In 1999, Danish brothers Mads and Per Nissen founded Fusion in a bid to change the status quo of sportswear. In the mid-90s, they had operated a sports shop where they faced two major challenges: firstly, product lines were very fashion-focused – they wanted more focus on functionality and technology – and second, it was a supplier-led industry where large pre-orders had to be placed many months in advance, tying up retailers’ liquidity.

Focusing initially on the triathlon world they themselves knew, they began to develop their own high-performance sportswear with a focus on usage and functionality. Their mission: to create a long-term, timeless collection where the quality and technical function of the same products would be continually refined, rather than bringing out new, short-term, seasonal products.

What they created – and what we still manufacture today – is a range of sportswear that’s comfortable, durable, highly functional and uncompromising.

Our collections now span running, cycling, triathlon, gym workouts and ‘recharge’ – which is about comfort on recovery days – and we cater for everyday exercisers through to elite athletes. But what unites all our gear is that we create clothing for when it matters. If you’re going for a short run in 20 degree heat, really any clothing is OK. It’s when you want to train seriously, including in bad weather, that you need the right gear. That’s when we step in, with high-quality, technical sportswear.

What are your USPs?

Our USPs are rooted in three core principles: durable, measurable and comfortable.

Our products really last: you’ll regularly see people using Fusion gear that’s 10+ years old and still going strong. We continually invest in R&D, but we stick to core products and our evolution is functional, not fashion-led: you’ll never see us launching the new season’s colours!

All our products are tested by pro athletes as well as at our in-house lab. The majority of the materials we use have already been developed to our high specifications, but we then rub-test them as well: normally 15,000 rubs is considered very good, but we won’t use fabrics that don’t achieve 30,000. Meanwhile, if we removed Fusion Power Locks from our products – our signature red stitching – we could reduce production costs by 20 per cent, but it’s key to our durability and we won’t compromise. As a family-owned business, we can stay true to our values.

Measurable is about results. We’re talking wind tunnels, track trials and so on – as well as the results our elite athletes achieve – to measure the impact of each product refinement. The refinements are continual – we’re on our 1,000th iteration of some products by now – but each is tiny, to the point that you’ll see elite athletes winning medals in Fusion products that are five years old.

Finally, comfort is crucial: all the highly technical elements of our clothing are there in a way you can’t feel. If you’re going to be on a bike for several hours, the best cycling bib is the one you don’t notice.

The pay-off of these three principles is that when you’re wearing our products, you’re unstoppable.

Sustainability is an important USP, too, and it goes back to our durability: how long you use a product matters. It also goes back to our EU-based, small order manufacturing that ensures retailers only ever have to purchase what they know they will sell right now. We never over-produce. [For more details, please see A Sustainable Agenda.]

Tell us about your elite athletes.

We work with a large number of elite athletes, from triathlon world champions to track cycling record holders to UCI cycling team Colo Quick.

Crucially, we develop partnerships rather than traditional sponsorships: we’re part of professional athletes’ training as they prepare for competition. They might come to us with a small feature they want to add to their clothing, for example, which we prototype at our Danish head office and give them within weeks. If it gives the desired results, we’ll roll it into our production.

Because this is another thing that’s different about Fusion: those elite-led refinements are built into our core product lines, meaning elite athletes wear standard Fusion items when they compete and achieve their world records. Whatever they need, we can simply pick it off the shelf and send it to them immediately.  Other people can buy it, too.

What we don’t have is entry-level clothing: ours is premium sportswear where the difference between our cheaper and more expensive products is down to functionality. For example, if you’re new to triathlon, you’ll be most interested in comfort and easily getting in and out of your suit to go to the toilet. If you’re a pro triathlete, you don’t care about that: you’ll go to the toilet in your suit! What you want are aerodynamics and water repellence so your suit is the same weight wet as dry.

How much of a difference can the right gear make?

Let me tell you about our new line, Tempo, which launched in March: a high performance collection spanning triathlon suit, running tights and shorts, cycling bib and cycling jersey.

