DISTRIBUTOR IN THE SPOTLIGHT

I am Robert Sipiczki, and I am the MD, my wife and I are the founders and major shareholders of BikeFun, the distributor for MERIDA here in Hungary and Romania. The company was founded in 2006, the distribution centre is based in South Pest, and we also have a MERIDA Concept Store which is based more centrally in Pest. I am also the president of the Association of Hungarian Bicycle Producers and Traders (MKKSZ).

I love the sport of cycling, our dealer community and the industry, but personally, I am a fair-weather cyclist, which means I ride every day when I am on holiday but in a very leisurely way! I love to ride at Balaton Lake here in Hungary, where we have a holiday house, and my other favourite place to ride is Italy. This summer we will go on holiday with friends to Italy where we will ride on an old converted train route which is beautiful with tunnels and waterfalls (part of the Alpe Adria trail), all descending of course! 

We have a lot of history under our feet here! (as per the photo of the cobblestones being revealed under the tarmac). We are based on an ‘island’ on the Danube called Csepel, which is the 21st District of Budapest. The Csepel works on the island was initially established by Manfred Weiss, who was an industry guru. Cars, trains, Messerschmitt engines and bicycles were all manufactured here on an area of 4 million square metres. After the Second World War, the area became state-owned as Hungary was then a communist state. Hungary was tasked with producing bicycles for the communist run countries. A huge factory was built, and around it grew a community as there were 60,000 workers all together in the works here, so they had their own kindergarten, hospital and so on. 

Then, when communist rule came to an end in the late 80s, things changed, and privatisation started. The American Schwinn invested first and started the ball rolling for other bike companies to set up here too. The ‘island’ has a long history with the bicycle industry; the whole of the Hungarian bike industry is based here in the 21st District, and we can all meet for lunch! 

The building we use as our distribution centre was built in the 70’s and was originally the library for the communist party workers. If you look at the floor, you can see the wooden parquet flooring remains! We bought it in 2006; more recently, it was owned by a trading company. We set up our office and distribution centre in this building. Dealers can come to the distribution centre and take a shopping trolley and ‘pick and mix’ what they want. 

As the business grew, we needed more space, so we acquired the warehouse across the road (3 ½ thousand square metres), which was previously used as a wooden tooling facility for steel manufacturing. We took on two of the guys who worked for the fabrication business, as we knew and liked them, and they are still with us 15 years later. We store bikes and other larger parts in this large warehouse.
 

We had some organised activities before Covid, but we haven’t restarted them again properly. This is something I need to address. A lot of the guys go riding together on an informal basis. Our last big party was when Giro d’Italia had three stages in Hungary, and our dealers all joined us; it was a big celebration and a real success.  

We have a marathon team in Hungary and Romania; they are very competitive. We also sponsor several individual racers; we try to spot young talent and support them at the start of their racing career. 

I am proud of the history of BikeFun; how we set it up, and the fact that we are fully independent. I am also very proud of the team; they love working here, and this makes me happy!

I think MERIDA is now in the right position; we are viewed as high-quality rather than high-end, and I am proud that we have worked hard to get to this position. We are well known, and I hope to be seen as well managed in both countries. We were market leaders in the past, but now Giant are biting at our heels; post-Covid they have a large overstock, and they now have an established factory here, but we view this as healthy competition. Our profile is being raised with the work we do with our teams and we do advertising targeting our end consumers, so we are working on it.

Road and gravel bikes are more and more popular, followed by high-end MTB, but there is very little interest in hardtails. Cross country is still popular, but our sales are primarily road-based, so bikes like the SPEEDER and gravel bikes like the SILEX. 

I think MTB marathons used to be very popular in Hungary and still are in Romania because of the terrain there, but this has waned a little, and road racing is becoming more and more popular. Cycling culture started later in Romania, but it was a fast-growing market and now they have caught up with Hungary in terms of sales. Hungary has a large commuting market, and Romania is more sport focused. The population in Romania is double that of Hungary, so the potential is there for further growth. 

We have a bike in reception (see photo) that came from one of our dealers in Romania. He found it second-hand and refurbished it as a gift for us. It is a Albontech 860, made from ‘real’ materials, all metal-based. I don’t know exactly how old it is, but it is from the time when Ike and Grace were running MERIDA, so that tells you that it is a piece of MERIDA history.   

That would be the first SILEX, I tried it and said to myself, ‘Oh – that’s something special’. It is very popular here in Hungary, we can’t keep up with demand!

The Covid pandemic had the largest impact on the cycling industry that I have seen. When the surge in demand for bikes started, there were two ways of looking at it: either the demand was a bubble that would burst, or it was a trend which would be ongoing. People opted for one or the other of these options and planned accordingly, and those who thought it was a trend had their fingers burnt. In 2023, when the demand suddenly stopped, and lead times changed back to a few weeks, a lot of people were left holding huge amounts of stock, and the market is still trying to absorb this now. We feel that next year we should have fully recovered from the impact Covid had on us. 

Now we have the war in Ukraine, which is a huge concern as it is at our borders and Hungary’s Prime Minister backs Russia, there are concerns about our utilities and so on and the potential financial impact on Hungary, so things are tenuous now as we don’t know the exact impact this war may have. 
 

I love what I do, so I would follow the same career path 100%. I think if I went back in time, I would tell myself to learn another language; I speak Hungarian, English and I understand some Slovakian, Croatian and Polish. My confidence with Polish improves if I have had a drink, and I can probably order a meal in most European countries, as this is very important! I think if I had learnt one of the Latin-based languages, it would have been helpful. 

The company is called BikeFun, and Robert certainly is a lot of fun to interview. We learnt a lot about Hungary’s history and culture and touched on its politics. There was plenty of talk about varying gastronomic delights from several European countries, and it is a ‘Distributor in the spotlight’ first that we left carrying a gifted bottle of locally homemade peach schnapps! His enthusiasm for life and his love of the work are infectious, and this atmosphere is evident in all the different parts of the company we visited. On the first day we arrived, we saw Robert doing his rounds of the warehouse and distribution centre and shaking hands with every employee, which he does every day. He leads by example with a flat hierarchy, open-door policy and focus on employee welfare. This is likely the reason he has never received a letter of resignation in 19 years. However, underneath the fun, there is a razor-sharp businessman who knows his strengths and those of his team and curates these into a well-oiled, successful company with an eye on the future and where BikeFun will go next.