Probably one of the best marketing campaigns in our industry wasn’t even from a company in our industry. When New Belgium came out with Fat Tire Amber Ale prior to the craft beer boom and put a bike on the bottle’s label, it immediately became the unofficial beer of cycling. Even after it had been out for 10 years, each time it started shipping to a new market, it repeated that same tradition. Topping it off, a lot of their “signage” were the actual bikes on the label hanging up in bars and other places that sold their beer. And these weren’t just cheap promotional bikes… they were made by the likes of Felt, Schwinn & Electra.
Check out New Belgium Brewery’s 25th anniversary bikes that are made right here in the USA by Detroit Bikes, plus a great video explaining how the 2 year old outfit aims to produce the largest volume of made in the USA bikes in decades…
Not only are the bike’s great looking and made in the states, but they step away from the “vintage” hot rod (dare I say “fat tire”) look and into a much more functional design… you know, say if you were going to actually use them for something like riding around.
The best part about all of this… Detroit Bikes, based in the motor city of which is riddled with unemployment & closed factories, took advantage of the available space and skilled workers in need of employment to manufacture their bikes. Now as North America’s largest bicycle producer, Detroit Bikes has doubled their workforce from 20 to 40 because of the big bike order from New Belgium. Detroit Bikes will produce about 2,500 “cruiser” bikes during this first year partnership. And so far, about 1,000 bikes have been released with around 40 bikes going out the door each day.
