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Building the Sandbox to Engage and Incentivize Riders

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This episode’s guest is Tobie DePauw, Affiliate Wizard at PeopleforBikes Ride Spot. Tobie and Ride spot could not be more perfectly matched. He is an experienced community builder, maker, and creative with a history of bringing people together to cultivate authentic relationships and create memorable experiences. His passions lie at the intersection of creativity, marketing, and leadership, and he is able to do just that in his position at PeopleforBikes Ride Spot, a digital platform designed to help independent bicycle retailers position themselves as the community hub. For retailers looking to change the way they interact with their community, this is a must-listen.

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Building the Sandbox to Engage and Incentivize Riders

Tue, 6/29

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

routes, challenges, ride, retailers, riders, bike, bicycle, people, affiliates, bike shop, spot, community, create, toby, miles, cyclists, hosted, organization, suppliers, app

SPEAKERS

Heather Mason, NBDA , Tobie DePauw

NBDA   00:10

You are listening to bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National bicycle Dealers Association.

Heather Mason  00:16

Welcome to another episode of bicycle retailer radio brought to you by the NBA. This is President Heather Mason. Thank you for listening. If you’re a first time listener, be sure to check out the previous episodes do us a favor and leave a review. Today’s guest is Toby d-pa affiliate wizard at people for bikes ride spot, Toby and ride spot could not be more perfectly matched. He’s an experienced community builder, a maker and creative with a history of bringing people together to cultivate authentic relationships and create memorable experiences. his passions lie at the intersection of creativity, marketing and leadership. And he’s able to do just that with his position at people for bikes ride spot, right spot is a digital platform designed to help the independent bicycle retailer position themselves as the community hub for retailers looking to change the way they interact with their community. This is a must listen. Before we get into it, I have to send a very special thanks to our friends at mint socks for teaming up with the MBTA for the month of June to highlight bicycle retailers of excellence. I have a special place in my heart for mint socks. They’re my go to socks for all my rides, runs and athletic pursuits. You should get to know more about them visit their website freshly minted.com. Alright, without further ado, I want to welcome Toby to bicycle retail radio back again. Thank you for joining me, how are you?

Tobie DePauw  01:40

I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me, Heather.

Heather Mason  01:43

I’m really excited for this conversation, this amazing intro that I just gave about you a man of community of making connections of bringing people united, something I truly believe in. I wanted this rewind, I know you’ve done a podcast with us before, but I thought we would start by giving our listeners a sense of you like where are you? Where do you call home? What’s your local community?

Tobie DePauw  02:05

Yeah, I’m right now based in Madison, Wisconsin. And before this, I was in Illinois, DeKalb, Illinois, about 60 miles west of Chicago.

Heather Mason  02:13

It’s a nice place to live your rider? I’m

Tobie DePauw  02:16

sure I am. Yes. Comes with territory.

Heather Mason  02:20

I need to know your cycling history. I love to get a little deep dive of everyone I’m chatting with how did you end up at people for bikes.

Tobie DePauw  02:27

So I was kind of harangued into the bike industry. In 2004, I was hired to run a bike shop, even though I had never worked in a bike shop or worked as a manager before, but I was kind of hired off the street to run this little bike shop that was kind of floundering and was under new ownership. And so that’s how I got in. And so it was kind of a weird way to start because I started at the management position. But it really was a great foundation for what my career has turned out to be in the bike industry. So I was there for 12 years. And we just had a blast, we built the shop but quadrupled it over the first 10 years, we established a number of gravel events, they’re in Illinois, and some of them still exist. And they’re very exciting. And so about five, six years ago, I decided to take a flyer and move my family to Madison, Wisconsin to help start what is now right spot. Because I saw the great kind of potential and need for the industry to have kind of a center point where riders can find retailers and retailers, retailers can connect with riders. And I wanted to be a part of that I wanted to really it was kind of driven out of like, I wanted to make a tool that would make our lives easier. So that’s kind of what got me started on this path. And we decided to partner with people for bikes just a few years ago, and rebrand as ride spot. And so just over the last few years, we’ve really grown the platform increased our number of features. And yeah, in some ways, I feel like we’re just getting started really.

Heather Mason  03:52

I love this background. So working in the retail environment, organizing events, gravel events, specifically you said and others, I’m sure, and then realizing that wow, we can help other retailers find success and become the hub of their community and make these connections.

Tobie DePauw  04:06

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s really for me that’s at the heart of it all is connecting with people one on one and then seeing all those one on one connections turn into a thriving community. That’s what really drives me.

Heather Mason  04:17

There’s so much magic that happens when you get on your bicycle when you’re actually out riding and you know, someone says, Oh, I did this route the other day, you should do this route. Like there’s so much magic that happens when you share that passion. Yep. Okay, your title and I love this is ride spot affiliate wizard. Like I don’t even know how do you get that title? I want that title. Give us an overview of what your role is. And sure.

