getting the masses on bicycles

Influx Insights — 2007-04-23T11:47:07Z

There are 161 million Americans who don’t ride bikes.

Shimano saw it as a market opportunity, so they hired IDEO to find out why.

From spending time with non-bikers, IDEO discovered there were a number of attitudes and beliefs these non-riders held, that had become barriers to them ever getting on a bicycle.

1.    They liked biking as children, but adult biking was serious and competitive
2.    The employees in bike retail stores are intimidating
3.    The bikes themselves can be messy and complicated

To overcome the barriers, Shimano went off and created a new category, Coasting.

It’s basically a new carefree philosophy built around meandering around on a bike.

Manufacturers have responding and have produced special bikes with automatic “transmissions”, like Trek’s, new Lime.

Bike manufacturer Trek is hoping to sell 26,000 Limes this year.

Improved sales training and product innovation have tackled many of the barriers identified by IDEO, but the biggest problem is the lack of facilities (bike paths) and that could be too big a problem for Shimano to solve on its own,

influx's wii workout prediction is almost right

Influx Insights — 2007-06-14T14:17:01Z

Back in December, we made a number of predictions for 2007. Number 8 on the list was the prediction that 24 Hour Fitness will team up with Wii. Although this has happened yet, we now have more hope, because today news broke of a personal trainer in Scotland who is using the Wii for workouts.

Influx believes it's just a matter of time before 24 Hour Fitness hears this news from Scotland and sets up Wii classes.

We will keep you posted.

Via Engadget

Influx Insights Tag Feed: fitness

getting the masses on bicycles

influx's wii workout prediction is almost right