Revel Bikes founder brings a fresh approach to a broken industry
If you follow the bike industry, you probably saw the news earlier this year that Revel was shutting down. It caught a lot of people off guard, including customers, fans, and even some insiders. But just a few months later, found Adam Miller announced he was buying the brand back and relaunching Revel with a new vision. So today, we’re going to talk about that journey—why Revel is going direct-to-consumer, what Adam learned during his time away from the company, and why he believes now is the right time to double down on building bikes again. Why bring Revel back now, especially given the challenges facing the bike industry? What were you doing between stepping away from Revel and deciding to buy the brand back? Why move to a direct-to-consumer model with the relaunch? What’s wrong with the traditional dealer/distributor model for selling bikes? What financing options are available for building and growing a bike company today? How do you see smaller brands like Revel competing with the big players in the industry? What makes Revel different from other bike brands, especially in such a competitive market What’s one thing you’re doing differently this time around based on your past experience? An automatically generated transcript will be available at Singletracks.com later today. More info about Revel at revelbikes.com. This episode is sponsored by Trailbot. Trailbot is the smarter way for trail managers to communicate updates without relying on social media. Don’t let The Algorithm bury your posts—easily share conditions and closures to your web site, social media and the app all at once. Best of all, it’s free. Trailbot is used by over 260 trail systems in 17 states and growing fast. Over 50,000 riders have installed the free iOS and Android apps to get official updates with optional push notifications, without having to see what their weird relative posted on social media. Learn more at trailbot.com.