We Noticed: Bike Sherpa Expands to More IM Events, Run Brands Clearing Billions and More
The Bike Sherpa, the bike shipping arm of Race Day Wheels, is offering expanded shipping services to select 2025 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 events this year.
The company, which launched last year following the demise of TriBike Transport, has handled logistics and transportation services for brands and vendors to events for over 15 years. After a successful debut last year for the IRONMAN World Championships in Kona, the company will now also offer service to up to 9 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 events in 2025.
Those races include, but are not limited to:
- IRONMAN 70.3 Oceanside
- IRONMAN Texas
- IRONMAN 70.3 Chattanooga
- IRONMAN Lake Placid
- IRONMAN Chattanooga
- IRONMAN World Championships – Kona, HI
- IRONMAN Arizona
Most races will require a minimum of 30 to 35 bikes for the service to be available at that event.
Services are familiar to those who have used transport services in the past. Customers select their pick-up location and will drop off their bikes at least 24 hours in advance of the stated ship day. You’ll then pick up your bike at the expo (or other select location) pre-race, race, and then drop the bike back off with the Bike Sherpa post-event.
The full event list, as well as details on reserving transport, can be found here.
Run Shoes Proving Extremely Profitable for Brooks, ASICS
It would appear that 2024 was a banner year for running shoes, at least for Brooks and ASICS, based on their recently announced financial results.
For Brooks, it was their third consecutive year leading the performance run category overall, including a 19% increase in the fourth quarter in the run specialty channel (that’s brick-and-mortar run specific shops, versus big-box or e-commerce sales). A full ten percent of all performance run shoes in 2024 sold were either the Ghost or Adrenaline GTS.
With ASICS, it’s their second straight year of profitability. North American sales grew by more than $130 million in 2024, totaling $891.8 million. The improved performance was driven by heavy gains in the run category, led by the NovaBlast 5 driving triple digit year-over-year growth. Also gaining share in 2024 were the updated Gel-Nimbus and Gel-Cumulus models.
Run Race Entries Up in 2024
The total number of race entries went up in 2024, with RunSignUp reporting an 8% increase in total entries over 2023.
That growth, however, is coming mostly at events with more than 5,000 participants at them. Smaller races are still struggling, with 4% of events that took place in 2023 vanishing in 2024. However, there are some bright sports, with short races under 500 participants sitting at a growth rate of 10% year over year.
Price increases remain a primary friction point. Pricing is increasing at a faster rate at smaller, shorter races — 10Ks and under are up more than 5%, whereas marathons are only increasing their prices on average of 1%.
Race registrations remain a primarily late call for most runners. Although earlier registration often provides lower pricing, athletes are still registering for their races relatively late; more than half of fields register less than two months before race day.
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I wonder about the aggressive discounting affecting the races’ bottom lines too much. Many of the early bird entries are offering 30% discounts. I would think anymore than 10% of a discount and these RDs are getting close to paying their customers to come race.
We lose a few pennies to a few dollars on our early bird registrations. But it also floats the event for a bunch of the early up-front costs (namely, paying the deposit for timing and medals) that you can’t sit around waiting for.
Ten years ago our half marathon would sell out 90 days before the event. We’re now significantly smaller and still it’s pulling teeth to get people to come race.
Ya, if you’re not giving out 30-40% discounts on early bird deals then it makes sense to get the money now. From a financing perspective, even if someone had to borrow the money (0% interest credit card with a 3% balance transfer fee or 9% line of credit) is going to be cheaper than some RDs selling 30% of the registrations at a 30% or more discount.
The early bird is guaranteed money and the only cost specific to them is the swag so the race isn’t losing money on them. The rest of the costs are fixed. 100 early bird at a 30% discount sure beats a terrible forecast for race day and no “week of” sign-ups.
What is the net income of a race? Less than 30% of receipts? I’d suggest taking 30% off the top is too much to pay for marginally better forecasting and slightly reduced risk.
There are other ways you can incentivize early sign-ups:
Premium transition zones, a Free branded water bottle and a 10% discount sounds pretty decent and still gets the sign-ups without selling that first batch of entries at or below cost.
1.) “Premium” transition zone may be prohibited by rule;
2.) “free” branded water bottle costs money;
3.) that discount with the above benefits may / may not wind up costing you the same amount in dollars and/or time.
Last I checked you can make a branded water bottle from specialized for a few bucks. And 3 bucks for a bottle is advertising your brand. That you’ll also sell for 15 at your registration. Cost is free at that point.
Premium transition rule illegal? I’m just talking about bike/shoe rack location being the closest to the exit/entrance. Someone has to get that spot.
Maybe if you want to go to town you can provide them with a bucket to sit on