You might have noticed in the most recent issue of Ride that there was a complete bike review on a new complete bike that 24Seven is offering to the market. You may have also noticed the line “24Seven are making a very serious entry into the BMX world” [Ride issue 131 page 48]
I had always seen and thought of 24Seven as a jump bike brand but always admired them for producing decent components from what I’ve seen of jump bikes being a BMX rider myself. This you’ll find is supported by what is said in the Bike Test article of Ride issue 131 with regards to 24Seven focussing more on function, quality and providing great value to their customers.
With the above being said I took it upon myself to find out if 24Seven really are trying to branch out and make more of an impact into the BMX industry and if so, what they have in the works. Below are some questions I put forward to Tom at 24Seven. Thanks go to Tom for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer these questions.
1. Who are you?
I’m Tom from 24Seven, I’m the general manager/dogsbody. I’ve worked here for about 4 years now and took over about a year ago when Fraser (the guy who started 24seven) left to start his new business.
2. How long have you been around?
24Seven has been going for just over 10 years, starting off with dirt jump and 4x mountain bikes and more recently moving on to include freeride bikes and BMX’s. We sell most of our products direct, this means we don’t have to add on a dealer margin so our products work out cheaper to the consumer.
3. Where are you based?
Our office/warehouse is near Southport in the North West of England, its actually on a leisure park with a load of wanna be cowboys living nearby. It not unusual to see people walking round outside with full on cowboy getup complete with shotguns and pistols. They even have gunfights at the weekends. Weird.
4. What do you do at 24Seven? Describe a typical day.
Get the kettle on and make a coffee, then its on to the e-mails. After they are taken care of, the orders for the day are processed and given to our mechanic (also called Tom, it can get confusing!) to check over and send out. Generally the afternoons are taken up with website stuff, product development, organising shipments, team rider stuff, depending on what needs doing at the time. Then there’s filming trips, photo sessions, bike shows, events etc so it can be quite varied and fun. Being tricked into eating fish eyeballs by our agent whilst over in Taiwan was a bit of a bummer though.
5. I have seen recently that 24Seven is starting to pop up more in BMX, have you always made BMX components and bikes?We made our first BMX 2-3 years ago, we wanted to put together a decent affordable starter bike that wasn’t going to fall apart after 10 minutes. Dirt jump mountain bikes tend to cost quite a lot for even an entry level bike as you have to factor in suspension forks etc and this can put them out of reach for a lot of riders. Most of the parts fitted to our jump bikes are used on BMX’s too, also the frame construction is very similar so it made sense for us to give it a go.
6. Are you trying to move more into BMX now? As you are predominantly known for providing to the MTB scene aren’t you?
Our focus has always been jump bikes and we were one of the first companies to make mountain bikes specifically for dirt jumping so I wouldn’t call us a mountain bike company in the general term. We certainly haven’t been making bikes for lycra clad cross country racers or anything like that. I would say we are a jump bike company.
Our approach is pretty grass roots, hopefully letting our products and riders do the talking rather than any big budget marketing campaigns. Basically we are about having a laugh on your bike with your mates.
7. What kind of components do you provide currently for BMX?
At the moment we just make complete bikes. We might run out a few limited edition parts every once in a while though.
8. Have you got anything currently in the works?
We’re putting together a team web video that’s being filmed locally as well round the UK and the USA. There should be a teaser online within a month with the full edit following on some time before Christmas.
We are also waiting for some new proto frames to come over that should be pretty cool, they’ve been designed with the input of our riders and if all goes well might feature on a complete team edition bike in the next year or so.
9. Where can people get your stuff at the moment?
You can get our products direct from us through our website or by calling us on the phone, we send bikes out fully built next day delivery. Alternatively you can get them from any Leisure Lakes Bikes store.
10. Any shout outs?
I’d like to thank everyone who’s bought our products over the years, all the riders we’ve had for their input, Fraser, Tom J, our current team (Formby Jay, Neil Maher, Ste Griffiths and Shaun McCracken), Goose and everyone at Leisure Lakes Bikes.