We’ve been working on Tempo for a year in collaboration with pro triathlete Sam Laidlow and he used a prototype of the suit in the Hawaii 2022 World Championships, where he set the fastest bike split ever. The previous record holder also beat his own record by a few seconds, but Sam smashed the record by four minutes. That isn’t purely down to our suit, of course, but it was a big part of it.

What’s the best sportswear for indoor cycling?

There are two distinct worlds in indoor cycling. There are those who usually ride outdoors, who in the winter also connect their road bike to a home trainer such as Wahoo, plus something like Zwift, to train indoors. Then there are those who do indoor cycling classes at the gym.

The former will generally wear the same gear indoors as outdoors: with our Cycling Core collection, you can mix and match from just nine core products to train in any weather. Indoors, in the privacy of your own home, that probably means cycling shorts and bib.

For those taking part in indoor cycling classes, the advice is different. Here, the main considerations are the environment – you’re likely to get pretty sweaty – and the wider, more comfortable seat post on a studio bike compared to a road bike. Wearing a normal pair of bib tights with a big pad is a mistake in an indoor cycling class: you don’t need that much padding and it’ll just soak up your sweat and make you uncomfortable.

My advice for indoor cycling classes is to wear multi-sport tights, which are like running tights but more fitted, paired with a singlet. Our multi-sport tights  have a smaller fleece pad and a layer that wicks sweat away from the skin. This combination will give you optimum workout comfort in a group cycling studio environment.

The post Clothing for when it matters appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Around the world, we’re seeing fitness facilities tackle the dual challenges of global warming and spiralling energy costs through sustainable initiatives that range from green energy contracts to solar power installations. Our recent supplement – A Global Crisis? – explored this topic in depth.

Specifically in the area of indoor cycling, we’re seeing growing interest in technology that captures the energy riders put through the pedals, turning it into electricity.

One exciting pilot project is underway at Gold’s Gym Campus Europe in Berlin – an impressive 5,200sq m, CO2- and climate-neutral facility that’s the first gym in Europe to achieve LEED Platinum status. Two years ago, in partnership with the Technical University of Berlin, Gold’s Gym developed cutting-edge technology that it embedded in 150 ‘Boost Bikes’. Not all are currently in use, the quantity scaled back to meet everyday class requirements, but when all 150 are in action, they can generate “enough electricity each month to shave one million men”, says Pierre Geisensetter, head of brand & communications at Gold’s Gym.

In practice, the electricity generated is captured and used within the Gold’s Gym campus, where other trailblazing innovations include 10m-tall trees in the gym’s endurance area that filter out pollutants from the air; extremely hard-wearing floors made from discarded car tyres and cork; a cogeneration unit that runs on biogas; solar panels that harness the sun’s energy; and wall tiles made from recycled computer monitors.

Gold’s Gym isn’t the only operator to be capturing human power from bikes, of course: we’ve previously reported on the commitment of Terra Hale in the UK, while numerous clubs around the world are using SportsArt’s ECO-POWR equipment to convert muscle power into electricity.

The Gold’s Gym project is, however, the largest we’ve come across in this space, and it harnesses proprietary technology. The RSG Group is clearly keeping the innovative, boundary-pushing vision of its late founder Rainer Schaller alive, making this initiative one to certainly keep an eye on.

“Being able to see real-time energy production provides a layer of meaningfulness to breaking a sweat”

Meanwhile, a great ECO-POWR example comes from The Imaginarium in Rochester, NY, US – a 836sq m, Net Zero showcase that includes a gym where 21 pieces of equipment generate 5 per cent of the building’s electricity requirements. The remainder comes from 92 solar panels (60 per cent) and two small wind turbines (35 per cent).

The 17 group cycling bikes, two recumbent bikes and two ellipticals have consoles that display Human Watts and Grid Watts: the former the electricity the user is generating, the latter what’s actually going back to the grid – always slightly lower, as ECO-POWR needs some electricity to operate.

