Mountain biking brand TREAD – Mountain Biking With Soul turns five this month and has announced its growth plans which aims at continuing to provide the burgeoning South African mountain biking market with added depth and value.
The first growth initiative is related to the company’s magazine frequency, with the brand taking it’s market-leading print publication from six issues a year up to eight.
TREAD magazine, South Africa’s premier mountain bike-specific magazine, will now be published approximately every six weeks in 2014, giving readers more frequent access to the brand’s authoritative, South African-specific features and regulars.
Also new will be an electronic edition, which will launch in early April with Issue 28 and will be available on the Zinio newsstand. It will be sold by single copy and one-year (eight-issue) subscription.
“At a time when the publishing industry is generally taking strain and cutting back on costs, we are fortunate to be able to increase our investment with two more issues a year. And we won’t be cutting corners by compromising on page numbers or paper quality either.
“Magazines are a luxury item and it makes no sense to us to rob readers and advertisers of decent paper quality and book size,” explained Sean Badenhorst, TREAD founder and editor of TREAD magazine.
“Not surprisingly, we’ve had an increasing demand in recent times to add an electronic edition of our magazine and are pleased to launch this on the highly-respected Zinio platform from Issue 28 (April/May 2014).
Mountain biking continues to grow as a participation sport in South Africa, which has become one of the leading mountain biking markets in the world. Besides it’s magazine, the TREAD business also runs national mountain bike skills clinics, which are sponsored by Peugeot South Africa, ensuring mountain bikers of all levels are able to improve their confidence and control in a sport that can be as high-risk as it is fun.
“With Peugeot on board, we’ve been able to add more venues to our skills clinics and welcome Mankele (Nelspruit), Stellenbosch and Karkloof (KZN Midlands) as new venues for 2014. These are in addition to existing TREAD Skills Clinics venues in Johannesburg, Ballito, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth,” explained Badenhorst.
Another growth initiative launched by the TREAD brand this year is the TREAD Buffalo Category, a new weight category in South African mountain bike stage races aimed at riders that weigh 90kg or more.
“Cycle racing, be it on the tar or dirt, favors more slight riders, but we felt that we needed to give the bigger riders a sense of belonging and have created the TREAD Buffalo Category, which will help add more depth to the partner events, the bulk of whose entrants aren’t the small, serious racers, but rather the more recreational bigger guys. Everyone benefits essentially,” added Badenhorst.
Also being launched this year are the TREAD Experiences, exclusive mountain biking-themed getaways for small groups, offering guests guided trail riding with the TREAD team on some of the country’s finest trails, combined with luxury accommodation and hassle-free transport.
“We’re excited to see the growth of mountain biking continue in South Africa and are pleased to be able to add meaningful initiatives that can support this growth. We’ve never positioned TREAD as a quantity brand, but always focussed on quality in which ever areas we see a need for fulfillment. We pride ourselves in being specifically relevant to South African mountain bikers in all our brand channels too. We speak with South Africans, not at them…” added Badenhorst.
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