BikeBiz Awards 2025: Meet Judge Mark Sutton

In May, we announced the 18 people who would judge each category in this year’s BikeBiz awards.

To allow you to get to know the judges better, we’ve asked them all to give us insight into who they are, what they do and a little more about them.

First up, we hear from Mark Sutton, editor of Cycling Electric, and at one time, editor of BikeBiz.

You’re on a call or you meet someone at an event, when introducing yourself (and having to sum up many years in a few words), you say?

I have been involved with bikes since I was a teenager, progressively working my way through the categories, but with a solid decade of being a BMX rider. Nowadays, I prefer the cushioning effect of a full suspension bike, but I still like to go fast and get airborne where I can.

Professionally, I started right here at BikeBiz, which was in my hometown when I first joined, something which was probably a stroke of luck. Without seeing an advert in the local paper and having just completed my NCTJ certificates, I’m not sure where I would be today. Since that time, I have gone on to found CyclingIndustry.News where I was for seven years, before departing to launch Cycling Electric with the publisher that also produces Cyclist Magazine.

Everyone in this industry has a unique ‘origin story’ that set them on this path. What was that for you, and how did that initial spark evolve into the professional journey you found yourself on?

This will sound silly, but I bet it resonates with more than a few people in the bike media. I used to grab a copy of MBUK or Ride BMX and tell my friends that this is what I wanted to do. It was just talk, but I remember seeing a young Andrew Dodd testing out all the kit I wanted to buy and thinking that’d be my dream job. I thought no more of it until I fell into B2B bike media maybe 5-7 years later.

Given your role as a judge for the BikeBiz Awards, if you could pinpoint one innovation or trend within the cycling world over the past decade that you believe has been truly transformative, what would it be, and why does it stand out to you?

I think the most transformative shift in the past decade has been the change in our marketing focus. For so long the bike industry just seemed to serve the enthusiast, and the imagery almost never featured anything else. I think since we have begun to transform who we pitch to, I have been a lot more excited about my work. I think electric bikes have done wonders for revealing the sleeping giant, a sea of potential customers that we had no idea existed because, in general, we weren’t speaking to everyday people. Even for me, the high focus on the top-end and margin performance gains was draining.

One of the most rewarding things I have been involved in within 20 years of doing this has been launching our Cycling Electric Demo Days. Playing a part in establishing new riders in market segments that have been so underserved for so long has been incredibly rewarding. I love how many parents have been showing up with their kids to try cargo bikes and the energy Jorvik has brought to the events, revealing to people how e-trikes can be a mobility game-changer. It’s nice to know that we are selling things that can positively affect people’s lives.

Delving a little deeper into judging, what are you going to be looking for when looking at the shortlists for each category, regarding who you might vote for?

I will probably look for those who have done the most to challenge the industry to evolve and who have driven this mindset shift into appealing to the masses. With my focus on reviewing electric bikes, it’s been really pleasing to watch the product’s evolution in each category. I will look out for those brands, products and people that have made the most difference to making cycling useful to people’s routines and leisure time.

I think we are in a moment of significant change with lots of newcomers challenging the established brands on design and innovation, or simply paying attention to their customers to achieve outcomes for them. That includes making relevant products for the economic conditions, rather than pursuing just innovation.

Personally, I want to see brands taking more responsibility for the product they put to market too, whether that be on backing it up with robust testing, sourcing and manufacturing responsibly and sustainably, or something else. I have, unfortunately, seen a few really poor products in the e-bike space that should not be on the market. I want to see the other end of this scale: a cycling brand with Patagonia levels of responsibility and care for its products and the foundations of its audience.

Looking five to ten years down the road, what’s a ‘blue sky’ idea or a radical shift you love to see happen for the cycling industry that you believe has the potential to truly reshape how people move and interact with bikes?

Five and ten years is a long time in the bike industry, or so it seems since Covid. What I would love to happen and what probably will happen are likely different things, but I think so long as brands do not suddenly go back on outreach to the masses and lose sight of the big blue ocean of people who are not yet cyclists then the sheer mathematics of it suggest we will be alright, so long as we appeal to people’s needs and solve their problems.

I suspect that we are in for a massive transformation in the foundations of the industry in that time, probably the electric bike will continue to cannibalise demand for bicycles and the arguments not to have a pedal-assist motor will continue to evaporate because they will be so unnoticeable and of course you can just turn them off for a purist experience. I think the bike share explosion in cities is a warning sign for this; people’s first interactions with bikes in future will probably be these share schemes, and from there, the bike industry has to convert customers. A few years ago somebody said that in future nobody will own their bikes, they’ll subscribe, share or borrow. At the time I thought it was unlikely, but my mind is changing; the younger generations are so used to subscribing to things and don’t have either the room or the money for high-ticket purchases.

