I think we can all remember when we first started to see Cush Core hit the scene. One of your riding buddies had gotten it and was begging to swear by the product as “the best thing they had bought for themselves in years”. These tire inserts were game changing, protecting their rims, and allowing them to run lower pressure without getting tire squirm. No more cracked rims, this is a downhill rider's dream and slowly you started to see Cush Core grow in the scene. I even knew so many riders out there that would run only one Cush Core in the rear. After all, this is where most impact happens, and if you want some rim protections and tire support that is the place to get it.
Fast forward a little bit and we stopped by Cush Core on a road trip on our way to BC. We got to take an HQ tour, and I remember when we were talking with them something they stressed to us was that Cush Core wasn’t just rim protection, it was tire suspension. Rim protection seemed to them as a bonus, but what they wanted stressed to us was that first and foremost, Cush Core is tire suspension and is intended to only be run as a set, not just one at a time.
"...Cush Core is tire suspension and is intended to only be run as a set, not just one at a time."
Both of these things were news to me as I hadn’t heard any of that from any of my riding buddies who had bragged about Cush Core. Cush Core to them was rim protection and for most of my riding buddies you only needed one.
Looking at their website, it seems like this is still the case. Rim protection is definitely not the center of attention on most of the website. In fact, if you go to the “How it Works” tab, most of that page is them breaking down how the inserts work as a suspension performance enhancement, and the main focus is on both impact absorption, as well as suspension testing. Sure there is a bit of a mention of rim protection, however it's very clear here, this is a ride enhancement. There isn't even a mention about no more flat tires, which was probably the biggest thing my buddies who ran Cush Core would always brag about. Looking at a different tire insert company's website Tannus Armour, who makes tire inserts, it's very apparent, the marketing goal here is no more flat tires.
So I guess that takes us to my question of the day. What do you do as a bike company if you come up with a cool invention, and it takes off, but for a reason that wasn’t your initial intention? Do you run with it and change the marketing strategy? Or do you spend more time educating the market to what your product actually is? I think the easy way out here would be to run with the market and change the marketing strategy. After all, if someone wants to buy your product for x reason, and x reason is just an added benefit of why you created it, at the end of the day a sale is a sale, right? But something that I have to give kudos to Cush Core for doing, is not taking the easy way out. Because I remember so vividly that day while meeting them, that misconception really did bug them. And looking at their website, they are still going strong with the education on improved suspension performance through tire inserts.
But if you were Cush Core, what would you have done?
Check out Cush Core here
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