Hyper’s dR Bike Commercial Takes The Stage on Walmart.com

If you were at ABA’s Gator Nationals in Oldsmar, and hung around after Saturday’s race, you were able to watch the film crew do their thing with the Hyper dR replica being sold at Walmart, and on walmart.com. Donny, himself was in the house to do the riding, and a few other riders have brief cameo appearances (a quickie of Nic Long (or was that Nikki Short?) and Connor Fields), as well as a fist-bump with dR and a presumed rookie, mounted on the scoot, decked head to toe in Fly gear.

The 30-second spot is currently available on Walmart.com as a “video demo,” and can be viewed at the link below:

Watch the Hyper dR Replica Commercial

Another interesting tidbit is that, in the commercial, we now see that the NBL is also involved in the 30-Day Free membership offering, and their logo is present in the intro and outro of the spot, as well as in the voiceover.

In reading the comments on the product detail page at the link above, we see that comments from people who have purchased the bike are unanimously favorable. If you have purchased one of the bikes, please make your positive comments known, as they definitely influence people pondering a “buy now” click.

—Mike Carruth

Walmart goes Hyper with Donny Replica

BMX Racing has a rich history of “replica” bikes, dating back to the mid 1970s. The definition of a “replica” is, traditionally, a bike produced during the career of a famous rider or team, in the style and image of the bike that the rider is actually riding at the time. Hyper Bicycles has stayed graphically true to that tradition with the forthcoming release of a Donny Robinson Replica complete bike, out this March. The added bit of news on this project is that the bike will be marketed through Walmart stores nationwide. With millions of shoppers per day chain-wide, the dR Replica has a chance to put BMX Racing in front of a massive audience.

Though the initial rollout this March will be a market test to gauge consumer interest, it is still hitting 314 stores, which is bigger than most chains, in itself. Based on this test, Walmart will evaluate whether the bike gets a chain-wide rollout.

According to Donny, himself, on last week’s episode of our “Announcers Tower” Podcast, “This is the lightest bike on the (mass) market…I could easily run the frame—it’s an aluminum frame.”

It is clear that, by way of this model, Hyper hopes to sell some bikes. Commerce is a beautiful thing. But it goes beyond that. We see them making efforts to move merch, yes…but also to promote the sport of BMX Racing to a broad, general interest audience, who may not otherwise know about the sport.

And when promoting the sport is the topic of discussion, you know the ABA is never far off the lead. They have joined with Hyper to create a hangtag to go on all of the bikes on Walmart’s floor. The hangtag offers a free 30-day ABA membership with purchase of the bike—helping break down barriers to getting new wheels on the gate at the local track. Check out the hangtag.

For his part, Donny will be promoting the bike, and the sport in general through his “In Motion” Youth Mentoring talks at middle schools in places like Oldsmar, Phoenix, DeSoto, TX an other ABA National cities throughout 2010.

The bike will retail for $99—which makes it an irresistible starter bike for Joe and Jan Novice. On Vintage, over the past couple days, the forum has been alight with great ideas from people wanting to join in the fun. Tracks are talking about buying a few of them for loaner bikes, and some of the collector types have their eye on it as a “timecapsule” buy of BMX, circa 2010.

BMXNEWS will be keeping our eyes on the progress of the bike, and will show you first-photos when the time comes.

Meanwhile, here is the complete list of Walmart stores where the Donny Robinson Replica will be showing up next month.