Your once a week dose of retail therapy from Singletrack’s Premier Dealers, stockists and advertisers, Tuesday Treats gives you a quality serving of independent bike retailing and a chance to win big in this week’s prize draw. This week, we revisit Drover Cycles.
We’ve recently been getting reacquainted with some of the guys and gals who launched the Tuesday Treats feature during this past year. This week we catch up with the gang at Drover Cycles, who delve deep to create another prize pot. Co-owner Luke Skinner picks up the story…
Following our move to new premises in summer 2012, the retail side of our business has really grown as we’ve immersed ourselves in the amazing world of cycling and of course specifically, mountain biking. We’ve taken on new brands, new staff (including Albert the poodle), new customers and new challenges but we’re still focused on straightforward, friendly service with a genuine (cake and coffee-fuelled) smile.
As well as offering high quality mountain bike sales, we’ve a workshop that’s buzzing with activity and in our 100-bike strong hire fleet you’ll find a bunch of demo bikes just waiting to try on our truly amazing, local trails.
Tell us about how you’re going to manage this bike brand melting pot!
Right then, to start we are extremely excited to be working with the team at R53 to help bring Pyga to the UK market. Not just because we get pretty excited about anything with the word ‘Pie’ in it. We tested the One Twenty 650 earlier this month and were seriously impressed.
The bikes look great, have all the modern design features you’d hope for, and come with a serious pedigree. We think they’ll be ideal for the terrain and conditions in our part of the country. We’ll be running an extensive demo fleet with all available sizes of both models and are offering an unlimited range of custom build options. No doubt, we’re expecting SRAM XX1 to be popular on these bikes.
What’s next?
Surly are another brand which has gone really well for us this year. We have a Krampus demo bike in-store and as Singletrack so rightly said recently [in Issue 83 – Ed.] this is a bike everyone should try once! I managed to get a ride in on it this last weekend and it’s so much fun it’s hard to believe. Full staff review coming on our site soon. Surly have some more quirky stuff coming for 2014 and we look forward to doing lots more with them.
Anything else?
Next up, Haibike. As part of the Powys Accessible Cycling project (details on Singletrackworld.com very soon), we have a small fleet of Haibike XDuro electric MTBs in the fleet this year. They’ve not been with us long but we are expecting this to open up a range of possibilities for people who might otherwise feel our hills are a bit TOO steep. It’s impressive what these bikes can cope with. They’re proper mountain bikes, not glorified hybrids too. Lastly, we’ve also just taken delivery of a (Massi) MTB tandem which is going to be amazing fun!
There’s more!?
Yup, we’ve loved the Genesis range since we first started dealing with them several years back. Each year seems to bring some exciting new bikes so we’re looking forward to hearing what 2014 has to offer. This year we’re running a fleet of High Latitudes as part of our hire fleet and customers are loving them. They’re a great bike for long rides in the Brecon Beacons and across the Radnorshire hills and will be ideal on our soon-to-be-launched Trans Cambria and Sarn Helen cross-Wales MTB holidays. We are friends of the social media world, so Facebook and Twitter with us, if you like.
Lastly, what do Singletrack Premier Subscribers get from you guys?
Premier Singletrack members benefit from 5% off our cycling holidays and 10% discount on bike hire. Plus, mention Tuesday Treats in-store to walk away with a Drover Cycles water bottle.
Tuesday Treats Prize Draw
Click here to win this week’s prize!