Five per cent may not be a huge number, acknowledge The Imaginarium team, but “it’s a very visual and direct way visitors can contribute to our Net Zero energy goal. Being able to see real-time energy production provides a layer of meaningfulness to breaking a sweat and brings a new understanding to how small changes or shifts in everyday activities can be a part of a larger movement.”

Sustainable manufacturing

“Plastic, and more specifically society’s excessive use of it, is putting our planet under huge pressure,” says Uffe A Olesen, CEO at BODY BIKE International.

“We see garbage islands the size of continents gathering in ocean currents and marine life perishing. Meanwhile, on the land, it’s hard to go anywhere without seeing plastic bags and packaging strewn around the place – a terrible human footprint on the planet.

“It’s an unacceptable situation, but at BODY BIKE we believe that if we all do our small part, we can begin to redress the balance.

“This is just the beginning for us: we’re determined to set new standards for sustainability in fitness equipment”

“We first put our passion into action when we launched BODY BIKE Smart+ OceanIX in 2019: the first piece of commercial gym equipment in the world to be manufactured using recycled plastic fishing nets. It just felt like the right thing to do, and we did it without any compromise in the quality of the product or the ride experience.

“Available in just one distinctive colour – the ocean blue of the recycled nets – OceanIX has proved very popular, accounting for around 20 per cent of our production. Because it isn’t just a piece of gym equipment. It’s part of a cause, and something that appeals to everyone who wants to do their bit for the planet.

“Off the back of this success, we challenged ourselves to expand our sustainable range and turned our attention to land-based waste. The hunt began for recycled ABS – the strong, stable, highly resistant plastic we already use in the manufacture of our bike covers.

“The result is the new BODY BIKE Smart+ Forest Green, officially launched at FIBO in April. Manufactured using 25 per cent recycled ABS, once again we’ve achieved this without any compromise in the ride experience or product quality and durability. It also looks great: I’ve always wanted to do a bike in the deep green of classic cars, and combined with the black metalwork it delivers a very high-class finish.

“And this is just the beginning for us: we’re determined to set new standards for sustainability in fitness equipment. So we will keep exploring. We will keep going further in our search for sustainable materials that also support our quality standards.

“These bikes cost more to manufacture – a fact of working with recycled materials – but we price them the same as our other bikes. We don’t want to put any obstacles in the way of people making sustainable decisions.

“Our goal is now to bring all our existing models of BODY BIKE in line with these new sustainability standards within the next two years, incorporating a minimum of 25 per cent recycled ABS in the manufacture of every model and every one of our 10 case colours. I see this as my personal mission.”

Sustainable sportswear

“People talk about organic cotton and clothing made from recycled plastic, but I’m afraid this is greenwashing that avoids the fundamental truth,” says Troels Vest Jensen, CMO at Danish sportswear specialist Fusion. “Textiles are not sustainable, meaning the fashion industry’s biggest problem is over-consumption.”

“Textiles are not sustainable, so it matters how long you use a product. You also shouldn’t produce more than you can sell.”

He continues: “Our approach to sustainability is therefore based on two vital factors. First, it matters how long you use a product. Second, you shouldn’t produce more than you can sell.

“In Denmark, the average organic cotton T-shirt is worn just seven times before it’s discarded, but it takes 1,500 litres of water to create that T-shirt. How is that sustainable? The Danish Consumer Council also found CO2 from production could be reduced by 44 per cent if all clothing were worn twice as much.

“Meanwhile, many retailers pre-order cheap clothes in bulk from China, based on little more than educated guesses as to what consumers might want to purchase by the time the stock arrives months later. They end up with the wrong items, and too many of them, so have to discount to get rid of it all. Some even burn it.

“Fusion does things differently. We’re based in Denmark, manufacture in Lithuania in small batches – we receive new product twice a week – and ship only to countries where we can deliver within two to three days. It means the retailers we work with always have exactly the stock they need to meet current demand: they order one week only what they know will sell the next. There’s no wastage.

