The Chainlink

Company Tour: Inside Saris Cycling Group

Saris Cycling Group in Madison Wisconsin makes bike racks, power meters, and indoor trainers.


By Yasmeen Schuller
With the weather getting chilly, I thought it'd be a great time to check out a local manufacturer of indoor cycling equipment so the team at Saris Cycling Group was kind enough to take me on a tour of their facility in Madison, Wisconsin. I was pretty excited to check out the gear, see how it's made and packaged and learn more about their products. On the tour, it was also great to learn more about the company's commitment to cycling for not only their employees, but their commitment to bike advocacy in the state of Wisconsin.

To give you a little background on the company, the Saris Cycling Group started in 1989 when Chris and Sara Fortune purchased a family-owned bike rack company and changed the name to Saris (a combination of their first names). Over the years they expanded to commercial bike racks (Saris Parking), indoor training (CycleOps), and power meters (PowerTap). 


This is where the magic happens. Saris Cycling Group does the majority of their production work locally in the Madison facility.


Locally Grown 
The company builds the majority of their products in Wisconsin and as they have continued to grow their cycling-related offerings, they've expanded their facility, keeping the company local. They sell the products to a total of 50 countries. Not only is this great for the local economy and job opportunities, they are able to acquire the resources they need quickly and efficiently because it's sourced locally. For example, the steel used for their bike racks and trainers is from Chicago and Green Bay. Saris employees 180 people in Madison and will continue to grow with the extension they are building.


 
Bike-centric Culture: The company provides lots of bike parking, lockers and showers as well as incentives to encourage employees to bike to work.


Bike Advocacy
As was explained to me, the company encourages employees to ride their bikes to work by providing incentives as well as committing a lot of indoor space to bike racks, showers, and lockers. Their commitment to cycling also extends beyond the company, participating as active cycling advocates in Wisconsin including People for Bikes and Wisconsin Bike Fed, "We believe in the bicycle as an avenue to enhance the quality of life in our country.  We are committed to using our resources to enhancing cycling on a local, state and national level."

 
All of the PowerTap power meters are calibrated and tested individually.


Quality
As I toured the facility, they showed me how they tested the products to ensure the products are high quality and consistent.
 
Super Bones 2 is one of their newer bike racks. The clean design has the straps built in to the rack so there's no chance to losing removable pieces. 


One of the Saris employees sewing the straps for the car bike racks.


Saris Bike Racks 
To give you an idea of how many bike racks they sell, Saris produces 3 million straps a year used on the more classic Saris bike racks. 

 
Did you know they also produce stylish bike racks for those that prefer to display their bikes inside their homes? 


Cities around the United States purchase custom commercial bike racks of all shapes and sizes.


Saris Parking (Commercial Bike Racks)
This includes the bike racks around cities and towns that allow you to lock your bike up when visiting a local business. Learn more about Saris Parking.


Assembling the CycleOps indoor trainer kits. These kits are a popular holiday gift with each kit containing a trainer, wheel stand, and mat. 


CycleOps Indoor Training Products
Products include trainers, virtual training, and indoor cycles. Learn more about CycleOps indoor training products.


After seeing the beautiful Enve wheelsets with PowerTap technology, I added this to my wish list for Santa. This would definitely be "next level" for Santa.
PowerTap
Acquired by an MIT group in Boston, PowerTap measures the power output for both indoor and outdoor cycling. Power is determined by measuring how hard and how fast you pedal on a ride. This can be super helpful establishing a baseline as well as measuring improvements you make when training. PowerTap has a number of options for measuring Power: chainrings, pedals, and Hubs and Wheelsets. Learn more about PowerTap products.


It's great to see a thoughtful, local company doing so well and expanding their Madison space by 30% to support more assembly and inventory on-site. 

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Comment by Tony Adams on December 15, 2015 at 1:06pm

Nice work Yasmeen! thanks!

Comment by Yasmeen on December 14, 2015 at 2:51pm

Ryan from Saris wanted to share this as well about 2016 sponsorship opportunities for brand advocates and grassroots athletes:

In years past, we have had a Grassroots Athlete sponsorship which was combined between CycleOps and PowerTap. As we continue to develop relationships with brand advocates we realized that one blanket sponsorship did not meet the needs of everyone so we made changes.

 

For 2016 we will be offering a sponsorship program for each brand at Saris Cycling Group. The guidelines are geared toward the individual brand but the perks are across all three. Applicants are asked to read through the guidelines for the Saris Brand Advocates,CycleOps Brand Ambassadors and PowerTap Grassroots Athletes and pick which guidelines fits them best. Then they can apply at the links below.

 

Saris Brand Advocate Application

CycleOps Brand Ambassador Application

PowerTap Grassroots Athlete Application

Comment by Sebastian Baptiste on December 13, 2015 at 10:43am

Thanks for sharing!

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