James Thomas of the Bicycle Design blog introduces us to the “Trek Stop”, a convenience store for bikers…
According to Thomas, this is a test unit that has been set up outside of a bike shop in Madison, Wisconsin (the nearest big city to Waterloo, home town of Trek Bicycles). Thomas writes that,
“…you can stop by anytime to put air in your tires or buy basic small items like a tube, patch kit, water bottle, energy bar, chain lube, etc, out of the vending machine.”
If this pilot project works, I could definitely see these coming to Portland; especially since we’re home to Bike Gallery, which is one of the largest Trek dealers in the world. Here’s another photo.
A little more web research turns up this photo on Flickr. The photographer writes that it was just installed yesterday (6/30) and from talking to a Trek designer on the scene, he reports that, “the notion is that these might be installed in various places around a city – not usually right next to a bike shop.”
This seems like it would be a no-brainer business move for Trek. They have the distribution channel in place (thousands of loyal dealers across the country), they can sell their Trek-branded products in the vending machine and it would also give them a nice bit of brand exposure.
The Trek Stops would also tap into what Trek’s bean counters are likely well aware of — that commuters and urban bikers are the hottest piece of the bike market right now.