“Not only that, but our sportswear isn’t about fashion. It’s about timeless design, comfort, functionality and durability, both in terms of manufacturing quality (for more information, please see Clothing for when it matters) and what we call emotional durability.

“We’re trying to shift people’s thinking around sustainability by encouraging them to feel proud about wearing old clothing. We’re certainly proud when we see our elite athletes competing in five-year-old Fusion sportswear, while our advertising shows people still training in 15-year-old Fusion wear. Our products are that good. They’re built to last. We aren’t interested in bringing out new colours each season to push people to purchase the latest look.

“This is what ‘sustainable’ really means in the world of textiles, and our processes and products are designed to deliver it.”

The post A sustainable agenda appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Ben Lucas, founder and CEO of Flow Athletic in Australia. Interview conducted 27 October 2022.

We aren’t really experiencing an energy crisis in Australia at the moment. Our challenge is more around inflationary pressures off the back of two lockdowns. 

The pandemic took 35 per cent off our numbers – membership and turnover – and we’re now trying to regrow our business in an economic headwind. We’re doing well though. I’m feeling optimistic.

There are cost of living concerns in Australia and as a result we currently lose one to two members a week. However, we’re adding five or six a week; we operate at the premium end of the market, meaning most people still have disposable income to spend with us.

So, what are the cost of living concerns for consumers here? It’s mainly interest rates – meaning mortgages and rent – as well as petrol and food, the latter due to a series of natural disasters affecting production. We aren’t hearing people talking about electricity or gas prices at the moment.

For our business, what’s going up are wages – I value our team and want to make sure they can afford to live in the current climate – and energy to a lesser degree. Fortunately, rent is unchanged; commercial sector rents aren’t going up in the same way as residential rents, because with a pending global recession, landlords would rather keep properties full.

“Electricity prices are due to go up, but compared to being locked down for 250 days, give me an extra A$16,000 of electricity fees any day”

Electricity prices are due to go up a predicted 20 per cent in 2023, and a further 10 per cent in 2024, which obviously is a challenge. But if our bill goes up from, say, A$30,000 to A$36,000 a year, will that spell the end of our business? Not really. It isn’t fantastic, but compared to being shut for 250 days… give me an extra A$16,000 of electricity fees any day. Framed in the context of the last two and a half years, today’s economic headwinds are the least of our challenges.

I do, however, believe the cost of electricity could double over the next five years, so we do need to be smart about it. As a premium operation, we wouldn’t want to cut energy usage anywhere in the club, so we’re looking to install a solar power system. Costing around A$35,000, this could generate around 60 per cent of our electricity needs – including our air con and lighting – and achieve payback in three years. 

The post The lesser of two evils appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Timothy Felix, CEO of Active Fitness in Singapore. Interview conducted 31 October 2022.

There’s an adjustment period going on in Singapore at the moment. Now we’re out of the pandemic bubble and allowed to do what we want again, people’s disposable income – for a while heavily focused on health and wellness – is being spread more broadly as they seek to experience life again, and especially travel. Disposable income remains strong, in spite of inflation going through the roof, but our sector isn’t enjoying as much of it as it has over the last couple of years. 

Customers are also reluctant to sign up for long-term packages now, preferring to pay a premium for smaller packages that make it easier to travel and flex around having to return to the office. 

“Indoor cycling supply has grown to the point that it’s outstripping demand. That’s driving down prices just as inflation is soaring and operating costs rising”

Meanwhile, particularly in indoor cycling, supply has grown to the point that it’s outstripping demand. Our lockdowns weren’t as extended as in other markets – Singapore is small and the population obedient – and people were invested in their health, so many new brands emerged during that time. I would estimate that the number of clubs offering indoor cycling doubled during 2021.

That’s now driving down prices and forcing some closures. People here can afford to pay more, but over-supply is pushing things the other way just as inflation is soaring and operating costs rising. 

