million consumers within a 90 minute radius. The closest cities are Utrecht and Arnhem.
I visited De Fietser as part of a guided tour during the Velo-city conference, which was being held about an hour’s bus ride away. Our host was Albert Jan Zielman who is a bike expert and mechanic at the experience centre.
De Fietser was created by the billion dollar Dutch based Accell Group and only displays their brands, some but not all of which are available in Australia.
It’s housed in a hundred year old factory that was once home to Enka, a company that made synthetic fabrics and employed up to 5,000 staff, mainly women, through much of the 20th century. At its peak it was the largest single employment site in the Netherlands. The wing that now houses the experience centre was built in 1928. The factory was closed in 2002 and sat empty and derelict until last year.
Accell gave the building a complete renovation including a new roof, new skylights and a large solar electric system.
A key element of their vast space is a 250 metre indoor test track with over 100 bicycles available for test riding. There’s about 1,000 bicycles on display in total, in themed areas for each brand. On public holidays they also set up an outdoor test track.
Consumers can enter for free and ride as many bikes as they like, but they cannot buy. Instead they are referred to their nearest dealer.
“We’re going to sell from 2018,” Albert Jan tipped. “We’re working on a way to split the margins with our dealers as we want to keep our good relationship with them.”
They’re only open from Wednesday to Sunday but getting between 600 and 1,000 visitors per week, largely depending upon the weather. They also can use the facility for dealer shows.
There’s a well displayed museum and a large café.
Although the centre only opened in November 2016 it’s already starting to attract visitors from overseas from the UK, France, South Africa and elsewhere.
