As many of you know, I’ve spent the last year or so as the UK agent for NeilPryde bikes and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it on the whole. However I reluctantly decided not to re-pitch for the contract when it came up for renewal recently.
To be clear, I really do love the bikes. For me the Alize in particular is a brilliant bike as anyone who’s read a few reviews should have gathered too. The Diablo is also a fantastic race bike, a bike that’s it’s almost impossible to ride slowly, that handles and climbs brilliantly as well.
It has also been a genuine pleasure to meet some really fantastic people in the UK bike trade – be they journalists, or working in, or running bike shops. There are more fantastic bike shops than you might think out there run by people who love what they do and are genuinely there to help customers get the right and best bike for the riding they do.
The UK is also blessed with some particularly fine cycling journalists and publications and I thoroughly enjoyed my dealings with each of them. I look forward to continuing my relationships with as many of them as I can going forward even if it ends up as just an occasional coffee meeting.
Ironically one of the last “official” things I did for NeilPryde was arrange the first ever UK owners ride and I can genuinely say that customers have all been brilliant and we had a fantastic day out together.
The reason I’m not continuing with NeilPryde is simply that we have some different views on the way forwards, so I’ve decided to step back so that they can pursue the path they believe will work best for them.
I genuinely wish NeilPryde Bikes and the dealers every success – the bikes are great and if you haven’t tried one you really should. I’m also sure that NeilPryde will be a successful bike company, they have great ambition and I’m happy to have played a small part in the beginning of it in the UK.
As for me, well this development frees me up a bit to write about a wider range of bikes on my blog from now on and I may even have an exciting new bike related project to announce soon as well. Any news will be of course be here first.
In the meantime, as soon as another fine day comes along I’ll look forward to getting out my Alize and to writing more about bikes and riding.
Thanks for reading.