All of this is an interesting challenge and one we’re developing strategies to address – focusing on local, residential areas where we can build community engagement, for example.

Then in terms of business costs, electricity prices are up: they had doubled but are currently back down to about 1.5 times what they were. Our rented mall locations prevent us from installing anything like solar power, but we are educating our staff to keep energy usage as low as possible.

We already have LED lighting and non-powered equipment, and as a boutique operation we can turn things off when there are no classes. But we have to deliver a certain level of experience, and air conditioning is a big part of that. We’ve turned the temperature up a couple of degrees in our reception areas, but we can’t allow our workout spaces to become stuffy. Rising electricity prices are simply a bullet we have to bite.

The greater challenge comes in the shape of manpower costs and rent, which are very high in Singapore. We’re identifying unnecessary personnel costs and restructuring accordingly, so we can offer better deals to those who are vital to our operation.

But I’m pragmatic about it all. I’ve run my own company for nine years and I know you can’t always fly high. A lot of people in fitness have only ever known it to be on an upswing, as it was for perhaps five years before COVID, but things can go downhill too, however strong your business and brand. Rather than looking for things to blame it on, you have to be ready to identify the issues and implement change.

The post Adapting to change appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Simon Flint, CEO of Evolution Wellness in South-East Asia. Interview conducted 26 October 2022.

Energy is not currently our primary concern in the markets where we operate: Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. More significant at this stage is the fact we’re still dealing with the legacy of COVID.

Pleasingly, we’re on-track to reach our pre-pandemic bottom line in Indonesia by January 2023, but our other markets are lagging. Cash preservation and very careful deployment of capital remain our primary focus while membership numbers are recovering.

All that said, energy inflation is an increasingly important consideration, with costs starting to rise across all markets, most notably in Singapore. 

“We conducted a pilot to test the impact of some energy initiatives and believe we can make annual savings of US$34,000 per club”

Pre-pandemic, we conducted a pilot in the Philippines, choosing a medium-sized club (1,500sq m) to test the impact of some energy initiatives. We averaged our findings out across club sizes – the different brands and business models in our group – and believe we can make annual savings of US$34,000 per club. When you consider that we have over 100 clubs in our estate, that’s clearly significant.

Breaking this figure down, installing energy-efficient lights and motion sensors can save us US$12,000 per club, with another US$10,000 of savings to be made in our air conditioning and mechanical ventilation. Water efficiencies drive a further US$3,000 of savings. We can save US$3,000 on the use of in-club TV systems. And other operational tweaks – putting saunas and steamrooms on timers, for example – can save on average US$6,000 a year.

Of course, all of this requires capital: it will cost around US$12,000 to upgrade the lighting in a medium-sized club, for example, meaning a year to see a return. But regardless of what we’re paying per unit of energy, regardless of energy inflation, these savings are there for the taking. We’ll start with Singapore and carefully time the roll-out of this work to other markets as we continue to manage our resources.

We also have to recognise that we aren’t the only ones managing our resources at the moment. Faced with inflationary pressures and rumours of an economic downturn, all compounded by COVID, consumers are currently being very careful where they spend their money. In the immediate term, it’s therefore vital that we offer high perceived value. That means maintaining our focus on engagement, return frequency and diversity of training opportunities, and we’re investing in our product as fast as we can in the current climate. That includes enhancing our PT offering with new tech support and bringing Vitruvian’s revolutionary strength and conditioning technology into our clubs, to redefine the way people think about this category. 

We’ve also rolled out modular memberships, whereby members pay only for the products and services they want. Our research indicates that 63 per cent of new joiners on modular memberships would consider upgrading to a full membership in the future – most notably, when their finances allow.

So, I do feel positive as I look forward. I believe consumers are now making health and wellbeing a priority and I’m hopeful that, in time, this will allow us to raise prices in line with inflation – something price sensitivity in most markets has previously prevented us from doing.

