IN BRIEF
Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative, the Scottish chain of bike shops founded in 1977, was placed into administration on 1 October and sold the next day to Rothar26, a company run by its managing director Alan Nestor. Four shops remain open: Bruntsfield, Newcastle, Giant Store Edinburgh and Giant Store Stirling. Aberdeen and the distribution centre are closing, and 25 staff have been made redundant. The administrators’ statement says 35 staff are transferring to the buyer along with the four shops. The buyer is a private company: the business is no longer a co-operative, but the administrators’ statement says trading continues under the Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative brand.
Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative is changing hands, and changing its nature. Administrators Alistair McAlinden and James Dewar, of the firm Interpath, were appointed on 1 October 2026 and on 2 October completed the sale of the business and certain assets to Rothar26 Limited, a company run by Alan Nestor, the co-operative’s managing director. Road.cc sees it as a sale apparently arranged in advance, which it describes as a “pre-pack”.
Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative: four shops out of six
The administrators’ statement, published by Deadline News, says the business operated six shops and a distribution centre in Newbridge. The Canonmills shop, in Edinburgh, had already closed before their appointment. The statement specifies that the Aberdeen shop and the distribution centre are excluded from the transaction and have closed. The 25 remaining employees have been made redundant. Deadline News also notes that the Leeds shop closed last year.
Four shops pass to the buyer: Bruntsfield, Newcastle, Giant Store Edinburgh and Giant Store Stirling. Customers who have placed an order or left a bike in the workshop will be served as normal. “Unfortunately, the economics of the business meant that not all operations could be rescued”, write the administrators, who say their priority is to support affected staff in making claims to the Redundancy Payments Service.
Losses the turnaround plan failed to stem
The statement attributes the failure to sustained trading losses, which created cash-flow difficulties despite a turnaround plan launched by management. The latest available accounts, for the year ended 30 November 2024, show 74 employees and an operating loss of £760,727, on turnover of £6.7 million, which Co-operative News rounds to £6.8 million, noting that it reached £7.14 million the previous year.
Alan Nestor, who has worked for the co-operative for more than thirty years, spoke in a statement reported by road.cc:
“Despite everyone’s best efforts, we reached a point where the business had to enter administration. That is incredibly hard to say. Many of us have been in the business many years.”
Alan Nestor, managing director of Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative
He says he is “heartbroken” that more colleagues and more shops could not come with them.
From co-operative to private company
Founded in 1977 in Edinburgh as a repair workshop under the name Recycles, the business was registered as a Community Benefit Society, a British co-operative form. Road.cc notes that Rothar26 is a private limited company, of which Alan Nestor is the sole director, and that it was incorporated on 18 September, the very day of the deadline the business had set itself to find a buyer. The site also reports that the Scottish cycling blog The Press Room wrote on Facebook that staff had learned of their redundancy without notice.