Tobie DePauw  04:39

Yeah, so I’ve always kind of found a joy in having silly titles on my business cards. So when it came time to create that business card, it was just kind of what was fun and was broad enough to cover everything I want to do in my role. But you know, specifically just trying to be fun and wanted to be something that people would remember. So affiliate was They’re just kind of rolled off the tongue. And really my job at right spot is to work with all of our affiliates. And as we’ll get to in a second, there’s in writes about, there’s kind of two account types. There’s individual riders, and then there’s affiliates. And affiliates are primarily retailers, but can also be like advocacy groups, visitor centers, even buy clubs, just anyone that wants to engage their community with routes and activities can register as an affiliate. So that’s all under my, my purview.

Heather Mason  05:28

Sounds like every day, you’re gonna get hit with new stuff, new, exciting thing, new conversations. And, you know, we’re talking a lot about things retailers can do now, to better position themselves for the future. And I think it’s being closer with their suppliers closer with advocacy groups, and I think about people for bikes. And I know the organization takes on so many roles, and within the industry, for our retailers, for our consumers, for our suppliers, in such a great organization promoting cycling, and keeping a sport thriving. But you know, you work for people for bikes, in your words, you know, can you describe why the work that people for bikes does is so important to our industry?

Tobie DePauw  06:07

Absolutely, I can try honestly, I’ve been working with them for a few years, and I’m still learning on a daily or weekly basis, more that the organization does. It’s really incredible how profound and broad the work that they do, from working at state, local and national level to establish policy to work with, you know, tariffs to work with infrastructure, tons of grants in mobility justice, there’s an entire wave of new dei work that’s happening, there’s a new emphasis on youth cycling. And then of course, you know, ride spot is kind of the web that connects all of that connecting retailers, suppliers and riders to kind of build this digital platforms community. It’s really amazing how much work peopleforbikes is doing. And so I’d encourage everyone retail, I was a retailer for 12 years, as I mentioned, and, you know, I just knew they had a great logo, and they were doing good things. But it was very nebulous, it was very hard for me to put a pin on exactly what I thought peopleforbikes did. So I would really encourage everyone to visit peopleforbikes.org and just, you know, carve out 20 minutes or half an hour and just dig in. There’s so much good stuff. So much good stuff they’re doing. Yeah, I’m

Heather Mason  07:18

so with you. I remember, you know, my first introduction was the What is it? The if I ride video, the videos, yeah. Because it’s amazing. It really is. But yeah, I didn’t really know to the extent of all the different programs and how much peopleforbikes is involved in the industry until I started in this role. And I mean, from everything from ebike, to batteries in di to youth involvement. There’s so much going on the whole nother podcast. Oh, yeah,

Tobie DePauw  07:45

yeah, truly. And I, I would encourage you to invite some of the other leadership from people for bikes because they can speak to it much more clearly. And it’s working at every level of our industry. They are the industry organization for bikes. So yeah, I would encourage you to have another podcast with a few of the leaders.

Heather Mason  08:03

Alright, so let’s get back to rides. But I keep seeing logo pop up, give me and listeners some background on the origin of ride spot?

Tobie DePauw  08:12

Sure. So a number of years ago, people for bikes set out in partnership with the 20, collective and Shimano to really dig into what are the greatest barriers to cycling. And so they did a research study and polled a number of people to figure out, you know, what’s stopping you what’s preventing you from riding your bike far and away, the largest barrier was finding safe places to ride. And then the next largest was finding other riders to ride with, you know, finding your route, finding other people that made you feel comfortable. And then the third one was that technically, bikes can be really intimidating. And so that was another major barrier. So ride spot was really taking that research and saying, how do we solve this? How do we reduce these barriers? So the vision of ride spot, then is to create a non competitive kind of experience centric route sharing platform that really gives retailers the microphone to say, Hey, this is the best place to ride around here. Because you know, just anecdotally, we all know that situation. You know, if we go travel, we go to ride a bike somewhere where we don’t live, and we need to find a good route, the first place to go is the bike shop. And so we know that that knowledge is there, that knowledge is sitting in the brains of all those retailers all over the country. And we want that made, you know, writ large on ride spot, make it super easy to find. And so that’s the process we wanted to make simple was, you know, if you do walk into the bike shop, what does that conversation look like? Oh, yeah, sure. So here’s some ride cards, you know, and rides, but we make these ride cards that make it really easy to transition riders from the idea of a ride to actually navigating the ride. And then if someone’s planning a trip to somewhere, they’ll be able to search on the website or on the app and say, you know, I’m going to go visit Denver. I’m going to search Denver. There’s the most Popular routes are sorted by likes, I say I’ve got an afternoon, I want to ride a 20 mile mountain bike ride, you can sort down and you can see, oh, wow, these retailers are sharing some awesome routes, I’m going to go visit those retailers when I’m there. So that’s kind of just one of the pictures that we try to paint with what we’re trying to do,

