Cyc: We gather you’ve cycled with George W Bush. How did that happen?
John Burke: I was on the President’s Council of Physical Fitness. Back then George W Bush was a big runner but he was having problems with his knee. I sent a note to someone who knew him that he should get a bicycle – the White House called about 20 minutes later. So all of a sudden he got into biking, and he turned out to become a huge mountain biker, so I’d go down there and ride with him once in a while. We would discuss all sorts of things. He was great fun to ride with. There would usually be a group of eight or so and he would just hammer it and if you got dropped you were kind of out.
Cyc: Did it offer him a perspective on cycling and its role in transport?
JB: Not really. He just loved to ride.
Cyc: Was there a presidential security team in tow?
JB: Yeah, there would be some secret service guys on the bikes. Man, those guys would try so hard to keep up. His goal was always to drop the secret service guys.
Cyc: How is Trek today different from Trek a decade ago?
JB: The product has moved on a lot. We’ve developed the capabilities to design and build the best bikes in the world. Whether it’s on the mountain bike side or the road bike side, the stuff is amazing and it just keeps getting better. That wasn’t the case 10 years ago.
Cyc: Why hasn’t Trek gone down the route of other brands, such as Specialized, who have moved all production to the Far East?
JB: Specialized doesn’t physically make anything [in the US]. They’re really good at what they do, and they’re definitely very good at marketing, but we actually make things right here in this facility. That helps for those products that we make in the Far East too – it means we can add technology and features we otherwise wouldn’t be able to. It’s not only an amazing high-end bike factory but it’s an amazing R&D facility. You can only get those R&D benefits if you make stuff on site.
Cyc: Which products excite you most?
JB: The new Madone. Just look at the bike – I mean, it’s an amazing looking bike, and then you take a look at the technology that’s gone into it. When Trek came out with the Y bike in 1995, that was a really cool bike and was well ahead of its time in a lot of different ways. If I take a look at the new Madone, it has that same striking element to it.
Cyc: What do you consider the most competitive part of the market?
JB: That target always changes. There are certain things that are harder than others, but it all depends on what your capabilities are too. Wheels are definitely hard, but the work we’re doing on road wheels is phenomenal.
Cyc: What do you see as the big issues facing the future of Trek?
JB: We create a lot of different products and being able to focus in and execute that in every single area is a big challenge. Another big issue in the wider picture of people riding bikes is safety. People competing with cars for space on the road – for me that’s a really big deal.
Cyc: How do you work as a brand to try to deal with that problem of rider safety?
JB: I think safety has been a growing problem in cycling. We have a lot of political involvement in road safety – in the USA that’s where we’re active. I see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not a train. I think there’s a convergence of two things going on. Things like our Flare back light – you can see it from about 2km away – makes a massive difference. Not a little bit of difference, a massive difference. I think you’re going to see better versions of this. You’re going to see technology in cars sooner rather than later that’s going to show up on your dashboard that there’s a cyclist 100m away. And you’re going to have more infrastructure built that’s going to make cycling safer. I’m optimistic.
Cyc: Do you think the decision to fund Trek Factory Racing exclusively back in 2014 was a good investment?
JB: I’ll tell you something, it’s been an amazing learning experience, and that’s where it’s really paid off the most. Sometimes you do business deals and you enter it thinking the benefit is going to be the brand and what you really get out of the deal is the factory. With Trek Factory Racing, rather than branding, one of the huge benefits has been product development. Much more so than we would have imagined. If nothing else, we’ve got 28 Trek athletes who are testing our product every day, and then when you have a new product that you want tested, it’s a phone call away and it gets done when you want it. We didn’t have that before and that is really good.
Cyc: Despite all that’s happened, are you still proud of the bikes you made for Lance Armstrong?
JB: I think it’s a piece of history, and I love history. You see those bikes and what those bikes are part of – there was a good part and a bad part. We did some really great work on those bikes, but we do some really good work today too. We like to look forward. There are great athletes who are riding Treks now who are crucial to what that means today. You see Fabian and what Fabian does and what he’s helped this company do. Equally I’m so happy with our association with Jens Voigt. I mean that guy is… what a great person.