Nicolas Roche is thinking ahead and has turned his move to BMC Racing into a very tidy business deal.
Having gone into the bike business as a partnership a couple of years ago, Nicolas Roche and Thomas Cahill have landed their first bike dealership.
Their Roca Sports company will now distribute BMC bikes throughout the island of Ireland.
Roche is riding for the brand’s WorldTour team this year – BMC Racing – and has already turned his contacts there into a tidy business deal.
The company is now in the process of signing up approximately 40 shops across the country to sell the bikes.
Cahill said the timing of the deal was slightly unusual in that they would need to move quickly to get stores stocked immediately and also begin taking orders from them for 2018.
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Roca Sport – which stands for Roche-Cahill Sports – is a joint venture between the pair.
They met when Cahill was chairman of Middleton Cycling Club in Cork and Roche agreed to help with a charity sportive.
Roche and Cahill are building the business piece by piece, with the BMC deal now a major boost.
“I was a big fan of his but obviously he didn’t know who I was but we hit it off anyway,” laughs Cahill of how they initially got together.
BMC bikes is their third deal and follows the company becoming the Irish distributors for Gaerne cycling shoes and Sportful cycling clothing.
When the possibility of BMC arose they moved fast.
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“When Nico went to BMC this year he approached them and it all happened quite simply really,” said Cahill.
“We went to Switzerland twice and then they came over here and we went around Dublin with them to various bike shops.
“And then the deal was signed. We got the official dealership for all of Ireland, including Northern Ireland.”
Cahill said both he and Roche were now very hopeful the deal would go well, adding they would sell the full range of road, cyclocross, MTB and commuter bikes.
“A lot of people in Ireland would already know the BMC brand of course, but with Nico riding for the team and riding the bikes we’d be looking at getting to the sportive rider, spreading the word.
“We’re going to look to 30 or 40 shops in Ireland; keep it tight. It just means we can keep in constant contact with that number of shops and build up a good relationship with them.”
Cahill said Roche was serious about growing the business, adding they were in touch almost every day about aspects of the company and that the Irish champion takes a hands-on role and enjoys it.
“Obviously you can’t race at the top level forever and while Nico has a lot of years left, it’s never too early to build something else up to have when you stop. So we’re building it in steps; adding bits and pieces all the time.
“Nicolas is there meeting the supplier at the start and I come in then and we talk. But Nicolas is very on the ball; he’s very interested in it and we’d be in touch almost every day. He definitely wants to grow it.”
Cahill said while all of the bikes that will be sold in 2017 are already built, Roca Sports would have access to up to 10,000 biked for the year ahead; “obviously plenty to keep us going.”
And when they have their shops signed up and the bikes begin to sell, Cahill believed a clear pattern would emerge that would inform stock ordering for 2018, which must be done very soon.
In a press release announcing the deal Roche said he was delighted to get a premium brand like BMC.
“It’s a natural step for ROCA Sports and, after spending many hours around BMC Switzerland staff and getting to know the brand and its values at training camps, it is very clear that BMC has a deep understanding of what the modern cyclist wants,” he said.
“It is great that we can now bring such a high-end product backed with such expertise to shops in Ireland,” commented Roche.
John Glett, BMC’s chief business development officer described Ireland as a “very attractive market”.
“By partnering with ROCA we will leverage the increase in brand awareness that Nicholas Roche brings, now that he is riding for BMC’s Racing Team, to grow our business.
“We are very confident that our partnership with ROCA will be a successful one.”
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