The episode in detail
From Skoda to Lucien: an intrapreneur in mobility
Karl Lechat started as an intern at the motor show in 2002. Twenty years later, he runs Lucien, the bike shop chain owned by the D’Ieteren group. In between, he built an intrapreneurial career within the same group: product manager at Skoda, marketing manager, spells at Volkswagen and D’Ieteren Finance, then director of Skoda Belgium. Under his leadership, the Czech brand grew from 5,000 to 20,000 cars sold per year in Belgium. The thread running through this career? Mobility in growth. Now at the head of Lucien, Karl is accelerating the development of bike leasing in Belgium and wants to professionalise cycle retail.
“With my first pay cheque at D’Ieteren, I bought myself a Scott mountain bike, the fully loaded one I’d always dreamed of but could never afford as a student.”
The nod is not accidental. Karl points out that Skoda itself began with bicycles: Václav Klement ran a bike shop in Czechia before building the Slavia, the brand’s first product. Motorcycles came next, cars ten years later. Moving from Skoda to bikes closed the loop.
Lucien, the cycling piece of the D’Ieteren puzzle
D’Ieteren has existed for 220 years. Importing the Volkswagen group accounts for only a third of that history. Lucien’s creation fits a wider ambition: smooth, sustainable mobility. The group explored several options before launching, buying brands, becoming a leasing company, moving into production, and finally chose retail, its historical DNA.
The initial strategy was to find existing partners. The first was iBike, an Antwerp chain of six shops founded thirteen years earlier. After several acquisitions totalling around fifteen outlets, the chain was renamed Lucien, a double tribute to Lucien Van Impe, the last Belgian winner of the Tour de France, and to Lucien D’Ieteren, who opened up access to cars in Belgium through industrial assembly.
“We wanted a first name. ‘I bought my bike at Lucien’ feels very different from ‘I bought it at Bike Company’. We’re after that closeness with the customer.”
Lucien now has around fifteen outlets: six, soon seven, in Brussels, seven in Antwerp, three in Leuven, three in Ghent and two in Mechelen. The acquisition phase is over. Growth now comes from new own-brand openings: Schaerbeek, Auderghem, and eventually cities such as Kortrijk, Bruges, Namur and Liège.
Bike leasing in Belgium, the market’s engine
Bike leasing in Belgium runs on a salary sacrifice mechanism: the employee finances it, benefiting from favourable tax treatment, unlike car leasing, where the employer covers the company car. This tax framework has a direct effect on the average spend: cyclists get better quality bikes for daily use.
“We’re one of the countries ahead on bike leasing and its uptake. Let’s hope we keep this framework, because everyone benefits: the economy, traffic flow and people’s health.”
Two years ago, Belgium sold more electric bikes than non-assisted bikes for the first time. Leasing played a major part, making bikes worth several thousand euros affordable.
Electrification of the bike: a revolution already accepted
While the electric car still divides opinion, limited range, an inadequate charging network, the electric bike no longer meets any resistance in Belgium. Karl notes that younger generations have no preconceptions about it. As a result, they ride more often and further. The electric bike has become a genuine mobility tool, far from the old cliché of the bike for old people.
Even Urbike’s couriers, among the biggest riders in Belgium, have electrified their bikes to gain efficiency. The trend now is towards light electric: models such as Scott’s Lumen use a lighter battery and motor, almost invisible in the frame. The assistance is discreet but enough to close the gap between riders of different levels.
In Wallonia, where hilly terrain makes cycling harder, electrification removes a major barrier. In Brussels, a city far from flat, it has let parents switch to cargo bikes without worrying about hills. The speed pedelec also opens up new possibilities: riding from Leuven to Brussels without arriving drenched in sweat is now realistic.
Bike retail: passion and professionalism
The bike world attracts 99% enthusiasts, against 60 to 70% in the car industry. But passion alone is not enough to structure a network of shops. Lucien launched the P&P programme, Passion and Professionalism, to combine the sector’s enthusiasm with operational discipline.
In practice, the chain bets on closeness and service, not discounting. There is no online bike sales: trying the bike in-store remains essential. The Brussels flagship has an indoor test track. And the dense local network, six to seven outlets per major city, guarantees fast after-sales service, essential for urban cyclists who depend on their bike every day.
“If I tell the woman with her cargo bike that her bike will be in the workshop for three weeks, I’ll have a problem. She’ll tell me: and how do I take my children to school?”
Cycling infrastructure: the main barrier in Belgium
Karl is categorical: the link between infrastructure and use is almost linear. A new segregated, lit cycle track attracts cyclists immediately. The figures speak for themselves. In Flanders, 21 to 22% of residents cycle weekly for their journeys. Brussels has jumped to 14 to 15%. Wallonia remains at 3%, held back by a RAVeL network geared towards leisure rather than commuting.
The cycle speedway between Leuven and Brussels, currently being finished, illustrates the potential: a double lane along the motorway, where cyclists will overtake cars stuck in traffic between Bertem and the ring road. For Karl, investment in cycle tracks is the most cost-effective of all mobility investments, far ahead of tram or metro lines.
After bike leasing, the certified second-hand market
A cargo bike such as the Urban Arrow costs between 5,000 and 7,000 euros. Once the children grow up, the cargo bike gathers dust in the garage. Karl announces the launch, in early 2026, of Lucien’s certified second-hand bike programme: a cheaper electric bike, guaranteed for one year, with the Lucien network for maintenance and repairs.
The advantage over online platforms such as Upway or 2ememain.be? Being able to try the bike before buying, and having a physical contact for after-sales service.
“Buying a bike on a website means buying without sitting on it. At Lucien, the second-hand bike will be certified, guaranteed for one year, with the whole network behind it.”
Complementarity rather than opposition
Karl rejects the idea of car versus bike. The average Belgian covers 15 kilometres a day by car, a distance that is doable by bike. But reality is multimodal: a shared car one day, a train the next, a folding bike for the last mile. The bike is already the second most used mode of transport in Flanders and the third in Brussels.
His argument to convince a driver to try cycling to work? Wait for a week of good weather, stop by a Lucien shop, ask for a test bike. Karl says 95% of people who do this are won over. The bike does not replace the car, it adds another arrow to the mobility quiver.