The post Savings for the taking appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Antonio Iozzo, founder and CEO of Body Action Gym in South Africa. Interview conducted 2 November 2022.

Ours is a new building that was designed to be as energy-efficient as possible. We were the first building in Africa to have a full FRIT dot façade: little white ceramic dots baked into the double glazing that take up about 30 per cent of the area of the glass. Light still comes through and you can see out, but it saves you around 35 per cent on your heating/cooling costs. Our whole building is fitted with this special glass.

This was definitely not the cheap option – our façade cost 60 per cent more than normal glass – but it will pay back over the long term. It’s also what consumers are beginning to expect, not to mention the right thing to do. 

We’re also off the grid for our water consumption, with two boreholes on the property, and we’ve put as many solar panels on our roof as possible. But honestly, the electricity they generate is just a drop in the ocean of our building’s energy needs. 

Meanwhile, the national energy grid is in chaos. Since before the pandemic, we’ve had power cuts across the country of between three and eight hours a day – the result of a steady decline in the maintenance of electricity power stations over the last three decades. The government is now talking about appointing independent energy providers and letting individuals feed into the grid, but that’s a long way off. 

For now, if you don’t have a big generator, you’re in serious trouble: I’m currently spending around £20,000 (US$22,500) a month on diesel. And that’s on top of electricity, which has almost quadrupled in price with another 25 per cent rise on the cards. I spend around £50,000 (US$56,300) a month on electricity to power our building and we don’t even have a swimming pool in our gym. Clubs that do have pools have mostly stopped heating them now; members have to accept the water temperature as it is.

“Clubs with pools have mostly stopped heating them. Members have to accept the water temperature as it is.”

So it’s fairly doom and gloom in South Africa from an energy perspective. Yet as ridiculous as these costs are, we have to swallow them if we want to keep running our gym. I certainly can’t pass any of the increased costs on to our members, as the pressure on consumers’ disposable income – with inflation close to 20 per cent – means gym membership is already a luxury.

I just have to hope the Competition Commission finds in our favour in March and forces Discovery to extend its gym membership subsidy scheme to other health club brands beyond Virgin Active and Planet Fitness. We’re confident it will, but in the meantime I’ll keep subsidising things myself and focusing on growing our membership base through aggressive marketing. 

And it’s working, because while we continue to invest heavily in the latest and greatest equipment, many gyms here can’t even afford to maintain or repair their current equipment, with ‘out of order’ signs everywhere. Any additional investment secured by our competitors isn’t going to refurbishments or new kit. It’s just keeping their gyms open.

“The gym is subsidised by my other businesses. in the current climate, if it had to stand alone, it would not survive”

So how are we able to keep investing? One simple fact: the gym business isn’t our bread and butter. I run an insurance company here in South Africa, as well as a construction company, with everything in the same building. The gym is subsidised by my other businesses and always had a three-year plan to break even. In the current climate, if it had to stand alone, it would not survive.

The post Building to save appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Simi Williams, founder of Beyond Fitness in Nigeria. Interview conducted 25 October 2022.

We’re experiencing record inflation in Nigeria: double digits across the board, with food and power taking up a higher proportion of people’s monthly budgets. Our culture is to push on through – communities supporting each other rather than expecting relief from the government – yet there’s no getting around the pressure on disposable income right now. Everyone’s feeling the pinch and being very careful with energy usage and food wastage.

Our currency also continues to devalue against the dollar. This combination of inflation and depreciation means international costs and overheads – replacement equipment or lockers, for example, which are always priced in US$ – have tripled in the past year.

Meanwhile, flooding in various parts of the country, including large areas of farmland, is contributing to unemployment, transportation and logistics issues and high food prices, where inflation has reached 23 per cent or more.