Heather Mason  10:17

oh my god, my brain is like unwinding right now. Because it really, you know, working in a retail establishment for so many years and owning a bike store, you know, people come in all the time looking and it’s like, I’m supposed to be the cultivator of all these rides, and you know, even the group ride, but here we have all these opportunities, and right online, it connects the consumer back to the retail store, and you’ve got proven routes, and you know, rated. And it really sounds like a welcoming environment. That was

Tobie DePauw  10:43

the goal, really, you know, there’s a number of other platforms where you can go and find routes, and you can go and find riders. But our goal is to create what we call story forward route sharing, you know, make it so the map is just one piece of the puzzle. It’s not everything, we want to see pictures, we want to read stories, we want to hear anecdotes, we want to see, you know, if this is a great route, but there’s a particular place that requires a little bit more attention, maybe it’s a little dangerous at this intersection. You know, we want to make it easy for retailers to drop in some text and maybe add a hazard, you know, point of interest right on the route, we want to make it. So it’s not just, you know, super techie number, or it’s not competitive or intimidating. We just want to make it really fun, really non competitive, really welcoming.

Heather Mason  11:26

I’m just thinking, we’re seeing technology just grow at leaps and bounds right now. I mean, is there an ultimate vision for ride spot, or is it just, you know, layering up to what it’s going to become eventually, or

Tobie DePauw  11:36

I think the big vision is just building a digital platform that gives riders and retailers tools to have no excuses to get on their bikes as often as possible, you know, so when you open the app, you know, now in forever, I want to see a number of events from local retailers, I want to see challenges that I can do on my own time and potentially, you know, earn some kind of reward for participating. I want to be able to travel and find safe routes and learn about different organizations. Now, we’re expanding our feature set to involve employers, so employers can incentivize their employees to commute more by bike. So those are just all different ways where we want to basically go down the list of excuses not to ride your bike, and we want to be able to cross them off

Heather Mason  12:21

all these new cyclists engaging with our industry. And I remember, a couple years back, I was at the IBD. summit. I don’t know if you remember that it was held, you know, in Arizona. I remember sitting there, though, and we were looking at the numbers in our road cycling population was declining. And, you know, there was a number of accidents that made the news recently. And the conversation was how do we let people know that they’re safe places to ride? How do we let them know that there’s routes they can go on that are, you know, the other people take the other cyclists they can they feel comfortable on? I feel like with rides that we can really answer this question, we can say Here are some routes that are going to offer you a really great experience.

Tobie DePauw  12:57

Yeah, and integrating that into the sales process. It’s not an Oh, yeah, it’s not an addition. It’s just it’s part of the plan. You know, when you buy a new hybrid, and you’re just coming into the sport, we want retailers to send riders out with a few ride cards that say, yeah, this is the perfect one, you can park here, you can get water here, you can ride a few miles down this path, it’s safe, it’s off the road, you know, and then if you decide you want to try something a little longer, you can go over here. And then once they kind of come into that right spot universe, you know, we want them to be hungry for more experiences, following that retailer, doing their challenges participating in their events, and just kind of Yeah, building that community.

Heather Mason  13:39

Alright, so I did a little research, told me I went online, and right spot that org, and I signed up for an account because I wanted to use it firsthand. And so our listeners, you can sign up for an account as an individual as a retailer, and we’re gonna get more into it. But Toby, let’s pick it apart. I know like first looking at it, I thought it looked like Strava. I saw like a ride feed and routes, but it looked more interactive. And I can see I saw bicycle stores that I could follow. Where would I start as a user, like I got signed up, but I didn’t. I didn’t touch it, I left it I was like, I’m going to talk to Toby so that.

