My wife is Swedish and we were in Sweden for Christmas in 2005. She mentioned in conversation once how she would like a Skeppshult bike at our home just outside of Melbourne. I thought of buying her one for Christmas and just send it back to Melbourne. However it was actually very expensive to "just" send it back so I thought I'll buy a similar styled bicycle in Australia.

Of course there is a great deal of choice in mountain bikes and road racing bikes but we were soon to find out that there is basically no choice for a premium commuter bike like Skeppshult makes in Australia. Yes, there are a lots of hybrids available but even those are orientated towards somebody who wants to exercise. There is nothing wrong with exercise but what about if you want to ride something with a bit more style that you can easily jump on and off with a low instep?

Of course there may be a very good reason why you don't see bicycles like Skeppshult make sold in Australia, because nobody wants them. After talking to several bike shops and showing them pictures of the Natur, the response was basically the same, "fantastic looking bike, makes a lot of sense but nobody sells that here". In fact, a few shops could not understand why this style of bike is not sold here. So what came first, the chicken or the egg? For this style of bike to be sold here do consumers need to ask retailers to sell it or do importers/retailers need to sell it so consumers become aware of it? We sense that the bicycling culture in Australia is expanding its boundaries and there is room for a brand such as Skeppshult. We soon realised that Skeppshult was an opportunity to be grasped with both hands.

So here we are 2 years later, many conversations, emails and a visit to the Skeppshult factory and we finally have Skeppshult bicycles on Australian soil. Jokingly I thought our catch phrase could be "Skeppshult, easy to ride, hard to pronounce" but my wife gave me a strange look. Cykla is Swedish for "ride a bike" e.g. in Swedish you can say "kan du cykla", can you ride a bike.

For us that's what Skeppshult is about, it's about riding "your" bike. You don't need to set aside time in your calendar, get dressed up in "proper" cycle clothing or time yourself against the stop watch. You should be able to strap on your helmet and ride to the shops to quickly get your bread and milk, drop your child off at kindy, ride to your gym, ride around your park, ride along the water front, ride to the movies or theatre or ride to work. Of course we love to get on a mountain bike and experience the great outdoors like the next person does but if you ask us, a mountain bike looks like a fish out of water in an urban environment.

The next time we were in Sweden our son was 12 months old and we needed a child seat. That's when we discovered the quality of Hamax products. We used a Hamax reclinable child seat and I thought if we ever start a bicycle business we should try and incorporate Hamax products. At the start of 2007 Hamax released the very clever PLUS system which we are now distributors for.