December 23, 2013

Hi everyone, Paul Harmon here of http://electricescapes.ie. Since we got our loan with Linked Finance, the last three months have been hectic. On the tour side of ElectricEscapes we have teamed up with 7 other bike tour operators who have bought fleets of Kalkhoff bikes from us to offer a bigger better product all across Ireland. These people will come under the ElectricEscapes umbrella on a single website as a cooperative to offer bike tours from Donegal, Leitrim, Clare, Mayo, Galway, Slane, Cork & Dublin. Being ambassadors for the Wild Atlantic Way means we can offer our customers the opportunity to cycle from Malin to Mizen!

German, Dutch, Danish, American & Australian Tour operators also bought and showed interest in our tours for next year which means better planning & taking the next step as far as an activity provider. After 3 seasons we are right on plan.

We had a record year for Kalkhoff sales on E bikes and introduced regular Kalkhoff bikes for sale this year too. Our next step is to introduce Electric mountain bikes! We saw the fun youngsters were having in Europe on E bikes & the development of genuine mountain bikes ( the first 360 back somersault was performed on an E bike this year!). We are attending travel & trade shows throughout next year both in Ireland & internationally & have been asked to talk as key note speakers on how we do things.

We will be taking more guides & people on for next year & also someone for the admin, sales & marketing side of things. Having been redundant & going through the process myself we are looking for an intern right now! So crowd funding for finance & crowd sourcing for growth, the cooperative approach is the ElectricEscapes way. Here’ s to a great 2014 for all of us!