Would a celebrity endorsed bike be your first pick?

A few years ago I met a bloke from Halfords who was involved in the marketing of their bike range. We were chatting away and got on to the subject of their offer. He asked me what my view was of Halfords and what they should do to improve their lot. They'd clearly seen the growth in Bike sales happening but were lumbered with the association of being a car accessories store which sold bikes on the side. At the time I think I muttered something about 'improve the product cos people think it's shit'.
It's interesting to look back at that time and see what they did do: got celeb endorsement to drive sales.
And so was born the Boardman bike range.
Now I'm sure Halfords and Chris Boardman would stress that Chris had a huge hand in the design and development of these bikes and he probably had some to the extent of saying 'I'm not putting my name to any old rubbish'.
It's clearly worked for them both: the bikes are very nice indeed and they sell like hot cakes. 

More recently, Evans Cycles has taken the same approach and reeled in Chris Hoy to back up their range. Looking a bit further back, Greg's Trek-made Lemond range came a cropper when he slagged off Lance and there are of course the Merckx bikes which have been doing the rounds for a good few years.
So, do the moves by Halfords and Evans signal a significant change in the approach of big retail?
Well, yeah, but as the two other examples show it's nothing new. 
There's something about celeb endorsement which just fails to excite me. I guess the idea is that, if Chris Boardman is willing to put his name to something then it must be OK for me to buy and ride.
And, for me, that's at the heart of everything that's wrong with the approach. If you are unwilling to spend a bit of time looking around two or three bike shops, asking a few questions or using the web for research, then you're probably not really that interested in bikes and cycling. So, in my view, the celeb approach puts off as many as it attracts. But I'm probably wrong, it probably puts off far fewer.
There probably is a bit of snobbery on my part here and I would undoubtedly ride any of the bikes mentioned above, they just wouldn't be my first pick.

Chris Hoy visits Manchester Arndale

Chris Hoy is putting in an appearance at Waterstones in the Arndale tomorrow evening.  He '...will be signing copies of his fully update (sic) autobiography "The Autobiography of Britain's Most Successful Ever Olympian." Let's hope the proof reader did a better job on the book compared to the flyer (meeeee-ooowwww).

A Hoy, there

I was lucky enough to meet Mr Hoy a few years back when I was doing PR for a regional car dealer. They'd borrowed Chris a motor in return for doing a photo at the Velodrome - it made the MEN as I recall.
The one remarkable thing about him, apart from being a nice bloke, was that I expected him to be huge and he wasn't. There's a tendency to expect famous people to be massive - or at least bigger than they really are - apart from Ronnie Corbett.
Let's hope Chris gets a decent crowd.