After Chaos in the Cycling Industry, This Executive is Ready for a Rebound

We sat down with Shimano’s Road Sports Marketing Specialist, Meredith Miller, and learned how she navigated the cycling’s Covid chaos, her thoughts on separate IRONMAN World Championships for men and women, and her thoughts on the state of the cycling industry. 

How did you go from being a pro cyclist to working in sports marketing with Shimano?

Going way, way, way back to 1996, I had just graduated from UW-Madison where I played college soccer. At that time, there wasn’t a women’s pro soccer league in the US, so I was looking for the “next thing”. I had been an athlete since I was six and knew I needed something else to fuel my competitive spirit and athletic mind. I had seen some friends racing bikes and was sort of fascinated with it. And, without knowing a single thing about bike racing, I picked up my first road bike to start racing. It wasn’t “let’s just ride bikes first to see how it goes”. It was all about jumping headfirst into racing.  

• I raced on the road for 10 years in the US and Europe, eventually picked up cyclocross, and raced both road and cross for about six years. In 2011, I even jumped into the US Mountain Bike National Championships. 

2016 is when I retired from professional bike racing. My last race was the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in Zolder, Belgium, in January 2016.

In 2017, Rapha opened up a clubhouse here in Boulder and I was hired as the community events organizer. I was planning a lot of events at the clubhouse with guests such as local pros Alex Howes and Lachlan Morton along with characters from local businesses like Bobby Stuckey from Frasca. And I was leading a lot of weekly rides from the Clubhouse that included local Front Range cyclists as well as visitors from around the globe. We had a lot of rides going strong for a solid three years before Covid hit. It truly was community building at its best!

• And then in late 2020, I saw a posting for a sports marketing position at Shimano and applied for that. And, as they say, the rest is history. 

What's been the biggest challenge for you in this role so far?

A few things come to mind. The big one was that I started during the pandemic. Learning a new job from a remote location while doing it all over Zoom calls was incredibly challenging. 

I wasn’t able to go into the office, sit next to my coworkers and be like “what does this part number mean?” Haha these order forms are quite complicated and just starting out it was a process to know the specific part number without actually having the description next to it. 

• I also had never really done a lot of work on my own bikes, so I had to learn how everything from the bottom brackets, to brake pads, chains, etc. worked together!

And more specific to sports marketing was the creation of a program that covers road, gravel, cyclocross, and triathlon. It’s a big program, so an ongoing, and important challenge has been staying in touch with and developing relationships with all of our athletes.

What’s your favorite Shimano product at the moment?

One of the things that I think people are less informed about is the Shimano E-Tube app which allows users to customize the different buttons and troubleshoot issues across multiple bikes. From within the app, you can customize the buttons to perform different functions (ie, I switch my front derailleur buttons to do the opposite from the default settings.), optimize your shifting speed, connect the Di2 to your head unit to check things like battery life, etc. 

• If you’re a tech guru or data geek, you can really get into the weeds with all the things the e-tube app has to offer. 

What's your most memorable triathlon experience so far?

To be honest, I knew nothing about triathlon before coming to Shimano. I mean I’d trained with a handful of triathletes here in Boulder like Cam Dye and Flora Duffy back in the day. And so I was aware of who some of these triathletes were, but I really couldn't have told you the actual distances or what the races they were competing in. 

My first race with Shimano was the IRONMAN World Championships in St. George. Being there was eye-opening for me not only from the pro level but all the age group athletes and the sheer number of competitors.

A big takeaway for me at that event was just how few triathletes travel with their own mechanic. Even the best in the world! Coming from a road and cyclocross background, we didn’t travel anywhere without a team mechanic so this really blew my mind. The fact that Shimano has offered neutral support for the pros, regardless of their sponsors, at the IRONMAN World Championships (and the age groupers at Kona) for many years is a small way to make sure everyone rocks up to the start feeling confident in their equipment. 

• And that’s actually something I’d like to improve on in my role at Shimano is being more available to the athletes at major events.

Going to Kona for the first time was also pretty crazy! And my first time at Kona was in 2022 when they had the women’s race on Thursday and the men’s race on Saturday. So I never experienced Kona when it was everybody all on the same day the way most people have.

What are your thoughts on separate race days for the men and women?

I feel like there's so many mixed opinions. I like having my own race. As a woman I like being able to actually be the first one across the finish line. But some women want the crowds, want the whole excitement of being out there on the same day as the men. I can understand it both ways.

• Back in my day, there weren’t many people coming out to cheer on the women. It was kind of crickets out there. And for sure there was little to no TV coverage. But then we’d have some races like Flanders or Fleche Wallonne that were on the same day as the men and immediately you could feel a different energy. The crowds were bigger, the fans were louder and you felt like you were racing for more than just yourself or your team.

The scene has changed and now you see many women’s races on TV, the crowds come out specifically to see the women, but there’s still work to be done. And as for IRONMAN being split between Kona and Nice, time will tell if it will work, but my gut feeling tells me it will all come back together in the future. 

Are you planning on going to any races this year?

I was hoping to get to some T100 races, but unfortunately all three U.S. races conflicted with a previously scheduled event. 

• I've never been to a PTO event, so it was too bad as I kind of want to see what the T100 vibe is like.

Traditionally we go to the IRONMAN World Championships. I’m really looking forward to being at all three world championship events between Nice, Kona and Taupo. 

After a few crazy years, what’s your sense of where things are at in the cycling industry?

The cycling industry is currently digging itself out of a big hole after the huge boom from Covid. At first, everyone thought the industry was going to shut down. Then people realized being outside was the one thing that you could do. Cycling was one of a handful of industries that had a total boom. Bike sales, bike parts, everything, whatever it was, it was selling like crazy.

• Selling used parts for more than retail was not uncommon. It was a crazy time.

And then, all these people who bought their first bike after 10, 20 years well, they’re not buying another bike the next year or the year after that. Companies ended up with way too much inventory and that has been very expensive. No one wants to sell product at a discount but it’s what brands had to do to move product, to free up warehouse space. It wasn’t good and the industry is still bouncing back from that. 

• A lot of brands had to buy, rent or lease secondary or even third warehouses to hold all the products that they had ordered. The overhead cost of keeping all that equipment in  warehouses led to businesses closing and brands having to do major layoffs.

Shimano is a very conservative Japanese owned company, and we pretty much just stayed steady in our forecasting and our purchasing. Along with everyone else though, we had our own issues, and we’ve had to figure out our own way of navigating back to “normal”.

The industry feels like it’s starting to bounce back now. In April we were at Sea Otter which is basically the only industry trade show in the US right now. And there were well over 70,000 people there. 

• There is still excitement about the bike industry. People still want to buy. People still want to ride. Brands still want to put out new products. We're just trying to find our feet again now.

What are some key Shimano initiatives you’re working on?

This isn’t relevant to triathlon, but right now we’re putting a lot of effort into the gravel side of cycling - especially in North America which is a hotbed for all things gravel. 

• It’s a growing segment where Shimano offers gravel-specific drivetrains, footwear, and even apparel. 

And, I’ll add that a good majority of our triathletes also have a gravel bike to keep things fresh!