The Cycling Experts

The original Experts website

The Cycling Experts is a website owned by the ACT, designed to promote independent retailers and their partners to the UK public. It was due to the success of this website and its increasing popularity that the Experts Community was born.

Click the logo below to visit The Cycling Experts.   

Make sure your listing is up to date by logging in to My ActSmart.

What is The Cycling Experts?

The Cycling Experts are a nationwide network of businesses that deliver a variety of products, services and skills to cyclists. The Cycling Experts website was designed to encapsulate everything that makes these businesses the place to shop. It raises the profile of all specialist cycle retailers - highlighting the services, products, technical skills and passion for cycling available at every shop.

The site is also the home to all cycling industry brands and services, including Cytech, Ride it away, Bikesoup and many more.

Who are The Cycling Experts?

Independent retailers are at the heart of the UK Cycling Community and there are over 2500 specialist retailers and workshops that make up The Cycling Experts.

Unlike national chains, The Cycling Experts retailers are owner run and managed, with a real passion for cycling running throughout their businesses, delivering true consumer choice, service and knowledge.

The Cycling Experts have a critical part to play in the growth of cycling and this platform is here to assist in getting more people on bikes via quality products and service.

To maximise the consumer experience the Business Search on The Cycling Experts includes all consumer-facing cycle businesses including membership clubs, training organisations,activity centres and many more. 

Consumer promotion for your store

Promoting what's special about the services and products you offer to a national audience will increase consumer awareness, footfall and ultimately sales. 

Consumer visitation to The Cycling Experts website is at record levels and growing exponentially, with Cytech, Jobs and the Business Search being the major attractions.

The Business Search allows any public facing cycle organistion to be original and memorable so they stand out to potential customers. It is the most comprehensive bike business listing in the UK and is accessible by up to 600,000 web visitors a month.

All cycle retailers have a basic entry with the option of creating their own extended, unique, promotional listing including:

• What's special about your shop
• Accessory, bike and clothing brands stocked
• ACT membership
• Cytech accreditation
• Other value-added services e.g. ride it away cycle finance, cycle hire etc.
  
• Shop photo, logo
  
• Employee pictures
• Website links
• Opening times

If you have a website, the listings can help drive more visitations; if you don't then this is a great way to get online without incurring any costs.

Make sure your listing is up to date by logging in to My ActSmart.

Extended your outreach 

The Business Search feeds an increasing number of other popular sites, enhancing consumer traffic to c.600,000 unique visitors per month; increasing not only visitation but also opening up your business different types of consumer.   

The following list gives an outline of where the business search is shared.

• British Cycling - the National Governing Body for cycling in the UK.
  
• Team Green Britain Bike Week - the official website of the UK's biggest mass participation cycling event
• Why Cycle - a popular website for new and returning cyclists with a plain speaking, informative approach
• Sustrans - a UK charity helping people to travel by more environmentally friendly means - such as by bike!
• Bike Hub - funded by the cycle industry (Bike Hub levy) and recognised by UK Government transport departments

Gavin Finch from British Cycling commented "As the UK's cycling governing body, British Cycling places great importance on working with the independent retail sector. The Cycling Experts bike shop search tool is massively useful to all cyclists and inclusion within our website enhances promotion to the wider cycling community."

Further promo on the move

The shared data goes even further then the realms of the world wide web as it also feeds the Cycle Journey Planner iPhone app - the highly successful, free cycle journey planner and bike shop finder funded by the Bike Hub levy.

To find out how to update or create listings on Bike Hub's iPhone app please see here.

Retailer data has been provided by ActSmart, but the app is open source and data is controlled via Bike Hub's partners. There's an app available to add your bike shop to OpenStreetMap here. Open Street Map won't always show bicycle shops, but the OpenCycleMap, which automatically turns on the bike shop layer will.

Websites outside of The Experts community carry varying amounts of business data and are updated on differing timescales. These are not managed by ActSmart. 

Membership Criteria

Inclusion within the Experts community is free for all consumer facing businesses, you will need to enrol as a FREE Bronze member to get listed.

If you want to take advantage of the full listing and inform customers what is special about your business ActSmart Silver membership allows you to update your listings as many times as you want along with access to a range of business support services.

Directory listings will be listed according to your membership i.e. platinum members will be given preferential listings at the top of the directory, then gold, silver and bronze listings respectively. In order to give consumers accurate search results, geographic searches will not display businesses according to membership, but according to distance from chosen area.  

Non members can purchase full listings from as little as £5 per month.