Tobie DePauw  14:14

So there’s two account types. So we’ll kind of draw two different maps. The first one is just the rider experience super basic. It’s just like any other app, you can download it on iOS or Android sign up for a free account, and away you go. You can search routes, you can track routes, you can see challenges, and you can use it just like any other tracking platform, and you’ll see it and we’ll explain more about the challenges in a minute, but there’s more activities coming. And then on the affiliate side, we put all of our affiliate tools on the website. So you’ll access all of that through a computer. The app is just for riders, but the website is for both individuals and for affiliates. But for bike shops, visit ride spot.org sign up as an affiliate, fill out your profile just like you would on any others. social media platform, and then you’re ready to go. You can start drawing routes, you can import existing routes and trace them. If you want your customers to get those turn by turn audio directions, you can go in, trace it, create the audio, save it, and then that’ll also appear on the back of your ride cards. Ride cards are super easy to export for any route that you create, you can just hit the Export button, we print those if you want to deal on them, we’ve negotiated some great pricing, but you can also print them locally. Or you could just pull the QR off there, put it on the wall and have people scan that. And so ride cards have basic map info on the front, it has the distance and kind of the terrain, and then there the QR and so if a rider walks into the store, they get a ride card, they can look at that with their phone, just the camera on their phone, it’ll send the QR, they can download the app and they can be navigating within a minute, super smooth. But affiliates can also host events, either writing or non writing events. And they can also host challenges. And so we’re just last month, we launched two new challenge. Now we have three challenge types in the system. We have mileage challenges, frequency challenges and rep challenges. So you can be sitting in the shop before open take 10 minutes to create a challenge. Launch that have it be whatever time range you want, you can say everybody that rides 25 miles this weekend, we’ll get you know, a high five, you can do it takes almost no time to set something like that up.

Heather Mason  16:29

It sounds simple. So as a bike retailer, I can sign up, which literally took me minutes to do. And then I have access to all these routes. And I can just start if I want I can make them you know, routes from you know, near our shop that I promote, or I can create my own correct. It’s easy.

Tobie DePauw  16:46

It is it is but it costs the one thing that is the most scarce these days. And that’s time it takes a little time. If you want to go in and create a library of routes, it does take a little time, I can help I’ll do as much as I can to expedite that. But some point we need to pull that knowledge out of your head and put it on on right spot.

Heather Mason  17:04

Yeah, if we take the time notice that an employee down or to dedicate a couple hours of our own time, we can now have this like pretty easy to put together amazing little hub in our bicycle store that can be the center of the community and people riders will come and check and see what you’re doing. Until we the past 15 months, you know the industry has been forever changed. new riders, new people coming in stores. I personally you can tell how excited I get. I think this is a fantastic time. And we keep talking about customer centric and how we can be more part of the journey of the cyclists coming into the sport. I’m just thinking is the best time for retailers, suppliers, clubs, organizations, event promoters, all to work with Red Spy. See

Tobie DePauw  17:46

you shaking your agree? Yeah, absolutely. I hope so. And it is in an aisle you know, call a spade a spade we’re coming into the busiest time of the year. And so to be asking retailers to carve out some time to get on the computer and draw routes. It’s a tall ask. But I would just say you know, this is the best time to get those routes in put them to use in your store. And just remember that there’s this entire legion of people that probably didn’t have the perfect IBD experience last year, even if they did get to come into the store and find a bike that fit them and met their needs, it was still kind of a truncated experience. So I see this as an opportunity to make your next best first impression. Yeah, we can go back into all those riders that saw just a fraction of the value of the IBD because the pandemic really constrained us, or those people that maybe live in your community but didn’t get a chance to do business with you because either you didn’t have inventory. Or maybe they couldn’t find something in their price range. And if they you know happened to pick up a bike and they didn’t get it from you, this is still an opportunity to reach out to them and say, hey, look at everything that we’ve got going on, you know, here’s some routes for you. Doesn’t matter what bike you ride, we just want you to be riding, here’s some challenges for you. So these are all reasons why I think if we approach this, as you know, a time of investment, let’s invest some time and put that work in, invest in REITs. Buy, get it out in your community, invite your community to be active on ride spot. And later when supply catches up. Maybe demand starts to dwindle, then you’ve already established those relationships. And we hope that those will stick and will create riders that will ride for and support your business for many years to come.

Heather Mason  19:31

Yeah, we’re thinking about ways to invite riders into the bike shop and when they’re not there to buy something or have it just to get them in your door. You know, that’s part of their culture, like oh, I’m going to go over to the bike shop today. There’s, you know, ride going on, or I’m going to just go see what’s going on. You’ve talked about the ride card, some wondering about what resources are available for affiliates once they get signed up on red spot.org. What can they tap into your saying like share this message out or their blogs or is there videos or images

Tobie DePauw  20:00

Yep, absolutely. So a few things that are at your disposal, once you sign up, I will email you, when you sign up, I’ll reach out introduce myself, I’m at your service to help trace routes to if you’d like to schedule a meeting and walk through the platform together, we can do that. We have an entire site dedicated to affiliates. So you can go and see some, like read articles, see some videos, we have some best practices on there. Read about what other retailers have done in the past that website is affiliates dot rights five.org. It’s pretty straightforward. You can remember that. Yeah, I think the biggest resource is just having a few people here on our staff that are dedicated to make us successful.

