The Business - Silverfish UK

In another brand new feature to MoreDirt we take you behind the doors of some of the companies that make the UK MTB scene the well oiled machine that it is... First up Silverfish a distributor for the likes of Yeti, Mondraker, SDG and loads more!

A few weeks ago we dispatched Angus down into Cornwall to visit Silverfish one of the UK’s largest distributor to the Mountain Bike trade!

He caught up with Marketing Manager Pete Drew to find out a little more about Silverfish and what goes on there…

Who are Silverfish?!

Silverfish have been around since just before the turn of the millennium in 1999. Originally bringing in just a few select Canadian brands to UK shores, things have rapidly expanded along with the explosion in the worldwide mountain biking scene and are now the UK face and hold exclusive distribution rights for the likes of Yeti, Mondraker, Evil, E thirteen, Formula just to name a few!

It’s quite unlikely that you (the consumer) will ever have much direct contact with a distributor similar to Silverfish unless unfortunately you ever have to make a warranty claim but without these guys your local bikeshop or favourite online retailer wouldn’t be able to get hold of any products from the factory!

What actually happens at Silverfish?

Well in simple terms, it’s a set of lovely office’s that house everyone from marketing, logistics, sales, the managing director, every other roll a company needs and 2 very lovely dogs with a large and incredibly organised warehouse that stocks all of their great products ready to be dispatched to a dealer for sale to the public.

The warehouse is a bit of a rabbit warren with every bit of space being put to use!

Products

The warehouse runs like most warehouse’s on a numbering system so that when an order comes in, one of the pickers can walk up and down the isles and grab contents of the order contains based on a code. This code however, tells them what product is required down to very specific detail.

Plenty of storage!

For example… Race Face Evolve cranks, that should be simple enough right? The code would tell you that a set of Race Face Evolve cranks were required but that code would also specify the desired colour, bolt pattern, crank arm length, chain ring size and bottom bracket spacing. There are far more possible variations than I had ever conceived and that was only for one product… Never mind whole ranges of products from the almost 20 brands Silverfish look after.

The warehouse is even arranged in such a fashion that the more popular products are closer to the packing station to save time. It’s one hell of a slick operation and certainly one that I had never even began to appreciate before my visit.

Need a small part? Silverfish have you covered!

On the end of the isles there were racks with hundreds of small boxes once again all with codes. These pots contained every small part that you could ever need to source for a bike from one of the Silverfish brands. There was everything from bearings suitable for the latest Yeti SB-95C trail bike down to a bolt on the lower linkage of a Turner DHR downhill bike. If you ever have a need for it… A part in one of these pots probably has you covered.

From the brand new Evil Undead...

...To this sweet retro Yeti ARC, Silverfish certainly had some goodies!

Insanely I didn’t even get a chance to see it all! Silverfish have another whole warehouse on the other side of town which features even more of the same as there just isn’t the space to meet the demands of consumers on such a large range of products.

The Workshop

At the end of the warehouse there is a workshop of pretty good size which is where warranty claims on the likes of Formula brakes and E thirteen are assessed, bikes built up and some of the staff bikes and demo fleet are maintained and kept in top working order ready for their next outing!

The workshop continues out into the field at race weekends in the fleet of vehicles that Silverfish have at their disposal!

Whether that’s a VW Transporter painted up in brand livery to get to shows, races and out to the dealers or their brand new fully zombied Renault truck that you will no doubt see at demo days and out mechanicing for supported riders at race weekends.

The truck has been fully customized for purpose and even has a split level floor that means they can carry 2 complete layers of bikes in on top of eachother!

When its finished carrying bikes you can roll out the awning and it doubles as a fully kitted out workshop complete with toolbox, parts washer, air compressor and just about everything else you could possibly ever need for a weekend at the races.

Conclusion…

So there we have it! A small sneak insiders look into what goes on behind the scenes at Silverfish and how your local bikeshops get hold of all the latest shiny bits of kit for you to snap up and get them onboard your bike. it would be very easy to become a bit blasé about some of the stuff these guys are surrounded by on a daily basis and the scale of the whole opperation. I probably won’t see this much bike kit in one location for quite some time again!

Meet Ben... The office dog!

A big thanks to Pete and everyone at Silverfish for letting us come down and snoop around!