Dorel Industries continued to position itself as a major ally of independent bike dealers, or IBDs, last week when it said it would place a robotic bike fitting system it acquired in dealer showrooms for a nominal fee to help them compete with online dealers.


Bicycling experts at Dorel’s Recreational/Leisure segment, which owns the Cannondale, Schwinn, GT and Mongoose bikes brands, think the Guru Experience fit system is the best in the world, Dorel’s CFO Jeffrey Schwartz said Sept. 20 at the CIBC 11th Annual Eastern Institutional Investor Conference in Montreal.


Dorel Recreational Leisure, which is based in Montreal, acquired the fit system along with the Guru trademark last week from Quebec-based bike maker Guru. Dorel has reengineered software used by the system, which takes dozens of measurements to help riders customize their bike for optimum performance, and licensed the Guru name back to the Canadian company for use on their bikes.


Dorel will place the fit system with dealers for a “very nominal amount of money,” but require that every time they use it properly to fit a customer to pay a fee, said Schwartz. Dorel will be able to track usage because the fit systems software sits on Dorel servers, Schwartz explained.


“We think using this model, we will be able to get these state-of-the-art machines into a lot more dealers,” said Schwartz. “It’s one differentiation for the retail player versus the Internet. You can’t get fit on the Internet. I think as these stores start to use the fit system, they will start showing customers the benefit of that and why you need to start coming into the store.”


While Schwartz said Dorel will provide the fit system to all dealers regardless of what bike brands they sell, the acquisition comes as Cannondale is pushing hard to expand its North American dealer base, which currently numbers about 1,200. Cannondale is growing at double-digit rates in the U.S., but is not strong in all major markets, such as Boston. “There is still a lot of room for growth in both dealers and within dealers,” said Schwartz.


Schwartz said Cannondale continues to grow more quickly in Europe, thanks in part to visibility provided by its pro cycling team, Liquigas-Cannondale, which has the fourth and eighth ranked pro cyclists on the UCI World Tour. Cannondale announced last week it would become title sponsor of its own pro cycling team in 2013 in a move to further bolster the brand in Europe.


Since it began sponsoring a pro cycling UCI team, Cannondale has seen European sales growing at about 20 percent a year. “Many times we have run out of inventory before we were able to fulfill demand,” said Schwartz. “We’ve added a significant amount of dealers, but many dealers are coming in with orders 20 to 25 percent ahead of the prior year.”