PARSIPPANY, N.J. (BRAIN) — Retailers are pushing Kent International for products bridging the gap between mass market and specialty retail, and the company has hired Craig Hoyt to head up product development for this program.
"We talked about a few different directions on how to elevate our current business and Craig was real passionate about bringing his knowledge to our team," said Scott Kamler, Kent International president.
"We have the license for Goodyear on bicycle tires and tubes. Since Goodyear is probably the biggest name in the tire business, I think it can work in the IBD market. Craig will head up sourcing and create molds for custom tires and tubes that will have higher thread count, great tread designs, tubeless tires and a tube line," Kamler added.
Prior to Kent, Hoyt was the global senior product manager at Cannondale responsible for the Cannondale mountain bike line as well as Cannondale parts and accessories. Before Cannondale, Craig worked for Jamis Bicycles as the senior product manager for mountain bikes where he was on the forefront of the 650b movement. Hoyt also worked at SunRace in OE sales, sales and marketing and product development.
"We've also made good progress with the bikes coming out of our South Carolina plant, BCA. We are getting an incredible amount of calls from IBDs who want bikes from the factory and we are working on developing a line of bikes to be sold into that market," Kamler said.
Kent is looking to offer specialty retailers $299 mountain and road bikes in various sizes and a $199 cruiser, also with different frame sizes.
Hoyt said, "Kent is a respected family-owned business and I see a lot of growth potential here. Additionally on the mass side of things with such a large customer pool there is the potential of being that first bicycle a kid gets, and you don't get that opportunity too often. To get so many people riding and hopefully staying in cycling because of their Kent bike purchase is really exciting."
