Industry Cycling Number of employees Circa 500 Founded 1984 | Revenue £109 million (2010) Headquarters Ballyclare | |
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Products Mountain Biking, Triathlon, Road Cycling, BMX bikes and frames, components, accessories and apparel. Website chainreactioncycles.com Motto The world's largest online bike store Founders Janice Watson, George Watson Profiles | ||
How to build a bike from chain reaction cycles
Chain Reaction Cycles is an online retail website selling sporting goods focusing mainly around cycling. Based in Doagh, in Northern Ireland, in 2013 Chain Reaction Cycles is the largest online bike shop in the world.
Contents
- How to build a bike from chain reaction cycles
- Chain reaction cycles how do they do it
- History
- Products
- Sponsored riders
- References
Chain Reaction Cycles specialise in selling equipment and apparel for various disciplines of cycling including mountain biking, BMX, cyclocross, road cycling, triathlon and running equipment.
Chain reaction cycles how do they do it
History
Chain Reaction Cycles started out as a small bike shop named Ballynure Cycles which was opened in 1985 by George and Janice Watson using a £1500 bank loan in the small village of Ballynure in Northern Ireland.
The business moved to larger premises in Ballyclare in 1989 and the name of the shop was changed to Ballyclare Cycles. During this time the Watson family organised some of the first ever downhill races in Ireland and put together the first ever Northern Ireland Downhill series.
As business continued to grow a mail order service was created and adverts were placed in cycling publications. In 1998 the business was moved again to a warehouse to accommodate the increase in orders through the mail order service.
In late 1999 the company registered domain name www.ChainReactionCycles.com and launched the Chain Reaction Cycles website. The first sale was a chain link sold for 11p. The sales grew each year, and eventually Chain Reaction Cycles became the world’s largest online bike store. In 2011 revenues were £136.4 million (€170 million). Its peak sales were in 2013, at £155.6 million. By this time the website was providing multi lingual service and currency options for many countries.
Products
Chain Reaction Cycles sells equipment and apparel for various disciplines of cycling including mountain biking, BMX, cyclocross and road cycling, and also triathlon, motocross, running and swimming equipment. In 2014, the company had a 90,000 item catalogue and processed 6,000 orders a day. The website receives around 1.5 million hits each month.
Sponsored riders
Chain Reaction Cycles sponsor various cycle teams in several different disciplines including the CRC/Nukeproof downhill mountain biking team, the CRC/Vitus road cycling team and CRC/BMX team.
The company also maintains the Davagh Forest biking trails.