Heather Mason  20:38

And then we had to get the staff involved, right, we communicate with our staff, hey, we’re doing this, you know, show our staff the resources as well. And then ultimately, Toby, correct me if I’m wrong, but we got to get the consumers to download this app. Right, we got to be talking about it. And so

Tobie DePauw  20:53

yeah, we’re a young platform. We’re not Facebook, we’re not Instagram, you know, we’re operating on a bike industry budget. And so we need your help. We built this platform to be a community, we are looking for retailers to embrace it, and invite their riders to participate. So when you do come in, and sign up, you’ll start to receive some emails from us that explain you know, if you’re ready to promote your ads on social media, here are some assets that you can use that we’ve established for you. And here are some email templates that you can use. We have those all sitting on the affiliates page. But we really do invite you to come in, make yourself comfortable, and then invite your writing community to join us as well.

Heather Mason  21:34

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Tobie DePauw  22:54

of retailers, small retailers, large retailers, and suppliers, advocacy groups, there’s a lot of people using the platform in different ways. But off the top of my head, I think showing some of the potential of the storytelling. There’s a shop in Denver called Yop cyclery, who is fantastic at just sharing experiences making them fun. So they’re doing a great job telling their story. dashed bicycles in Providence is doing a great job both in the store and online promoting their routes and their challenges. And then hub bicycles in Athens, Georgia is just now getting set up with ride cards. So I’m excited to see those put to use. And they’re also some much larger organizations using it in multiple locations. wheel and sprocket have some of the best installations that we’ve seen so far. DGI bicycle garage, Indy, and Indianapolis is doing a great job engaging their community with challenges. And then I could list these all day, but I’ll be short, Pearl azumi, giant burly Delta, those are just some of the suppliers that are currently or just hosted some challenges. And then we’re seeing a lot of tourism entities jump into because Athens, Ohio, for example, has a great leader there who is so excited to get people riding and inviting riders into his community that they’re subsidizing some of their local organizations and hotels and bike shops to get set up with ride cards because they want people to come into their communities seeing consistent message that cyclists are welcome. So there’s a shotgun example,

Heather Mason  24:27

like reeling over here. The shops you mentioned are just fabulous shops. And I know most of them and yeah, they’re just I know them for their involvement with their community. And, of course, they’re working with REITs. But like, of course, you mentioned some suppliers. So pearl azumi, giant burly Delta, I think you said Yeah. And you mentioned that they’re using challenges. Can you share any marketing moments or what you mean by that? Are they working with specifically are

Tobie DePauw  24:54

these have been supplier challenges that are just inviting riders to get active Giant just did one for World bicycle day. Burley has a 12 month campaign encouraging riders to ride more this year. Pearl azumi has one during the tour. So just to jump right in, if you were to download the app right now, register as an individual and open up, you would immediately see an invite to join a challenge, you’d see that there are challenges around, if you just swipe up, you’ll see the options that are available nationwide. And you’ll be able to join those and see what it’s like for your customers. And then you can immediately Imagine if that was your logo and your challenge, and that’s how kind of blatant The challenges are when you create them. So I’m there there have been examples of supplier retailer partnerships. There’s not any live right now. But it’s such an easy way to say, hey, favorite supplier, do you want to provide the prizes, and we’ll promote it locally? You know, it’s it doesn’t cost much, you can have a limited edition of some kind of reward. And you can put out there you can say everybody that rides 100 miles this month can get backs. And that’s just a really good way to kind of CO validate the supplier locally and promote and get that brand in front of the customer.

Heather Mason  26:10

All right, I’m so excited. So I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to select a challenge. And maybe I’ll win something I hope if I complete it. But Tony, you’re saying as a bicycle retailer, you can create a challenge. And then anyone just say me, I’m in my local community. I’m opening the app I see. And I want to see my local bike shop logo right there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, is there a fee for retailers? That seems like a huge marketing? Like?

Tobie DePauw  26:34

Good question. So eventually, ride spot will be a fundraising vehicle for people for bikes, we do hope that the tools that we build, bring value that exceed the cost that we’re going to ask currently, it’s $500 a year, which is not that much you can use, you can host as many challenges as you want for that. We are currently in celebration of the launch of our challenges. Last month, we’re waiving the fee for the rest of the summer, so anyone can register for ride spot, sign up, I’ll upgrade you. And you can host as many challenges as you want this summer. And what that looks like. So let me think of some examples. So locally, we have a great bike shop here in Madison called Black saddle. And Mitch just hosted one called back in the saddle challenge, which was ride 10 times in May and get a free bottle we’ve standing in the bike shop, is it Yeah, 10 times he took a picture of the bottle with his phone. He went on to his computer, he set it up to 10 minutes. And then everyone that opened ride spot within 50 miles of Bateson saw that challenge.

Heather Mason  27:31

And I’m sure they were talking to their friends. But our listeners can’t see me. But my eyes are like, Oh my god, you’re giving this free for that, like, let’s do this.

