How I Bought My Bike

My wife Susan and I bought new bicycles the other day. We wanted commuter bikes - the kind you use to pick up a few groceries, go to a meeting, and in Susan's case, bike to work at a local public school.

I characteristically showed up at the bike store with a list of "recommended" models from Consumer Reports, but quickly got interested in something I had never heard of with an 8-speed internal hub - something called a Shimano Nexus. Since I find derailleurs a pain, this sounded great. The test drive was great too. Now came the nagging question - will this thing self-destruct after a month?

I asked the salesperson how long they had sold this type of hub, and he said since last summer. Hmmmm....sort of bleeding edge, I thought. In the old days, I probably would have opted for the older technology. However, now is now.

While Susan finished her test drive, I pulled out the old iPad (yup, version 1) and checked out the online buzz on the hub. I ignored the company website and went right to the forums. It turns out that people are using the Shimano Nexus on tours (one rider had gone 1500 miles), and the reviews were great. The decision was easy and quick.

So...if other buyers are like me in that they prefer user conversations to vendor messages as their primary source, where does this leave marketing? Without having researched this market, I would speculate that an internal hub bike vendor would get great results if they spent their marketing dollars on vigorous participation in the online conversations that already exist about bikes. Perhaps they could get some of their techno-geeks to spend a few hours of company time a week trolling the forums and commenting.

Has anybody tried something like this, i.e., giving employees time to participate in online conversations? I'd love to hear about it.