So, that’s probably a radical shift we have to contend with, at least until such time people start to feel surplus money in their pockets again, which I fear is some way off.

AI is the other unknown, I think we will have to evolve and adapt with. This is already posing some unsettling questions for many professions, and already I am seeing its use, for better or worse, in the bike industry. There will be pros and cons, I’m sure, but I could live without it for sure. Regardless, I suspect it will be a race now to adapt and innovate with it.

Among your many contributions to the cycling industry, are there any projects, initiatives, or achievements that stand out as your absolute proudest, and what made it so personally significant for you?

Again, it’s probably getting the Cycling Electric Demo Day Series established, which is a team effort, but there’s something a lot more tangible about stepping out from behind a keyboard and seeing that you are making a difference and getting e-bikes sold to people who probably would otherwise have never cycled. It’s been really pleasing to hear so many of our brand partners say they sell bikes through our events. They remain on a learning curve, but to have them established and growing at a time when events remain a bit of a tough sell is pleasing. To the best of my knowledge, nobody is putting on as many e-bike test rides as we now do in the UK and, if the press would just lay off confusing people about e-bikes for a minute, I think the demand could be a lot higher still. I am very thankful to the brands that bring their energy and enthusiasm every time we roll out, and I hope it’s evident in the broad demographic mix the events have seemed to attract that Cycling Electric is doing its bit to reach the masses and not just existing customers.

As an aside to that, Founding Cycling Industry News was a big personal career step. It was a big, uncertain leap at the time into the unknown against some very long-established and strong competition, and it was my first attempt at establishing a media business from the ground up, with all of the trial-and-error learnings that came with that process. I’m glad now to see two healthy trade media titles providing ideas and inspiration to the trade.

Throughout your career, the industry has likely undergone significant changes. Have there been any shifts you’ve personally experienced that required you to adapt, and how did you navigate that change?

I took the leap to join Cycling Electric both for personal reasons, but also because it seemed a no-brainer, given the data coming out of mainland Europe, that the electric bike was the future.

I made two mistakes at the time: Optimistically comparing the UK market to most of Europe where cycling is more cultural, and, secondly, not accounting for the damage that a wilfully reckless media could do to the image of the e-bike. Both of these have required some adjustment and to pay closer attention to reality, rather than what I hoped the reality would soon be. If I have had one takeaway from the past few years, it’s to pay closer attention to the public, listen and try to learn what makes them tick and how cycling might solve some of their problems; and if it isn’t yet, why not?.

I don’t give up on the UK’s prospects, of course. I genuinely think the best is yet ahead for the UK market, we have a lot of catching up to do and the masses remain untapped, but it is for a smart and savvy Government to wake up and realise the potential of cycling to solve so many societal issues. I am marginally more optimistic about the current Government’s steer on active travel that at any time during the Conservative leadership, but we remain due a rebound and a piece of brave or game-changing policy. It is great to see a handful of MPs understand some of the benefits of bikes and how there could be a symbiotic relationship between more cycling and better health, improved air quality and lessened climate impacts, to mobilise more of society and to decongest our urban spaces, returning them to people.

So, to answer the question: I am navigating the UK situation by doing my best to make time for journalism that can benefit and support the industry’s objectives, which isn’t easy because proper investigations and data gathering take time and a lot of energy, sometimes for no result. This work, where something meaningful has been published, has, I think, sometimes been useful in helping public and political understanding of what an electric bike is and isn’t. Nowadays, I find myself contributing to things like public inquiries and trying to assist cycling advocates in their work around e-bike policy. This is part and parcel of a day’s work in the e-bike business in 2025, but I’m happy to get stuck in if it helps in a small way to shape the future foundations of safeguarding our industry.

If you could offer some advice, whether something you were told, or a hard-won lesson you learned, to those working in the cycling industry that you believe might resonate or help them in their role, what would it be?

Never stop learning and making connections. I have probably made the most progress on account of surrounding myself with enthusiastic people who are smarter than I am and just listening. You can absorb a lot by engaging with new people and expanding your horizons. If you can, do it offline, because online is a crap-fest too much of the time now.

I read a lot of non-fiction books on subjects I’m loosely interested in and then apply that knowledge to my work where possible. It’s also nice to absorb something different at the end of the day to make sure you’re not ‘on’ 24/7, or at least not always on one thing. As much as I like talking bikes, it’s always interesting to learn what else makes people in this bubble tick. For me, that keeps it interesting because I’m not very good at focusing on jargon and spec sheets, the bigger picture stuff is so much more interesting.

Meet the 2025 BikeBiz Awards Judges