Arc'teryx going into bike apparel market

Speaking of Arc'teryx's new president, he was seen prowling the halls of Interbike, all but confirming the rumors that the high performance apparel manufacturer will be introducing a line of cycling apparel next year.

This will be tricky for them for a couple of reasons:
1) No distribution channels (specialty outdoor is not the same as an independent bike dealer). One option would be to leverage Mavic's (another addidas-Salomon property) sales guys to move the product into IBD.
2) Unless they are targeting the small market of high end roadies that drop $5,000 on the latest road rig, they will have a tough time convincing the notoriously budget conscious cycling consumer to pay premium prices, no matter how nice the apparel is.

My guess is that the bean counters at addidas-Salomon are expecting double-digit growth from Arc'teryx next year and to realize those goals, Arc'teryx feels they have to enter new markets. I'm not sure cycling is the answer to their challenge. Just look at how Salomon's cycling stuff has done. What? You didn't know Salomon had a mountain biking line? Exactly.

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