Gocycle chief designer Richard Thorpe is relaunching the electrical bike firm he based greater than 20 years in the past. Following a restructuring in January to cut back overheads, Thorpe is now turning to crowdfunding to assist launch a variety of F1-inspired e-bikes, whereas additionally increasing into non-electric folding bikes – a sector at present dominated by Gocycle’s fellow Brits Brompton .
To drum up help, Thorpe will inform his story and the challenges and alternatives his small enterprise faces in a sequence of movies to be launched within the coming weeks. The primary challenge focuses fairly severely on “Bikeaggedon,” a time period Thorpe makes use of to explain the disruption attributable to hovering demand for e-bikes on the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, adopted by a provide chain collapse after which a interval of large elements shortages. Oversupply.
The upheaval within the business has led to the bankruptcies of VanMoof, Hen and Cake, and compelled Rad Energy Bikes and different corporations to considerably reduce their ambitions. The “huge bike” giants—Pon Holdings, Accell, and Large—additionally suffered losses, however they’ve the size and assets to climate the storm. Institutional traders are at present sitting on the sidelines, licking their wounds.
Gocycle’s 2025 e-bike vary contains the already-released five-speed CXi cargo bike, in addition to the five-speed SXi, which shall be bought in electrical and non-electric variations. Thorpe stated coming into the non-electric folding bike phase would enhance Gocycle’s gross sales alternatives 15-fold because it begins to “problem the present main folding bike producers.” Thorpe narrates edge He might launch a Kickstarter marketing campaign for some new fashions later this 12 months, as he did with the GS mannequin in 2017.
The unbiased e-bike maker is not any stranger to fairness crowdfunding, which permits backers to buy precise shares of the corporate. Cowboy has used it efficiently a number of occasions, whereas VanMoof’s early backers have been burned. Thorpe admits that Gocycle is a “high-risk” funding.
Should you’re , you’ll be able to present your help for the marketing campaign by registering on Fundable within the US and Crowdcube for the remainder of the world. Because the makers of a number of the most revolutionary and distinctive e-bikes we have ever reviewed, we want Thorpe and the whole Gocycle crew each success.