The Bikeconomics (Mega)Thread

I’m surprised physically removing the current ceo isn’t in the job requirements.

rheeder out of Title and onto new things.

Hmm maybe just a falling out vs. concerns about Title moving forward? It was rad to see what Brett was able to create with Title, and I'm curious to see what his next move will be. Hopefully Title can continue to thrive without his name attached to the brand. 

Awkwardly working around the former/current/maybe-still-future(?) CEO on a daily basis is one of the downsides of that position. The cc/bcc email situation gets tricky when someone else in the org literally thinks they have your job.

I'd love to see a running list of MTB brands in 1992 when I fully embraced MTB versus now just to see how many have come and gone.  
A running total of how many there were then vs now.

get to work.

2 things on the Rheeder situation..

1) I wonder if this is a situation where sales weren't good enough and one of his vendors now has the company.. Seen this many times over the years..

2) New bike company?  I guess he won't be on Commencal much longer..

probably got pissed after breaking all their bikes

That was my first thought as well,  maybe he sees the writing on the wall and wants to “leave” rather than have to admit defeat in a few months when the company goes under. 

I would guess he never had controlling interest in the company to begin with. I could see an established Asian component factory forming a spin-off company where they stake the development and manufacturing cost then bring in a popular rider as a minority owner to give the new brand legitimacy. 

There can be a lot of risk in these situations when your personal "brand" is on the line and you don't have controlling direction of the company. The manufacturer could have said, "great we have legitimacy among core mtb riders, let's parlay that into the mass market, all the Walmart bikes will now come with Title components"

Agreed. Every time yet another company announces a stem or a pair of flat pedals I wonder how they can possibly be seeing a market opportunity.

Counterpoint (I am not saying I think it makes sense to come to market with another bar, stem, pedal...) but from a business standpoint, it is much easier (and potentially lower risk) to come to market with a component like a pedal compared to a suspension product. More pedals are sold every year (especially in the aftermarket where margins are higher) than forks. Plus, there is not a duo/trio of brands taking 80% of the market share. 

For some suspension brands, if they sell a few thousand forks or shocks, they are going to have a good year. And they had a lot of overhead in developing and testing that product. 

Pedals, it would not be too challenging to sell 10,000 sets of pedals (assuming a distribution channel in place) which have a lower overhead, higher margin, less development, and simpler production. 

So for a business looking to grow its market presence and expand into an additional category, I can see how they justify it.

I was about to say, it doesn't matter if the volume is higher, what kind of margins are you getting with pedals but they are selling theirs for like $160 haha. I can't imagine spending that on pedals, esp. flat pedals. 

I have a couple stem ideas I was prototyping/printing when a pal who is firmly more entrenched on the bike mfg side of things said pretty much the same exact thing. It stung, but hard truths often do. How many $100+ stems do we really need? I may revisit one of them at some later point since it had some novel aspects, but that can wait til winter.

The other site is reporting that the original owners of Kona have bought the company back from Kent Outdoors. I'd love to know what they sold/bought back for. 

Nice to see a good news story in the current climate.

PR from Kona
Dear Friends,

Kona Bicycles has been in the news lately. We’d love to say that it’s because the new Ouroboros is blowing everyone’s minds (because it really is that good), but truthfully, it has been a bumpy couple years. So, it’s time to print a positive headline: Kona is returning home to its roots.

Dan Gerhard and Jake Heilbron have purchased the brand back from Kent Outdoors, and along with a team of dedicated, experienced Kona employees, are reuniting to keep the Long, Sweet Ride rolling. There are a lot of familiar faces here who you know from epic dealer launches, My Kona videos and trail days who are dedicated to the cause. Kona’s employees, dealers, and our dedicated customers have always been our strongest resource, and they keep on jamming to the beat of their own drum. With this return to being rider-owned and operated, we’re doubling down on our unique brand legacy and getting back to some basics.

Renewing relationships with our nearly 1000-strong North American and European dealer network is our highest priority. Most of us started out in bike shops, and in our eyes, IBDs are our strongest advocates and allies. Healthy retailers are integral to making sure that Kona fans everywhere experience the ride of a lifetime. To best honor our dealer relationships, we are pausing D2C for all bikes. Konaworld.com will show changes to reflect this, and our social and communications channels will be getting reworked as well once we get things rolling. Bear with us, and we will keep you informed as we move through this transition.

On the bike side, new Kona inventory is headed to our warehouse and distributors, and alongside the freshly released Ouroboros, we’ve got some incredible bikes in the pipeline that we are looking forward to unveiling. We’re beyond grateful for the support that our suppliers have shown us in this endeavor. Vendors like Fairly Bikes, who have been with us since our first bike in 1988, are a testament to the value of longstanding relationships where people take care of people.

In more good news, we are now positioned to price our bikes much more competitively. Private ownership allows us to be more streamlined, more flexible, and quicker on our feet. This, combined with the support of our suppliers, means we can deliver high quality bikes in a distinctly Kona flavor at super attractive prices. We’ll never do a BOGO Sale again, so don’t ask, but we promise to offer good value for good money, always.

Our Pacific Northwest roots are as strong as ever. Offices in Ferndale, WA and North Vancouver, BC continue to anchor us proudly in place. Tenacious, resilient, straight talking, gritty and sometimes covered in grease, we are committed to keeping the distinctly Kona flavored bike buzz flowing, and helping people find freedom and fun. We are back. We are still here. Let’s ride.

Welcome back to the smallest biggest bike company in the world.