Tobie DePauw  27:39

Right? It’s really, we’re just I feel like we’re just seeing some of the creativity that retailers and suppliers are exhibiting what the challenges because there are route challenges that are like ride this specific route. And we’ve had that for a couple of years, we’ve seen all sorts of different challenges from you know, tiny little, hey, check out the new bike path in town, it’s a two mile challenge, ride it this month, and you’ll get a sticker to Yup, again, who hosted like a 200 mile challenge in Denver called the wordy stanza, which is very clever, very fun. And people would get a patch and some cool stuff from his shop. And then there are ride more often challenges. So you can say everybody that rides 10 times, or 20 times or 30 times, you can reward them for that. Or there are mileage challenges. So internally, I just hosted a challenge within people for bikes for first person to hit 500 miles this summer winds, it took me No time to set that up. And it was just something every time I opened my phone and said, Hey, you got 200 miles left on this challenge, you better get riding. And we’ve seen just having that little icon on the dash of the app, where when you open it and says hey, for more rides, and you’ll get this whatever this challenge reward is increasing ridership by like 400%. Just in the last two months. That’s what we’ve seen. Just having that little spur.

Heather Mason  29:00

I just made a note. All right. NBDA has to create a challenge. But I’m thinking not only are we keeping riders, you know, connected to their bike, but we’re now part of their story. I mean, they can tell their families that they did this, they can brag about their accomplishment, they can, you know, just internally feel good about it. And it’s you’re creating, you know, I’m gonna get all deep on us, right, but retailers are creating something that’s never been created before. They’re creating an opportunity. That is like, all right. I mean, I’m pretty stoked about this, Toby. Is this the vision that you had for rides? You know, was it these rides three times a week are these larger goals are that everyone would do something truly unique?

Tobie DePauw  29:41

I feel like the goal from the beginning was to create a blank slate that would be placed where retailers could show their creativity. The particulars of the challenge and the different features are all the result of learnings over the last five, six years. You know what have we seen what we Scene opportunity, where have we seen opportunity? What haven’t we seen that we would like to see. So that vision is always evolving. But the exciting part now is watching it go. And really seeing the different ways people can use the same tool to accomplish different results. And a shining example is a campaign we hosted in Chicago last year where we partnered with Newberry library and the Chicago race, right of 1919 commemoration project to host a route challenge on a lesser known historical route in Chicago. And if we could get 300 riders to finish that route, a tram a this and a couple other smaller vendors, we’re going to donate to an excellent, amazing organization in Chicago. So it was so exciting to see this just really meaningful message, get out to the community, see all these different organizations rally around to promote it, and then see riders go the blue wave the goal, and the individual riders didn’t get anything. You know, it wasn’t about them. It was about contributing and learning and going and understanding your community better. And I love that I just love that just bigger picture benefit. And then the organization, Blackstone bicycle works got the donation at the end of it. So that’s just an example of one different way we can leverage the same tool for different results. Well, you know,

Heather Mason  31:23

I’m just thinking of how we talked about time earlier. And we talked about retailers not having a lot of it. So how are we tracking this Toby? Like? How can retailers know that the people who did do the challenge actually did it.

Tobie DePauw  31:37

So when you register for a challenge, as soon as you publish that you can go into the affiliate dashboard, or just hit manage, and then I’ll give you an option to look to your challenges, you’ll be able to see all of your current and archived challenges. And for all of those, you can hit the data dashboard or hit the export. And you can see their their name, their username, their mileage, if they’ve accomplished the goal or not, you’ll be able to see what bike they rode. And then at the very top, you can see the total mileage for everyone in your challenge. So for example, last month, we hosted people for bikes hosted three different challenges at once. And we calculated that the riders rode enough miles to go to the moon and back participating in the challenge. So there’s this great data snapshot that you can pull out at any time. And that’s yours to use, you can reach out to those riders after the fact and say, you know, thank you for participating, you know, we have this event coming up or, you know, you can stay in touch with those riders however you’d like.

Heather Mason  32:41

Yeah, I’m even thinking like, now we know what like they were on and how many miles they put on that bike. I mean, there’s a lot we’re learning here, right? Yeah, exactly. Yep. So any best tips for retailers launching their first challenge? You know, you said it’s pretty easy to get started. But any tips? Yeah,

Tobie DePauw  32:57

my biggest advice would be to start simple, you know, you’re coming into the platform for the first time, so is your writer, so as your writing community, so you know, start with a simple goal, whether it be 10 rides, or 20 miles or a short route, just keep it super simple. And then, as you go in and start building your challenges, you’ll see some of the more technical options that you can add to the routes or to the challenges, but I would say for the first one, keep it simple, make it three or four weeks long, so they have plenty of time to participate, make it achievable, you know, pair it with a prize that you’re not afraid to give away. Or if you want to give away something super rad, you can have a limited edition, say the first 20 people to accomplish this goal will get x. So start simple, and then increase and make them more interesting or complicated later.

