The cycling community is endlessly varied

Clifton has always been a road cyclist at heart, riding with Surrey’s Redhill Cycling Club and dabbling in time trials. But he’s met so many different types of riders since opening his doors: “This shop, particularly because of its heritage, has a loyal following from a group of riders who were very good racers in the 1980s. They love the heritage of great Italian kit – they’re mostly in their late 60s and 70s, rolling around on Italian bikes with Campag groupsets. If they’re not still riding Italian bikes, they tend to ride titanium actually for their long distance rides. They’re excited to see the shop coming back to life, and they know the mechanic who we’ve kept on understands their bikes.

“Cycle clubs have started to find us. Kingston Wheelers came in with a huge group over the weekend. And what we’re also getting is people from South London, Richmond Park, Roehampton – so they come down, do ‘the loop’ – for them this is about half way. They’re often riding quite exotic bikes.”

Clifton will be stocking a range of women’s clothing, and has followed TWC’s advice around having a rather nice bathroom facility, changing room and of course coffee and cake on offer – something that was always an important part of the plan. Around 15 – 20 per cent of customers have been women, and he says: “It’s been a larger percentage than I imagined. We’ve seen lots of small groups of women riding together – over the weekend we had a large group, all eager to find us on twitter and share the news we were here.”

Clifton says during the week most visits come from solo riders or those in pairs. The weekend sees larger groups, but they’re not all from the established cycling clubs of Surrey and London – he says: “We see some large established clubs, and some smaller groups. There are more smaller groups these days – it feels to me that the people influenced by Ride London and the Olympics and who are coming from London don’t necessary want that club culture, they’re usually riding with a few mates, or even work colleagues.”

There are a lot of people riding bikes that don’t fit them or aren’t set up right

When you buy a bike online, you can sometimes get a great deal – but unless you’re a mechanical whizz you might find you hit problems. Clifton said: “We have people come here all the time with issues with bikes they’ve bought online – brakes not set up right, gears not set up right – we’re very happy to mend those, but if they got the bike from us in the first place we’d have set it up right, and it would fit them – for probably not a great deal of difference in the price. We see so many riders cycling past the shop on bikes that just don’t fit, and a bike that doesn’t fit is never going to feel great, whatever amazing deal you got on high end spec.”

Business’ need to use social media to succeed

Destination Bike’s website is still in the making, but they have active Facebook and Twitter accounts. Clifton isn’t a social media guru himself, but he recognises the need to engage with customers online – saying: “It does feel like social media is having an effect on cycling culture. Whenever people come in, the fact we have Wifi, they all jump on that – they’re on twitter and tweet about the fact they’re here. To be successful in the modern day environment you have to be active on social media. For me it’s going to be front and centre of all of our marketing.”

The true local cycling community always makes every effort to help its members

Clifton has been a member of Redhill Cycling Club for years, and it was his friends and clubmates who helped him fit out the shop. He says there’s no chance he’d have opened as quickly without them – explaining: “I had a lot of help from friends in the local cycling community when I first started setting up the shop. Within the structure of the company, everybody is a cyclist – from the accountant who looked after all the financial set up, to the guy involved in an engineering company, who helped with the building work – the plumbing and all the rest of it. I couldn’t have got going so promptly without them all.”

Destination Bike is open now, but its official opening event takes place over the 19 and 20 March (this weekend). You’ll find them along Box Hill Road – the one after the nice big climb!