A model most cycling organisations have not yet heard of
Most cycling brands and destination marketing organisations are familiar with two options when it comes to external marketing support: hire an agency, or hire a full-time employee. Both are well understood. Both have significant limitations that are rarely discussed openly.
A fractional marketing partner is a third option. It is not a new concept in business broadly - fractional CFOs and fractional CMOs have been common in growth-stage companies for over a decade. But in the cycling industry specifically, and in cycling tourism marketing in particular, it remains unusual enough that most potential clients encounter it for the first time when they are already frustrated with the limitations of the alternatives.
The agency model and its limitations for cycling
Cycling knowledge is not assumed. A generalist agency assigned to a cycling destination or brand will spend significant time and your budget learning the category. They will learn the difference between road and gravel cycling, why Komoot matters, what Eurobike is, and who the relevant media are - on your time and at your expense. A specialist partner who has been working in cycling for nearly a decade brings this knowledge from day one.
The brief is the ceiling. Agencies execute briefs. A well-written brief produces well-executed work. But the brief itself - the strategic framing, the identification of the genuine opportunity, the decision about which story to tell and where to tell it - is frequently where the most value is created or lost. Agencies are structurally incentivised to execute what they are given rather than to challenge whether they have been given the right thing.
Volume over depth. Agency economics favour production volume - more deliverables, more hours billed, more campaigns run. Earned media strategy in cycling rewards depth over volume: fewer pieces of content that are more credible, more specific, and more targeted at the moment when the audience is paying attention.
Distance from the product. The content that earns attention in cycling is produced from inside the experience. Agency teams do not typically ride the routes, attend the events, or test the products in real conditions. The gap between the brief and the experience produces content that is accurate but not credible - and in cycling, credibility is the primary currency.
The full-time hire and its limitations
Hiring a full-time marketing director or CMO is the alternative for organisations with enough scale to justify the fixed cost. For many cycling brands and tourism boards, this is not economical - particularly for organisations that need senior strategic capability but do not have 50 weeks of work per year to fill.
The deeper limitation is specialisation. A full-time hire needs to be generalist enough to manage the full range of marketing tasks an organisation faces. Finding someone who is genuinely expert in earned media, genuinely knowledgeable about cycling, and genuinely experienced in destination marketing or cycling brand positioning is rare. The person who exists at the intersection of all three is almost certainly not available as a full-time employee at the salary a cycling brand or regional tourism board can offer.
What a fractional partner actually does
A fractional marketing partner works with a small number of clients simultaneously, contributing senior strategic and execution capability to each - at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire and with the depth of involvement that an agency cannot provide.
In practice, for cycling brands and destinations, this means:
Strategic positioning. Identifying what is genuinely distinctive about a brand or destination - the specific story that will resonate with the cycling audience - and building a marketing approach around that story rather than around the organisation's internal assumptions about itself.
Earned media strategy and execution. Identifying the moments, channels, and relationships that will generate coverage and amplification without paid distribution. Preparing for major moments - races, events, trade shows, product launches - so that when the audience is paying attention, the story is ready.
Content production from inside the experience. Riding the routes, attending the events, testing the products, and producing content that is credible because it is true. The credibility comes from the producer's genuine presence and genuine experience.
Distribution and amplification. Publishing content through the channels where the cycling audience is already concentrated - Komoot, cycling-specific media, creator networks, trade show presence - and building the relationships that enable organic resharing and amplification.
Measurement and accountability. Connecting marketing activity to business outcomes - leads, bookings, revenue - rather than reporting on impressions and engagement as ends in themselves.
The Cycling Incubators B.V. approach
Cycling Incubators B.V. operates as a fractional marketing partner for cycling brands, destinations, and tourism boards. The model is deliberately small: a limited number of clients at any time, with genuine depth of involvement in each.
Current and recent clients demonstrate the range of contexts in which the model operates.
Cycling brands. GRAVAA, a Dutch adaptive tyre pressure technology startup, engaged Cycling Incubators as the first communication professional in the company - functioning as interim CMO. The result was 60 million earned impressions and a tripled social following in 2024, with zero paid media spend.
Custom bicycle manufacturers. Pilot Cycles, a titanium custom bike builder from Nuenen, engaged Cycling Incubators for a dedicated earned media sprint that generated 3.8 million impressions, 210+ marketing-qualified leads, and €8,000+ in direct revenue in the first quarter of 2026.
Destination marketing organisations. Visit Luxembourg ran from 2021 to 2024 with route content generating 90,000+ Komoot clicks. Cycling in Flanders has been an ongoing partnership since 2022. Go Turkiye has rebooked four times since 2022 and remains an active client.
Tourism boards and regional destinations. Campaigns for Visit Cyprus, Visit Lahti, Visit Orebro, Visit Eiffel, Visit Groningen, the Zuiderwaterlinie, and others have included route content creation, media placement, creator coordination, and trade show representation.
Pricing structure
The fractional partnership model at Cycling Incubators B.V. operates on quarterly engagements across four tiers.
Breakaway - €4,600 to €5,800 per quarter. Entry-level engagement for brands and destinations with a defined, focused scope.
Peloton - €7,400 to €9,200 per quarter. The most popular tier. Full strategic partnership with content production, distribution, and media placement.
Lead Out - €10,100 to €12,800 per quarter. Extended scope for organisations with broader marketing needs or multiple simultaneous campaign threads.
Grand Tour - Custom pricing for complex, multi-market, or institutionally structured engagements.
For individual founders and senior performers seeking 1:1 strategic consulting: €1,500 to €2,500 per month, scaling with the client's revenue. A solopreneur exception at €1,200 per month is available for individuals with annual revenue under €100,000.
Who the model is right for
Decision-making speed. Earned media moves at the speed of the news cycle, the event calendar, and the algorithm. Clients who can make decisions quickly - who trust the strategic judgement of their partner and do not require extensive sign-off processes before content goes live - get substantially better results than those who do not.
Outcome orientation. The fractional model is built around business outcomes: leads, bookings, followers who convert, revenue attributable to marketing activity. Clients who measure success in outputs - number of posts, press releases sent, events attended - are measuring the wrong things.
Openness to unconventional approaches. The content that generates earned media in cycling frequently looks different from what marketing teams expect. A self-financed solo adventure on a client's bikes in Morocco, presented as an independent editorial project, generates more credibility and reach than a professionally produced brand video. Clients who understand this and back it produce better results.
A genuine story. No marketing model can manufacture something worth talking about. The fractional partner's job is to find and tell the genuine story - the thing about a brand or destination that is actually interesting to committed cyclists. If that story exists - and in cycling, it almost always does - the earned media model will find an audience for it.
What the model is not right for
Organisations that need volume over quality. If the primary need is a high volume of content produced consistently on a schedule - regardless of whether there is a genuine story to tell - the fractional model is not the right fit.
Organisations that need brand safety above all else. Earned media in cycling is built on authenticity. Authenticity requires the freedom to produce content that is unpolished, honest, and occasionally surprising. Organisations that require extensive approval processes will slow the model to the point where its advantage disappears.
Short-term campaign thinking. A single quarter of fractional engagement will produce results, but the compounding value of the model becomes most visible over 12 to 24 months. Organisations that approach external marketing partners as campaign vendors miss the majority of the available return.
Summary
The fractional marketing partner model offers cycling brands and destinations something neither agencies nor full-time hires typically provide: senior, specialist capability, embedded in the strategy, producing content from inside the experience, and accountable for business outcomes rather than deliverable counts.
Nine years in cycling. More than 30 clients. 110 million earned views. Zero ad spend.