MARK Gouldthorp is keeping a close eye on the weather. Rain, cold and grey skies mean people are less inclined to get out in the great outdoors and so less likely to buy bicycles.
And as MD of Raleigh, Gouldthorp badly needs people to buy bikes. Although dreary British weather affects all businesses which have outdoor interests, Gouldthorp admits that he has a lot to prove in 2013.
It was a year ago that Raleigh was bought by Dutch bike maker Accell Group for around £60m. Although the purchase brought an end to Raleigh's proud history of independence, it also gave the company the security of being part of a large bike and fitness group which manufactures and sells multiple brands across Europe and Asia. Trouble is, Accell bought the company in Britain's wettest year on record and despite the success of British cycling in the Olympics and the Tour de France, Raleigh's sales were down 10% on the previous year.
The pressure is now on Gouldthorp and his 200 employees to both make up the sales losses and add some.
Judging by the rain falling on Raleigh's design and distribution centre at Eastwood on the day we met, any pessimism by the MD would be easy to understand. But Gouldthorpe, a big, beefy 46-year-old, has been at Raleigh for over ten years and has good experience of his market.
This year, he says, Raleigh has a fantastic range of bikes and the dealers are all impressed.
But he also knows that his Dutch bosses in Heerenveen want to start seeing Raleigh make a return on their investment – rain or no rain. Reviewing the past year in Accell's ownership, Gouldthorp says: "We worked out a shopping list of things we wanted out of it and some of those things have happened quickly and some have taken a bit more time to happen. We've increased staffing, there's been cash to invest in the business – despite the fact the weather has been poor.
"Are they disappointed with last year's performance? Yes. Does that put me under some pressure? Yes. Have we got the right products to win? Absolutely."
Gouldthorp is so convinced that this year's Raleigh range is a winner that he hired some Luton vans, filled them with new bikes and had them driven to retailers around the country to show them off. It was, he admits, partly an act of desperation because dealers just won't travel to shows any more to look at new bikes. But the response was positive.
"The reaction to the range this year has been faultless," says Gouldthorp. "It says something about previous ranges anyway. And if there is demand out there, I think Raleigh will take it."
This year's offering of 350 bike models includes everything from children's bikes to performance carbon-frame road bikes of the kind ridden by the resurgent Team Raleigh which competed in last year's Tour of Britain. Then there are mountain bikes, commuting city bikes galore and a range of stylish and brightly painted retro-style machines which reflect a design collaboration with Wayne Hemingway's Red or Dead label.
Raleigh also persists in making electric bikes, even though the market for them has never taken off in Britain. Although the badge under the handlebars still reads "Made in Nottingham", the sheer range of machines on offer may suggest that Raleigh still struggles with establishing a identity for itself in a market saturated with brands.
The same issue arguably affected the old Raleigh in its later years at Triumph Road in Nottingham. Then, though, the problems were greatly compounded by a lengthy period of disinterested ownership by the Derby Cycle Corporation in the USA and the sad fact that the mass manufacture of bikes in Nottingham was no longer economically viable.
Although Nottingham City Council tried to provide a new site for Raleigh in Bulwell, in 2002 the company's new owners (an MBO took place in 2001) decided to jump ship. The bike design side of the business was moved to Eastwood, while manufacturing was relocated to the Far East.
Gouldthorp had joined the company as finance director a few months before the Triumph Road closure and today says that he, personally, has no regrets about the decision. When he left on the final day, he had no desire to return to the old factory. Bad memories of a dying business.
"I think they were making the bikes they could make rather than the bikes they wanted to make," he says. "Even in the first couple of years after I joined, when I was involved but not running it, the people who were running it – and I suppose I was party to that – gave up on Raleigh to a certain extent above a certain price point.
"I mean, we did not do road bikes then. Yet this was a company which won the Tour de France 30 years before. I think the company management had stopped aspiring for the brand and the trouble is, once that happens, you're dead, aren't you?"
The Tour de France win came in 1980, when TI-Raleigh's Dutch rider Joop Zoetemelk won the yellow jersey. And the Zoetemelk photographs and framed Raleigh cycling shirts displayed on the walls at Eastwood show that Gouldthorp is highly conscious of the company's glory days. There is certainly no shortage of heritage and tradition at Raleigh. It comes with the "Made in Nottingham" badge, even though the bikes have latterly been made in Bangladesh and Indonesia.
The instant brand recognition of the Raleigh name must, you would think, be the envy of its competitors. And yet. What does Raleigh stand for today? Gouldthorp says that he hopes the brand stands for quality, excitement and value for money. But he is also frank enough to admit that the Raleigh name works better with some segments of the market than others. Mountain bikes, for example, are not regarded as a strong area. Sales of premium-priced children's bikes, long a Raleigh staple, are shrinking.
Where Raleigh should shine, he says, are in city bikes and road bikes for the growing sportif market. "Raleigh doesn't have to be the best road bike brand and spend a million on a road team," says the MD.
"What it has to be good about is selling a shed load of city bikes, because that's where our pedigree is."
Raleigh is, he says, essentially a middle-market brand where the average retail price of its products is £400.
Although competition and recession has forced Raleigh to move its price range upwards, he wants the brand to play to its strengths by "owning" that middle ground. The question then, is, what impact is Accell having on Gouldthorp's aspirations for bringing new life to Raleigh UK?
The Dutch group has given Raleigh access to new brands in bikes and accessories. These include the distribution of a premium German mountain bike brand, Haibike, priced in the £3,000 league, which adds to the Raleigh and Diamond Back MTB ranges already sold by Gouldthorp's people. Accell ownership also means that Raleigh is being sold in new markets abroad.
The size of the UK sales rep team has been increased. Meanwhile, in the background, Accell is moving its manufacturing facility in Bangladesh to Turkey, where there is better quality control.
Gouldthorp talks about the possibility of one day bringing the assembly of Raleigh bikes back to Britain and even aspires to get the Raleigh road bike team back into the Tour de France. All he needs now is the sun to shine to help sell some bikes.
"This is the wrong time to lose your faith in the weather," he says, while rain beats down outside.