Like the assembly grease on every shop’s workbench, Industry Grease is designed to help each part of the Bicycle Industry come together and work more smoothly… for the long term.
The end result isn’t about the bicycle or our industry. It’s about using our positions to provide consumers with the best experience possible and to establish our loyalty to them, and earn theirs in return.
What is it?
Industry Grease is a private, collaborative platform where individuals from every segment of the Bicycle Industry come together to ask questions, share ideas, and learn from each other on a grand scale. No matter the size, shape, or age of the shop or business, the discussions, content, and PEOPLE found here focus on things we can all benefit from. This platform is designed so that each member has an equal opportunity to share & receive feedback we can all learn from. From retail shop rats, mechanics, sales, & management, to Supplier buyers, customer service, product managers, & upper management, no one is above anyone else here. Having worked in pretty much every position in the Bicycle Industry, I can attest to the lack of information & understanding between the different industry channels and even the individual positions within them. Simply learning more about each other as a whole will nurture the right kinds of discussions with less wasteful assumptions.
Articles & Podcast
Up-front, there will be discussion-induced content on current affairs in the Bicycle Industry designed to nurture real & manageable solutions. Articles will fall under one or multiple key categories like D2C & eCommerce, Marketing, Education, Community, and THE CRYSTAL BALL, along with many others. I feel it’s arrogant for one person to advise an industry as a whole so rather than tell you what I think the Bicycle Industry should do, I want to get everyone together to discuss solutions, compromises, and opinions. Below each article will be an organized comment & reply section and very week or so, I will produce a Podcast to summarize & expand on the articles & juicy discussions that follow. Even for the silent types out there, the insights gained from a wide range of perspectives, all in one place will be of great value.
The Forums
While the face of Industry Grease is the homegrown articles & podcasts designed to spark the spicy discussions beneath them, the really really REALLY good stuff can be found in the private discussion forums.
The Industry Hub
This is the main forum for all members on every side of the Bicycle Industry to collaborate. Members with Retailers, Suppliers, Service Providers, Non-profits, and Media folk can all come together to ask, discuss, and learn about anything related to both doing business and personal growth. This is the grand central station of Industry Grease where businesses of all shapes & sizes can start, participate in and view countless topics that fall under several well-thought-out subforums. A dozen or so subforums include: ‘D2C – It’s not you, it’s us’, Data & Forecasting, Job Lookers & Seekers, Photo Gallery, and even Surveys where anyone can easily build surveys on just about anything, for free. There is even an ‘I Need a Part’ subforum for those needing an obscure or out-of-stock item they desperately need. Let the entire industry be your warehouse!
Retail Chatter
This is a private forum that only members with retailers have access to. I can’t stress enough how valuable I think this little space is. It was in fact the only feature I originally planned on having when I first began planning this platform. Once eCommerce took off, I knew retailers needed to become more unified in order to better adapt to both shifts in consumer behavior and the supply channels’ reactions. Having experienced the struggles, both as a retailer & supplier, I saw how quickly things went in unpredictable directions and how vital it became for retailers to form a more uniform voice to suppliers. Under Retail Chatter, there are subforums for just about everything. Marketing & Sales, Forecasting, Service Dept. Operations, Service Tech Questions, D2C Retailer Discussions, Retail Stories & Solutions, and more!
Supplier Row
Only members who are on the Supply side of the Bicycle Industry have access to this forum. Here, suppliers will be able to network and seek solutions others may have already solved. There are a number of sub-fourms like D2C Discussions, Import/Export Challenges (tariffs, eBike regulations, shipping, general resources etc.), Manufacturing, Domestic Shipping & Supply, Retail Education & Training, and others. This is not only a great place for established suppliers to network & share ideas, smaller or newer suppliers can gain some extremely valuable insights on how to get their products out there (the processes, challenges, & expectations involved with product development & distribution are almost always misunderstood by new companies… especially in the Bicycle Industry).
Dear Bicycle Industry
That adorable little morsel up in the top right corner was initially my solution to getting people to ask difficult questions without risking their reputation, job, or what dignity they had left. As much as I want to this site to be taken seriously’ish, I began to see this take the form of an advice column that should be as entertaining as it is informative. Members can send in all kinds of industry-related and personal questions to be answered by eclecticly random Industry Buttinskies… as in special guests chosen from our beloved Bicycle Industry. The best part? All questions will be posted ANONYMOUSLY so nobody will know who’s asking about those dreaded industry issues, how to date a triathlete if you have commitment issues, or need help finding a louder Bluetooth speaker so more people can enjoy your music on the trail.
Why?
Due to the turbulent shifts in the bicycle marketplace affecting how consumers shop, the Bicycle Industry’s various retail & supply channels have scrambled to solve their individual challenges that too often don’t align with each other’s. This has led to us becoming less organized as an industry and more vulnerable to the growth of larger corporations, outside industries entering ‘our space’, and all that is eCommerce. We’ve become accustomed to adapting to the marketplace rather than setting the pace and it’s distracted us from leveraging the advantages we do have… especially when it comes to servicing our own communities and going after the consumers we don’t know yet about (ignore), but should. We’re also having to quickly adapt to methods like direct-to-consumer programs and online fulfillment sales that either aren’t refined or are just confusing to all involved because of the multiple, ever-changing processes. Forecasting, expectations, and abilities need to first become better understood so decisions & compromises lead to healthier & more sustainable retail & supply channels. Growth and happiness? YES… especially the latter. Sometimes things are just fine the way they are and I recognize that growth can often take us away from the things we love and for many, they simply want to sustain the work/life balance they enjoy.
