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Adam Read's Interview - Tartybikes' Facts And Figures


TrashZen

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In line with a series of interviews I am carrying out for the BikeTrials Evolution project, Adam Read (from TartyBikes for those of you who are not familiar with his name) accepted to answer some questions about TartyBikes' debuts and current dealings.

He made it very interesting, so check it out on the BikeTrials Evolution project website. :turned:

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Our international couriers pick up usually between 2pm and 4pm, so pretty much everything from 9am-2pm is based on doing international orders. Having to do loads of customs invoices and booking international courier stuff takes almost literally forever, so most of the day is spent doing those.

But yeah, my main memory from when I first started at TartyBikes was just how much Hope stuff Japanese dudes buy. Pretty much every Japanese order would have at least a set of matching bore and reservoir caps. They love it...

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Jap's seem to love anything made in Britain though! - For some reason.

There's a pretty big Mini scene in Japan, with all sorts of crazy mod's and parts available. They love it!

A guy (I think from Japan) commented in my Bike Pictures thread, saying how he loved my dual Hope Tech's, and said he'd be lucky to find something like that in a local shop for him.

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Seems to be the way, yeah. Got a couple of customers over there who buy loads of random stuff and then sell it on on some sort of Japanese equivalent of eBay. Having our live stock system was a god-send for that - before you'd get people ordering ridiculous quantities of stuff so they'd be able to buy all of whatever we had of certain stuff, which meant having to e-mail to say we have X left in stock of Y product...

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Found the interview very interesting to see what Adams thoughts and feelings are about the business and how much its improved.

The staff at TartyBikes are unbelieveable, they work incredibly fast and provide a good quality service, its just so phenomenal how much work they do for every single customer.

Go on TartyBikes (Y)

It is the biggest online trials shop in the UK, correct me if im mistaken please.

Edited by AndyZoo
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40% export sales!!!!!!!

Thats f**kin a-mazing.

As stated in the various 'What is the item that has progressed trials in the last xxx years' threads that pop up now and again, Tarty Bikes is THE best thing that has happened in trials probably ever.

Many of the younger riders will have no idea how much Tarty Bikes and the internet itself have progressed trials.

As Adam says in his interview, it used to be absolute murder getting hold of everything you required because of useless shops and suppliers.

It was one of the reasons I packed riding in.

When I came back and found Tarty Bikes I could not believe how great it was, I was like a kid in a sweet shop.

Although I dare say Adam has made financial rewards out of his business its the non financial input to trials, the availability of 'stuff' to the customer that has made a MASSIVE impact on the sport, for this, he and Tarty bikes, should get some kind of business award/recognition from out side the trials scene for the development of sport or something.

I do take my hat off to Adam for envisaging tarty bikes and actually carrying out that vision successfully. Reading that interview it became apparent that I had a similar idea at around the same time as Adam started Tarty (it was just and idea that someone should do it, I'm not saying I should have started tarty bikes) after getting seriously f**ked off with LBS f**king me about again, but instead of seeing it as a real and possible idea as Adam did, I wrote the idea and trials itself off as a shite plan that I wanted nothing more to do with, I really did think it would be impossible to organizes a realistic and efficient business out of the mess and randomness that was trials related parts supply at the time.

One thing was missing from the interview.

What I want to know is why Tarty bikes?

I like to imagine some old Northern grumpy old man saying something along the lines of"'What are you up to on my wall!!! Get away with you and your tarty bikes!" :lol:

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Anyone care to explain a bit more clearly?

Damn right... :blink:

Adam?? Can you shed some light on the name?... If I remember well, I think you mentioned years ago that the name TartyBikes was some sort of self deprecation about cherishing bling bling bikes tuned to the max... for the glory of trials... would that be right? :lol:

I'll update the interview to answer that last curious point if you give us some feedback. (Y)

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  • 2 months later...

Here in Argentina there are no trial parts available at all, and dealers in South America are either inefficient or too expensive. We are really glad TartyBikes exists !! I belive that what makes TartyBikes the best trials online shop is it's webpage. Their service is exellent in many aspects but the handy interface for watching the products (a wide number of them btw), compare them and order is probably the best of them. I wished Argentina's customs didn't exist and shipping was cheaper but the products' prices are really low so it's still inexpensive.

While I was reading the article wondered how many trials riders where out there because Argentina is an extense country and there are almost no trials riders (50 in the whole country maximun !!) Probably in the UK a lot of riders gather on weekends so maybe I'll plan a trip one of these days (I'll also visit TartyBikes ^_^ ).

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Hadn't seen most of the replies to this thread since it got bumped!

Mark's got the name pretty much right - I had a very 'tarty' bike maybe 12 years ago so got the nickname 'the tart' amongst riding friends, and 'Tarty Bikes' just kinda ended up as the name!

I'm a little humbled by Matt and Juan Manuel's comments, thank you very much guys. I get pretty stressed out with it at times (ask the guys who work here :$ ) but hopefully it's worth it to ensure that you guys can get a decent supply of products. As Matt said, of course there is some financial benefit (or the shop would close down!), but I genuinely feel during day to day work that it's not the main 'driving force' by a long shot luckily!

Thanks again.

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