Heather Mason  33:48

Yeah, I almost feel like once you get going, you could even do annual, like you could do the same challenge the next year, right and the new four or whatever you want.

Tobie DePauw  33:57

Well, that’s actually one of our best practices is to have an ongoing new bike challenge to say, ride this bike 60 miles and get either a free sticker on your free checkup or a reminder, that’s just such an easy way for the rider to start tracking their miles, then they’ll get a reminder when they accomplish that to come into the shop, get their free checkup, and then maybe they get a discount or whatever kind of reward that you want to offer at that point, but just have that ongoing all the time.

Heather Mason  34:26

Toby, is there a little like notice, like I know, like on some apps on my phone, I get little notifications that pop up? Is there anything like that on the app that lets people like, you know, hey, don’t forget your ride? Or hey, don’t forget you’re part of this challenge, or is there any

Tobie DePauw  34:38

little things that pop up? When you start making progress on your challenges? We do have what we call progress boosters that will remind you like, hey, Congratulations, you’ve got 50% down Are you know 25% finished on this challenge. So we have a few of those and more coming.

Heather Mason  34:53

So I want all consumers to download the app. Now I want all retailers to get involved, you know, especially when I went on there and it said Connect with these shops. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is fantastic. Do you have any upcoming or does peopleforbikes have any upcoming marketing campaigns that you know, continue to push right spot out?

Tobie DePauw  35:10

Yeah, for the last year, we’ve really redirected our marketing machine towards getting more riders into ride spot. And we’re gonna keep that going. So we’ve all year been doing a number of things promoting our keep writing campaign. And that’s ongoing with more upcoming challenges. We have partner challenges with other suppliers. So you’ll see those things on ride spot and in social media throughout the year. And that’s what we’re doing. And we can’t wait to see what all the retailers will be doing as well.

Heather Mason  35:41

Toby, let’s talk about the big gear show for a minute. I forgot we wanted to talk about that. You’re going to be out at the big gear show in Park City in Utah, right? Yep. Yep. So excited. So for our listeners, if you’re not registered for the big gear show, it’s going to be a fantastic opportunity in early August to join Toby, myself and others suppliers and retailers outside in Park City, early August. And we’re going to be peer to peer learning. But right spot is you’re going to be doing some stuff, right, there’s going to be some,

Tobie DePauw  36:11

yeah, we’ll be having some live challenges during the event. So you’ll be able to if you haven’t already, which I hope everyone listening does start jumping in and seeing their challenges. But if you haven’t already, you can come into Utah there and sign up, register, join the challenge and then participate and then and get rewarded for participating in some of the demo writes.

Heather Mason  36:33

I’m totally doing that. So I challenge everyone. So you know, just thinking back to engaging these new cyclists and helping retailers become the hub of their, you know, the hub and part of their community. for all ages. I mean, any tips for retailers what you’re seeing, I’m sure you’re having conversations with retailers all the time. Anything you could add here.

Tobie DePauw  36:56

Yeah, the, I think there’s something special if you get your staff excited about it. If you get everybody in a room, ask everybody to contribute their favorite route, maybe even call it you know, that person’s route, and then make some ride cards for it so that every time that person sells a bike, they’re gonna say, hey, check out my route. And that’s just one of those ways to kind of spread the Stoke. So definitely engage your staff. And then I think there’s some benefit in playing the long game. You know, this isn’t kind of like a one and done thing, it’s definitely taking the long view. So, you know, think about how these things can help your customer interactions throughout the year. And having those people gradually falling in love with the sport is going to help your business in the long term. But I think there’s just so much ground again, and engaging all the different audiences that come through your door with different routes, different challenges, different events. Yeah, I think there’s a lot of opportunity there.

Heather Mason  37:49

We talk about just conversation, right? And I mean, I’m a cyclist, you’re a cyclist, we all want to share our favorite routes, like we all have this route, we love to go on, when a rider comes into your store, and you or your staff is able to have this conversation. It’s an instant conversation opener to be able to talk about this. And it’s just shifting that mindset, right to make this like the focal point. Yeah, I’d love to see that more and more. Okay, so let’s see bicycle retail excellence, and something that we’re talking a lot about, and we’ve got the new bicycle retailer awards, you know, for awarding retailer excellence. If I asked you what that means, in your words, what does bicycle retailer excellence mean?

