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This piece first appeared in the March edition of BikeBiz magazine – not subscribed? Get a free subscription.
In the first of a series focusing on the people who make the industry – from seasonal shop staff with fascinating experiences to the CEOs of our industry’s biggest brands and businesses – we sit down with Tim Baxendale, Decathlon UK cycle training coordinator, to explore his experience of life in the big, blue and white, French business.
Tim BAXENDALE: I’ve been at Decathlon for nearly nine years, having joined in 2016. In that time, I’ve worked a variety of jobs with a few different titles.
I started as a sports adviser and progressed to department manager. In this role, I absorbed the workshop into my responsibilities. As a result, around 2020, I became a product trainer. In 2021, I became a training coordinator. Also, around that time, I led the bike-building protocols of the PDI project.
I’ve had the opportunity to shape how we approach the PDI process in the UK, ensuring every bike meets the safety standards before reaching the customer. To have the ability to develop an app that digitalised the whole process so we can safety check in-store, and you’ve then got a digital copy of the PDI as well. The project has linked all that I’ve been leading since 2018.
You’ll have seen plenty of change in that time, I’m sure?
Definitely. Look how much change we’ve seen in the cycling offer, with branding and market positioning over the past seven or so years. Critically, a range of price points remains a constant – we’re a business that’s all about making sport accessible.
With Barbara Martin Coppola joining the company as our new CEO in January of 2022, it’s visibly accelerated business, continually picking up pace.
We’ve AG2R riding our Van Rysel bikes and finishing 6th in the UCI Team rankings. In Mountain Biking WC XC, we’ve Rockrider Ford Racing Team. High visibility performance sport, which showcases the Decathlon brand – it’s important. We have ambition, but critically, we’ve not forgotten our core reason for existing. Accessibility.
Talking about cycling as a form of mobility, we have a pioneering partnership with e-bike motor business E2 Drives to develop the OWURU motor, and then you’ve our R500 electric longtail cargo bike, which can take two children and one adult or 170 kg of load on top of the bike’s weight. We’ll see more in this segment as the year unfolds.
That’s part of why I went to the Btwin Village: Product Training for the Future.
Attending training at the Btwin Village also means connecting with so many amazing people who make the Decathlon cycling ecosystem thrive.
When you bring everyone together from around the globe, there’s always a little bit of banter, as you’d expect, which is great.
Here I’ll say ‘Thanks to all product managers, engineers, trainers, and more’. The sessions really do feel like a good representation of my time with Decathlon.
Your visit to Btwin Village means you now deliver training for stores UK-wide, delivering in-store training. How does that work?
Collectively, we go to the Btwin village to receive training, then come back to the UK to plan and deliver training to our store teams.
Training is something I’ve been part of, informally or formally, since 2016, when I was in the Lakeside store. I’m now one of five trainers who’ve all got different specialities, including hybrid, cargo, e-bike, gravel, road, and mountain.
As a training coordinator, there are two areas in which I have responsibilities. The first one is product training. The second is ensuring our in-store teams follow best practices in bike preparation and safety through the PDI process: By aligning these two touchpoints with the bike and customer, we create a better experience for both our teammates and customers.
On the product training side of things, last year, we hosted our main Spring/Summer season from our Northampton warehouse because you’ve got the Northampton bike park just literally around the corner, so it’s a really good site to host. There are also woodland and non-tarmac footpaths nearby – the variety makes it possible to ride hybrid, gravel, and MTB in the area.
For bike-focused product training, we want to deliver a variety of experiences, keeping firmly in mind how our customers will use these bikes.
In the second session, we switch to road bikes and explore the area, getting a feel for the bikes and making notes on points that customers will be interested in.
I’m from a mountain bike background, so getting to ride with people who are road-focused is valuable, just as is for road riders exploring other bike types – we need to be able to speak our customers’ language and understand their needs, wants, and expectations.
This session hosted approximately 30 teammates – a good spread covering at least 75% of our stores. We’ll be doing similar this year.
In terms of the autumn/winter, we hosted it at Surrey Quays – the Van Rysel store, the first of its kind for the brand. It’s a good location from which to connect with our urban users, exploring everything you would need in terms of visibility, locks, security, etc., but also a day dedicated to the Van Rysel side of things.
In 2025, we are planning to expand the training content for teammates to maximise the reach – a 10-teammate session for the London region, as an example, worked for us in the past. Expanding this training to the North region represents significant growth. Internally, we can see that having Surrey Quays and Stockport as regional hubs makes sense.
With all that’s happening, there’s plenty to be excited about as I look at 2025: New products – part of the reason for my Btwin Village visit – and new colleagues to share the experience with.
Over the past 18 months, we’ve seen big, bold moves across brands and products from Decathlon.
Providing uniforms for volunteers at our home Olympics, followed by a global rebrand that was extremely well received and the launch of a start-up incubator: Decathlon Pulse. The rebrand was about much more than a successful visual refresh.
Over the past 24 months, the French sporting goods retailer has also made a significant impact on the cycling sector, with the business and its flagship bike brands now seen in a very different light, winning new fans and customers alike.