“Nigeria has never generated enough electricity. People traditionally used diesel generators to make up the deficit, but diesel prices are up 70%”

So it’s the perfect storm right now, but then consider that Nigeria has never generated enough electricity to meet national requirements. We’ve only ever generated around 3.5GW, which is 10 per cent of what the country needs. People have traditionally used diesel generators to make up the 90 per cent deficit, but with the war in Ukraine, diesel prices are up 70 per cent in 2022 alone – something nobody could have expected or budgeted for. 

Many businesses in Nigeria are therefore looking to renewable energy to reduce their diesel use. Fortunately, when we built Beyond Fitness, we incorporated a solar inverter and battery system as a back-up. When everything is on in the club, the power load is 45kW. However, during our off-peak periods, we can reduce the power load from the building to 12kW, which is our peak solar capacity. This still powers all our critical equipment. 

Our fitness equipment isn’t powered – our bikes, strength room and barre room – so our energy usage is mainly down to cooling costs. For this reason, we’re now being particularly mindful of class times and utilisation rates. We previously had a mid-morning class and were looking to add a lunchtime one, but we can’t meet the cooling costs at these hotter times of day with solar power alone. It just isn’t possible to spec our system to do all the air conditioning. These class times therefore became non-viable, especially given they might only have been 40 per cent full. 

Instead, we’ve worked hard to optimise very early morning and evening classes, getting utilisation rates as high as possible. These times suit our working professional community and I’m hugely grateful for the way they’ve embraced the change. They see Beyond as a place of solace in the face of general uncertainty, are willing to spend on the value we offer, and have supported each other to make the new class times a habit.

We’ve added outdoor classes too, and indoors only use air conditioning where and when necessary. In our changing rooms, for example, we turn it on just before the end of class and leave it on for about an hour after class. Our lighting, air con, hot water for showers… it’s all carefully scheduled around our class timetable and usage data, and this is saving us a lot of money. We’ve also changed team deployment to productively use the new down-time at the club.

Finally, we’re looking to increase our solar capacity. We’re restricted by how much we can put on our roof, but we are considering more solar panels and batteries to generate and store more energy. The more we can go off-grid, mitigating the rising cost of diesel by harvesting solar power, the better. 

The post Heading off-grid appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Jordy Kool, chair of Urban Gym Group in the Netherlands. Interview conducted 2 November 2022.

Urban Gym Group is performing well. Profitability isn’t yet back to pre-COVID levels – not least because we’ve made a number of acquisitions and opened new clubs – but average club attendance is exceeding 2019 levels, driven in particular by our Trainmore brand.

There are a number of headwinds, but decisions we’ve made over the last couple of years are helping us navigate these.

Prices of equipment are up; one supplier has raised its prices by 16 per cent. Fortunately we saw COVID as a time to invest, including new equipment across our estate. In combination with a diversification of our supplier portfolio, we’ve avoided the worst of the price increases.

There’s huge pressure on salaries, too. Our staff make a difference in our business, so we’d already planned to pay them more to help with their own rising costs. However, this is a major consideration for all operators right now.

Rent is also up: in the Netherlands, landlords are allowed to increase rent in line with the consumer price index, which is currently 14 per cent. I’m expecting the government to get involved, so that may change, but meanwhile we’re in a good position: our strong footprint in Amsterdam and our continued growth makes it wise for landlords to support us.

Rising electricity and gas prices are having a huge impact on the sector, but we hedged our costs for the long term and aren’t feeling it yet: at the majority of our clubs, we’re still on the old prices until the end of 2023. 

“We’re doing what we can to lower our energy consumption, including speaking to landlords about co-funding solar panels”

It will come, though, so we’re doing what we can to lower our consumption now: building smarter, including LED lighting, and speaking to landlords about co-funding solar panels, as well as a range of other things. We’re also getting better at simply turning things off when not in use. 

We already removed sunbeds as not core to our healthy offering, and in some clubs removed saunas that weren’t used much to expand the gym. Both decisions, while not driven by energy costs, have positively impacted our energy use.

But some things are harder to control: air conditioning, for example, which members can sometimes even turn on themselves, and the length of people’s post-workout showers. And in the end, however much you try to cut consumption, you still have a service and a product to offer. I can only sympathise with those who have swimming pools to run. 

