I’ve been in the same room as Lord Sugar on just two occasions, The first  was at a charity lunch at the Dorchester a few years ago, and the second was last Saturday at The Cycle Show at the NEC in Birmingham. We were there for different reasons though.

He was there because he’s a cycling enthusiast who regularly rides over 60 miles a day.  I was there because I was press-ganged by two friends who have recently taken up the sport, are constantly injured, ill or downright knackered as a result, and feel that I should share their pain. I vehemently disagree, but had nothing more interesting to do, and so went along to see what all the fuss was about.

The first thing that struck me when we got there (apart from the gall of the people at the  NEC who charge you ten quid to park so far away from the venue that you still need  to catch a bus) was the homogeneous nature of the attendees. Nobody was going to mistake this lot for The Good Food crowd. Male, pale and wiry pretty much covers it. There were so many people with ginger hair, I began to wonder whether cycling was some kind of refuge for those victimised for a lack of melanin.

As we entered the exhibition hall, Lotus  (who apparently make bikes in their spare time) had a car on display, and one of the aforementioned wiry ginger blokes, dressed in jeans and T shirt and carrying a backpack, was admiring it. Cars are more my thing than bikes, and so I started looking at the Lotus too.  Almost straight away, someone approached the wiry, ginger haired bloke and asked for a photograph. Strange, I thought. Why would you pick  this wiry ginger haired bloke to have your photograph taken with when there are so many to choose from? And why would you want your photo taken with a wiry ginger haired bloke anyway?

But then it got even stranger, because soon there was a steady stream of people coming up and asking for a photo’ with the wiry ginger haired bloke, and some of them got him to sign their programme as well. Speaking as someone who has only ever been asked for a photo’ for security reasons, I felt a little left out, but  as slow on the uptake as I am,  I  figured out this must be no ordinary wiry ginger haired bloke.  It turned out to be Ed Clancy who won a gold medal in the London Olympics. Now it became clear why I hadn’t recognised him. I’d only ever seen him with his helmet on, and didn’t know what he looked like. Maybe that’s why people with ginger hair take up cycling – so people don’t know what colour their hair is.

Anyway, after the excitement of almost meeting an Olympic Cycling Gold Medalist, I approached the exhibition stands with renewed enthusiasm. If you’ve not looked at bikes and cycling equipment for a while like me, you’re probably in for a shock.  The technology  has come on in leaps and bounds, but so have the prices.

One of the unpronounceable Italian companies had their latest bike on display….available to order FROM  just £9,500. I searched for the engine you normally get when spending that kind of money on something with wheels, but there wasn’t one.  It was a work of art in carbon fibre, but almost ten grand…and you still have to pedal. And that in itself is somewhat ironic, because for your ten grand you don’t even get any pedals! They are extra. In fact, there were no pedals on any of the bikes at the exhibition. If you want to actually pedal what you’ve bought, another big wallet wound is required before you can.

I was quickly to learn that the basic bike is just the start – even when you’ve bought the pedals. You’ll need a pair of shoes to fix your feet to the pedals…I saw a very nice pair for £385. Obviously you’ll need a helmet, and will have no difficulty shedding a couple of hundred pounds for one of those. And when you’ve got that you can start looking at lycra shorts, tops all-in-one suits,  warm weather gear, cold weather gear, wet weather gear, pumps, spares, water bottles, energy drinks…the list is almost endless. But it doesn’t end there.

You see, when you have all that stuff, pretty soon you’re going to decide that the reason you’re about an hour behind Bradley Wiggins  on  a 30 mile ride is because your bike is too heavy. And once you’ve decided that, there are a whole host of specialist companies that will relieve you of a sizeable portion of what’s left of your dwindling bank balance in return for lighter gears, lighter brakes and lighter wheels. A far cheaper option (and with health benefits) seems to be to become a lighter rider, but I digress.

We visited one stand where the company sold nothing but wheels. My friend got in discussion with one of the people manning the stand. “How much is this one?” he asked  “Fourteen,” was the reply.  I was astonished…”Fourteen hundred pounds for a pair of bike wheels?!” I said, for once polite enough to move away from the vendor before expressing my amazement.  “No, they’re fourteen hundred pounds EACH,” said my friend.

Nobody else seemed phased by the cost of all this, but they were all wiry ginger haired blokes, and I’m not. And that’s the point. In every business…in every market…there are wiry ginger haired blokes. They might not look like wiry ginger haired blokes, but they behave in exactly the same way. They are mad keen enthusiasts, and they are prepared to pay a seemingly ridiculous amount of money to get the best of the best of the best. On a rational level, they know that they are falling victim to massive diminishing returns. They know that they are getting little or nothing tangible and measurable extra for what they’re spending, but they don’t care. They love the product or the activity, and will spend beyond rationality on it.

So who  are the wiry ginger haired blokes in your market,  and are they being properly served? Might they spend even more, if they were offered a product at an even higher level? If you were to shift the emphasis of your operation away from fat, dark haired blokes (who only want a bargain) to wiry ginger haired blokes (who only want the best) might you have a more profitable business? And might you have a business which is more enjoyable and satisfying to run.

There certainly seemed to be plenty of  smiling people at  the NEC on Saturday.

Publishers Notice

The author has asked us to point out that he is not Gingerist in any way, and believes all hair colours should be treated equally. He owns an Ed Sheeran album, likes Prince Harry and once took a ‘carrot top’ on a date to Pizza Hut in 1982. He has also asked us to stress that he would be very happy to have ginger hair  himself – or indeed hair of any colour really. We sincerely hope that clears up any missunderstanding.