Accell CEO: 'Bike Rental Projects Create Big Spin Of'

TAIPEI, Taiwan – At this year’s Taipei Cycle Show, Bike Europe interviewed Accell Group CEO René Takens on the rapidly growing new market which is the publicly-financed rental bike schemes. After a slow start this new category really took off with the introduction of the Vélib public rental bikes in Paris last July.

Other cities are following suit. The number of bikes per project is big: Paris 20,000, Rome 20,000 and London 6,000 but just as a start. The UK Capital is taking cycling very, very seriously and is allocating serious money – some 675 million euro (!) – to its project. What will all this bring about?

Revolution in bike sales?

As well as the increasing number of public bike rental schemes, will soaring fuel prices, the fight against climate change and the fact that governments have to bring down CO2 emissions bring about a revolution in bike sales? Bike Europe posed this question (and more) to the CEO of the company that supplied the 20,600 public rental bikes that have been in use in Paris since last July.

Spin Off

René Takens said: “I don’t believe in such a revolution. What I do believe however, is that for the next years strong growth will take place in the utility bike segment; in bikes destined for commuting. I expect that projects like Vélib will have a spin off in that people will become less satisfied with project bikes.

They will be looking for bikes that better satisfy their specific needs. Such customers will be looking for and buying bikes. And because these consumers didn’t cycle before; it will be a pure expansion of the City & Mobility segment of the bike market.”

More in Bike Europe’s March edition that will be mailed at the end of this week.

• For related items on Accell Group, click here
• For related items on Taipei Cycle Show, click here

• For related items on Velib, click here