Who is Caz Nicklin?

We have been asked this question a number of times by our readers since we coined the phrase Cycle Chic and launched the movement. The question ranges from "who is Caz Nicklin" to "who the fuck is this Caz Nicklin person?!"

The honest answer is: we have absolutely no idea.

From the very beginning of Cycle Chic we have been contacted by many individuals wishing to join our ranks and start similar blogs in their cities. The strength of Cycle Chic is our network of like-minded individuals who have asked, politely, if they can be a part of this very good thing.

This Caz Nicklin person is not one of them. At no point did she contact us out of simple courtesy to ask if she could use "Cycle Chic" on her London Cycle Chic blog. When we learned from our readers that she then started exploiting the name Cycle Chic for commercial gain by starting an online company, we were irritated, to say the least.

At that point, however, we chose to tolerate it. We have always tried to keep Cycle Chic non-commercial and keep the blog free of too many adverts. We know all too well that out there in the world there are people who try to get things for free and exploit other peoples' hard work and intellectual property. It appeared to us that Ms Nicklin might just be one of these types. We didn't have the time or energy to go after her and we decided to stick to our idealistic approach instead of buying up trademark rights for Cycle Chic.

Like a bad smell, she didn't disappear, but we stayed upwind of it. When our network told us that she planned to take her online business to the American market, enough was enough. We were forced to secure the trademark for the US - the first of the countries where we have the rights. Simply to thwart her profiteering.

After we contacted her about this, pointing out that we had the trademark for the US (the first of any contact between us) she wrote back saying she was "disappointed". How ridiculous. SHE was disappointed? What a joke.

Notwithstanding her disappointment, she almost immediately changed the name of her online site in the US to something else. However, she had already secured the CycleChic.com domain name for her UK webstore and the CycleChic.com domain remains in her possession.

This person appears to feel no shame about her fake identity as a 'representative' of what Cycle Chic truly stands for. She continues unabated in her profiteering off of the good name that we have built over the years, all around the world. Her hardcore promotion of bicycle helmets shows that she is not interested in promoting cycling or in the science of bicycle helmets, but rather the easy profit that is characteristic of profiteers in The Culture of Fear.

We continue to tolerate this person, but our patience often runs thin. We continue to advise people we work with that she has NOTHING to do with Cycle Chic and our work around the world. Fortunately, our network is strong and true to our vision of getting more people onto bicycles. The network is stronger than one or two free-loaders out there who are incapable of creating their own ideas and can only ride on the coattails of others.

Some people may fancy people like her, who do the things that she does.

We are not those people.

The Nicklins of the internet will never go away, but fortunately they can be ignored and felt sorry for.