Not to state the obvious, there are a lot of loose ends the Bicycle Industry needs to tie up before we can move forward and that begins by having some inclusive discussions on a massive scale. Regardless of how much experience or knowledge a person or small group has, ideas & decisions can become a bit monolithic without the involvement of a diverse & widespread resource of information… and each member here is a part of that. Industry Grease opens the doors to all involved to add a broader & more valuable set of perspectives, with the intention of guiding us towards a healthier & more sustainable industry.
But don’t listen to me…
To be blunt, I don’t want anyone to listen to me. You will hear me say this repeatedly but I think one person or group telling everyone else what they should do is as arrogant. Even after spending 35 years in & out of every corner of the Bicycle Industry, my knowledge, experience, & perspective is a virtually unmeasurable fraction of what members of our industry possess as a whole. What I do know revolves around sparking the right conversations and bringing people together. I feel that many of the issues we face can be avoided & even solved by having the right conversations at the right time… rather than after the fact.
Who is it for?
In a sort of ironic plot twist, Industry Grease isn’t here for retailers or suppliers in the Bicycle Industry. Industry Grease is for our consumers. In today’s marketplace, we need to reverse-engineer how we did things over the last 20 or 30 years and work from the consumer up. If we better serve consumers, they will better support us, improving our profitability & long-term sustainability. Okay… maybe that isn’t entirely true. In reality, Industry Grease really is for ALL of us because consumers need us, as much as we need them. The more we increase our understanding of the consumer, the more they’ll be able to recognize the value we offer. If they win, we all win!
So who should sign up for this? EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. within every single business in the Bicycle Industry. I’m sorry, that did sound a little hyper-capitalistic… but let me be frank while hoping to boost my membership numbers. If there is a topic covered here that you would like to discuss with your employees, we all know how effective a cliche management meeting is where only about half of what you preach gets processed, (and you’re lucky if it sticks for more than 48 hours). I intentionally designed the platform & its content to be inclusive so imagine if you told your employees to read up on some of the topics found here, ahead of the meeting. Suddenly, you have multiple perspectives, ideas, and opinions that may not have even crossed your mind. However, the real value will come from how engaged your team is in both you, the business, and each plan that is put in place. Despite the overwhelming suggestions to charge much, much more, I priced memberships here to cater to this very team-centric culture. Between being a business write-off, the likely return on your investment, and low-risk cost, I hope everyone sees the same value I keep imagining in my head.
No advertising and absolutely NO selling/sharing your private information
Plain & simple: Industry Grease is a platform designed to bring everyone together for the sake of professional & personal growth and not slinging the latest products, services, closeouts or pop-up adds to restore your sex life. While, like every single website you visit and/or subscribe to, we have to ‘share’ certain information with the website services we use to function, (you can bore yourself with all the lawyer speak on our Privacy Policy, Cookies, and Terms of Service pages if you want to know how that works), we will never ever share your information with others who can leverage that information to increase their business.
However, we recognize suppliers can be a great resource to retailers and will soon have opportunities for them to increase their presence to retailers & reachability. We’ll have more information on this soon but the focus is to offer suppliers of all shapes & sizes an equal opportunity to be as much of a resource as they want to be to retailers, on a level playing field.
Who is this guy?
I’ve been called a lot of things. The first person to drag me around on a bike and accept 17-year-old me in a bike shop called me Tomac. Some call me Tex based on where I was raised (and how I say the word guitar/gee-tar). On Strava & amongst my local bike friends, I’m Steeze McQueen. To most, I’m just Trey… a self-proclaimed Industry Rat who just won’t leave. You can find more dirt on me under the About tab by clicking on The Head Mechanic but you’re probably wondering what possessed me to create Industry Grease in the first place. In short, I’ve walked in most of your smelly shoes over the last 30+ years and am fluent in, or at the very least can relate to, what each of us is up against. Thanks to the unexpected pleasure of having a number of perfectly-timed experiences, I’ve gained a wider perspective than the average bear… yet admittingly, like every human, I don’t possess the bandwidth to know everything, hence why I chose this format for Industry Grease.
One thing I do know… the Bicycle Industry is more than ready to have the conversations it has desperately needed to have for some time. For those who know me will tell you, I listen… but I tell it like it is whether you want to hear it or not. In other words, Industry Grease is here to bring each of us closer together so we can have some great conversations without feeling like we need to blow GT-85 up each other’s cable housing. We’re here to discuss the good, the bad, and even the dreadful so we can help guide each other in a healthier & more sustainable direction.
How to Join
*I’m still working out the kinks before exposing all of the features, so hold tight till Spring 2025!