Some exciting things coming

January 2, 2015/ Maria Parker

Jim has turned our kitchen into a mechanic’s shop, I’ve been riding my V with styrofoam velcroed to its headrest and in the past six months we have logged hours and hours of conference call time. It’s been an exciting, rewarding and incredibly busy time.

And now we want to share a bit of where the past six months of intensive Cruzbike planning has led. We have beautiful, custom-designed accessories and innovative products in the development pipeline, an incredible branding evolution and perhaps most importantly, a renewed commitment to our mission and customers.

Our mission at Cruzbike has always been to make the world a better place by designing, building and selling beautiful ergonomic bicycles for intelligent cyclists who seek superior performance and the freedom to ride farther, faster.

We’ve been thinking deeply about how to best deliver upon that mission and what values will be foundational to Cruzbike’s future. As always, you our customers, inspire and challenge us to continue to improve, to innovate and to deliver an ever more delightful experience from the forum to the frames that we ship daily. Ultimately, we know that delight is contagious and will be the most compelling invitation for other cyclists to join us over here in the Cruzbike universe.

We have zeroed in on a set of core values, the standards we will uphold as we pursue our mission and goals for growth. Those values are innovation in design, excellence in service and integrity in everything we do. Most recently, we’ve decided that we want to make giving back a core value for our company, too.

Each of us who works with Cruzbike donates time and money to things we care about. As many of you know, the Parker family has been involved with, 3000 Miles to a Cure, a charity that raises money to fund brain cancer research, since its inception. Beginning in 2015, Cruzbike will donate a portion of its profits to 3000 Miles to a Cure. Cruzbike is excited to join with 3000 Miles to a Cure in the expectation that a cure for brain cancer will be found if we work together to fund research.

To communicate our mission and values and to celebrate the unique spirit of Cruzbike, we’ve invested in a branding evolution. You’ll begin to see our new logo and word mark on the website, Cruzbike’s Facebook Page, on new t-shirts, jerseys and on our new tent canopy at upcoming events. We hope you think it’s as beautiful as we do. For the story of the new logo, check out Jim’s post here.

Back to the chaos that is our kitchen and that styrofoam I mentioned – this year, we will launch a carbon fiber case designed specifically for the headrest of the S30 and V20. It will hold water bottles and the small amount of gear needed for riding and racing. It’s light and aerodynamic (enter the styrofoam prototype I’ve been riding around with for aerodynamic assessment). This carbon fiber tail box is just the beginning. We’re working hard to design and source accessories that will make your Cruzbike even more functional and comfortable.

We are also continuing to deliver upon the commitment to innovation, moving ever forward to the goal of a better bicycle. The product in the pipeline I’m referring to now may very well be “the Holy Grail of the recumbent world.” That’s a big bold teaser for something Jim will announce this week. So stay tuned.

Last but not least, we’re very excited to announce that we will be moving to a beautiful new website in March (fingers crossed!). The new site will be simpler, cleaner, more secure and will tell our story and yours more effectively. It will also relieve many of the pain points you have experienced with the current website including user authentication. Thank you for trusting us with the invaluable feedback that has informed this next iteration of Cruzbike.com. We’ll be reaching out to some of you over the next few weeks to help us beta test the migrated forum and user experience.

In conclusion, I want to share my personal, heart-felt thank you for being our customers and our community and for cycling on into the future with us.