Tobie DePauw  38:29

I think it comes in many forms. I think the way that I think about it is there’s some external excellence and there’s internal excellence. I think internal excellence looks like sustainable, profitable, and just being a good place to work, that employers are taking care of themselves and taking care of their employees in a way that makes them stoked to work there. That’s excellent. And I think it’s something that takes a lot of effort just to get you know, you said deepest second ago, like, everybody just needs to go take a nap, like everybody needs to go take care of that. Go for a bike ride, go hang out with your family, go enjoy a ride with your friends. You know, if you were to take a day off and tell your customers you need to recharge, I think more customers would appreciate that not. So that to me is excellent. And then externally, I think shops that position themselves as that center of the community is a way to show excellence, not just in hosting events or hosting group rides or doing stuff but just being a place where people want to go, you know, that to me is excellent.

Heather Mason  39:30

Yeah, where they choose to go right, like where they want. Alright, so you’re the wizard. So you really every retailer that signs up, Toby, you’re really reaching out and you’re making sure that they’re up to speed and good to go. Yes, I am. That’s fantastic. All right. So everyone listening, I want you to go to rise by that org or Google it and sign up you have to be on the computer right and you direct whereas an affiliate or they could probably email you right Toby?

Tobie DePauw  39:54

I’m happy to do it for you if you want to shoot me an email toby@peopleforbikes.org you know, just shoot me your website, I will Google the information I need to set up your account and send you the login.

Heather Mason  40:04

Alright, so we talked again about this, but you know, just a couple minutes ago, but for the retailers were just so slammed any best case practices like should they have one employee be like a champion of ride spot? Or, you know, should they put everyone you know, I had to give everyone access is there an easy way to make sure that they’re, you know, once they’re signed up, they’re going to execute this properly.

Tobie DePauw  40:24

I believe that in the right hands, this is not work. And my example is, at our shop, we had a route guru named Chad, who lived on Google Maps, he loved it. And so this is something he would go explore digitally, because that’s what he liked to do. And he created some of our best routes. For me, it was very, very difficult to go and find the best routes for him, it was a joy. So find that person, it delegate that work to them, and they’ll love doing it. And then set, you know, designate the champion set a threshold of you know, hey, we want to have 12 routes, you know, three, family three, mountain three road three gravel. That’s it, and then let that person run with it.

Heather Mason  41:07

Can you I’m thinking I have a couple more questions. Can you create challenges for all levels? And so it’s not just road isn’t mountain as well? I mean, I didn’t even ask you about that.

Tobie DePauw  41:18

Yeah. So the routes can be anywhere, and then any mileage or frequency challenges you’re participating? It doesn’t matter what terrain you’re riding on. So those will contribute towards your challenge goals.

Heather Mason  41:30

And if you’re making a round, can you give us some awesome name, like NBDA Coffee loop or whatever?

Tobie DePauw  41:36

I mean, if we anything you want, yeah, it’s a blank slate. I mean, it’s essentially a blogging platform with maps. So yeah, let’s see it. Let’s see your creativity.

Heather Mason  41:45

Toby is putting the challenge out there to all retailers to be creative. Any final thoughts for retailers? Toby, before we go, I mean, we’ve already been chatting for almost an hour now. But anything else you want to add that

Tobie DePauw  41:56

I appreciate the opportunity, this is always a blast. I think the only thing I want to say is sign up for a ride spot and go take a nap, go ride your bike, get recharged, everybody will appreciate it. And yeah, reach out if you need a hand.

Heather Mason  42:07

It’s so true. We’re doing amazing things that we work in an amazing industry. And we have the aspiration to change people’s lives. And it could be as simple as inspiring someone to download an app today, it could lead them on a journey they never thought they were gonna go on. So Exactly. Thank you so much. Thank you for peopleforbikes your continued support of the MBA. I’ll see you in August at the bigger show.

Tobie DePauw  42:27

Can’t wait looking forward to it. Thanks a ton, Heather.

Heather Mason  42:29

Yay. So that is it. I invite you to connect with us. Come on bicycle, retail, radio and share your story with our listeners. There’s lots of love for our industry. Lots of great webinars coming up member networking meetings on Monday every Monday. If you’d like to support the show, don’t forget to subscribe share your favorite episode. Thank you for listening. And with this we go.

NBDA   42:49

This has been bicycle retail radio by the National bicycle Dealers Association. For more information on membership, and member benefits, join us at nbda.com

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The NBDA has been here since 1946, representing and empowering specialty bicycle dealers in the United States through education, communications, research, advocacy, member discount programs, and promotional opportunities. As shops are facing never-before-seen circumstances, these resources offer a lifeline. Together, we will weather this. We at the NBDA will not waver in our commitment to serving our members even during this challenging time—but we need your support.

Now is the time to become a member as we join together to make one another stronger. Whether you’re a retailer or an industry partner, your membership in the NBDA is one of the best investments you’ll make this year. 

Learn more about the benefits of being a member and join now.

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