I’ve been speaking to operators whose electricity bills are five, six, seven times higher than they used to be. You’re never going to be able to compensate for that. Even two or three times will send some businesses into a loss. 

And all of this at a time when interest rates are rising and impacting the ability to raise debt; when customer acquisition costs are going up and lifetime value down as members pay less and don’t stay as long; when over-supply in the boutique segment means aggregators won’t be able to subsidise everyone; and when even high-end wellness operators, unless they have particularly strong margins and non-price sensitive members, will find it tough.

We aren’t exempt from the pressures. We’ve closed two of four standalone High Studios, for example, as they weren’t making a profit, and put the programming into GX studios at our other clubs instead. But we’re in a good position having raised new debt at good rates during COVID. We may not have the deepest pockets, but we  do at least have pockets. We can survive another crisis and make further acquisitions. And we do expect to make acquisitions. How can smaller operators survive in this climate? There’s only so far you can raise prices for the consumer, if at all. 

The post Navigating the headwinds appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Andreas Paulsen, CEO of EuropeActive. Interview conducted 18 October 2022.

Across Europe, we’re seeing governments collaborating and taking extraordinary steps to bring energy prices – particularly electricity and gas – under control. Political efforts are being coordinated through the EU to ensure gas reserves are full, for example, and significant political measures are being taken to bring more energy supply into the market and to temporarily cap energy company profits to quickly bring down consumer prices. 

As a result, we’re seeing gas prices begin to flatten and even fall. This is likely to continue in the coming months as the EU’s domestic production of gas and other types of energy is dramatically increased, reducing reliance on import from places like Russia. 

“If we bring energy under control, it is likely that the cost of living crisis can be brought under control generally”

In the current cost of energy crisis, inflation seems largely centred around energy and food supply, which in turn is directly linked to the situation in Ukraine; it is not general inflation. If we bring energy under control, it is likely that the cost of living crisis can be brought under control generally. 

With this in mind, we cross our fingers that EU and national measures take effect and start to improve the situation quickly. And, of course, we appeal to everyone to take societal responsibility as citizens, reducing daily energy consumption as much as possible.

For our sector, there are significant challenges; for many businesses, they are existential. Yet even amid these challenging circumstances, we must keep fighting and stay focused on our bright future; over the next couple of years, leadership will be defined by effectively addressing current circumstances, turning challenge into opportunity.

I believe one way for our sector to get value from the current situation is to use it to inform our long-term energy and environmental sustainability. We must look at ways to cut superfluous or unnecessary energy consumption, and crucially, we must do it in dialogue with club members, communicating strategically with them both now and moving forward. 

Short term, as a reaction to the current situation, I’m sure most members will understand that tough decisions have to be made. Clubs with facilities like saunas, for example, will likely have to temporarily close them. Open, honest conversations with members will be necessary.

Longer term, it’s about building sustainability into our strategies, looking at things like insulation, smart electricity, heating and water systems. Put together, they can significantly reduce energy consumption and costs. They can also be part of our collective image-building as a sector for the future.

In Denmark, for example, people are being offered government-backed loans to gradually pay back any energy costs that exceed their Q4 2021 baseline. Similar measures are being offered elsewhere in Europe. This represents a valuable opportunity to build cost-reduction measures into our longer-term strategy – starting now – and factor repayments into our recovery plans.

I see a crucial role for industry associations, too. We must actively encourage sharing of best practice among our members and partner associations across Europe, and ensure politicians understand the negative impact on population health that will result from our sector not being able to deliver its services.

I see a very positive future for our sector as we position ourselves as need-to-have health rather than nice-to-have leisure and consumer demand for personalised health and wellbeing continues to grow. But there will be challenges on the way. Overcoming the present need to balance rising energy costs against squeezed disposable income among consumers is unquestionably one of them.

The post Plan for the future, now appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

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