Glad to see it about Kona. My personal favorite LBS who have been a long time Specialized dealer and has been getting the shaft from them lately like all the other LBS's tried to branch out about 6 months ago and started carrying Kona. Then... the BOGO stuff started happening with Kona... then the shutdown... so hopefully it works out for Kona and for my favorite little LBS full of great people.

Jake and Dan just pulled the Dave Portnoy/Barstool move: sell out to the corporate goons at peak value, watch them tank the brand to within an inch of its life, then step in at the last minute to buy it back at pennies on the dollar. Kent is stoked to be rid of the sinking ship, while Jake and Dan now have the profits from the original sale to reinvest into the brand. Perfect! IMO they should bring back the 2000's styling and model names. Not many brands have been around long enough to go 'retro', but Kona has. Bring back the Stinky lineup with the same font and cool paint jobs, but with updated geometry and kinematics. And for the love of god just make it a Horst link already. The patent is expired, its public knowledge, and it will definitely make the bikes more competitive in performance. I love the move away from D2C and back to dealer-only, brands need to pick one or the other. Or if they are going to offer both, D2C should always be full price while any discounts/sales should only be available through the dealers.  I wish them all the best going forward.

Wonder who denied my warranty claim for the broken rocker link?
The overlords...or the former overlords turned new overlords?  

They're one of only a few companies still making a full 27.5" 150mm bike so I kinda need 'em to get their act together.

Ya when the workforce was presumably gutted during/after the sale customer service was a nightmare during the BOGO sale (and I don't even blame them at that point). But we had issues dealing with a bike shipped out with some factory issues. That said, hope everything goes back to normal so I can keep the two Konas I own with less worry.

In an ideal world I would just have a 2016 Process 167 and 111 and just absolutely run them into the ground. Just keep servicing the suspension and stealing hubs from the gravel market if needed. Oh how I wish those bikes were released within the boost/metric era. Though I know the modern Hei Hei and X model are decent. Just not as old school and fun.

Just been looking at old Stinkys and I reckon a modern geo Stinky with the same silhouette as the old one and horst link. 

65 HA - 110mm model

64 HA - 155mm model 

63 HA - 175mm model 

Also an all steel- full sus- 130mm honzo ESD 

Do it Kona.  I'll test them for ya

Serious question: what makes you think that the same ownership that made Kona go from a very well-known go-to brand in mid 90s-00s to decline during 10s/20s (with some outstanding models nonetheless) a better company now?

Honzo with Boxxers. Do it now

This is my question, especially when the former owners have already hung up their spurs once and chosen to retire. I hope they put 100% into Kona 2.0, but my brain is suspicious until I see it. Running a bike company seems like a constant drinking-from-a-firehose situation, and they're coming back from sipping Mojito's on the beach, living off that corporate sell-out money. That's a tough transition.

Well I think the sad thing is they were still trying to offer what the market is buying. Hence ditching certain models in 275 or modernizing bikes too much. And they had a LOT of models and potentially a LOT of inventory not selling, positioning them much worse during post-covid than the other brands that were already only offering marketable bikes.

imo they were making worthy bikes as late as 2019. I'm not sure if the issues that occurred following were slightly determined by covid or were already ordered and being delivered before anything changed. But the bikes seemed very 'not Kona' and very 'every other bike in the industry but with LDSP and shorter chainstays' which is not the best sales platform.

I guess that's the issue with having a reputation that is very 'anti-mainstream' but still needing to pander to the mainstream to stay afloat. Almost like half the Kona fanbase legit wants a 2010-2015 bike, and the other half wants the Kona logo and paint colors but doesn't want to ride an 'outdated' bike. So whadya do? Sell modern bikes but still be seen as basic and overpriced... Or double down on kooky old school bikes that are seen as niche? Doing both will be very challenging financially/logistically.

I'd love to know, at least from here given it's some form of data sampling, what a Kona consumer wants. I know what I want but I also know it will never be made so lol... Won't even bother. That said, I thought the 2020 p153 and p134 were tremendous. Especially the 153 in carbon. Nothing wrong with those bikes. But the recent redesign was a step too far for Kona fans imo

I don't think Kona was pigeonholed by their lineup at all, as most manufacturers have some  models that are more conservative, and others that are newer and more cutting edge. I feel like they just fell behind in value compared to some of their competitors. Ibis had smoking deals on AF models, Spesh had the Status and the Stevo deals. Giant was selling a bunch of aluminum Trance X's. On average the Proccess bikes were about $1k more for a similar build. 

All the while DTC brands were doing well, and other big companies were aggressively expanding their dealer network.  The local shop that Sold Pivot and Kona closed last year, so I would be looking at traveling a considerable distance just to buy a bike with not as good value and obviously less widespread dealer support. Not a very good value proposition overall IMO.

I definitely see d2c as being an issue when Kona is known for their mid range maybe more than most brands. Especially when you consider they're just simple borderline old school LDSP frames. So if you want a cheap bike, just alloy LDSP, you have a number of options whether its Polygon or Commencal. And if you want a high end carbon bike, chances are you are a Santa Cruz or Speshy customer more so than Kona's carbon LDSP frames. And potentially the person to dork out on VPP or DW or this and that.

But I feel like I'm missing the timeframe that people are regarding Kona in when comparing. Because if I just take a basic model such as a Yari-equipped P153, over the years, the pricing has been relatively stable this whole time. And when the overall spec faltered a bit the price usually fell too accomodate it, such as the meh 2020 build released just prior to covid. I guess people are talking about way before all this. Pre-2010 or even pre-2000. Dunno.

I still see the issue more as... The entire industry going a certain way and Kona feeling like they're in the middle of tug of war of making the same bike as everyone else versus continuing to support short chainstay small wheel bikes they're known for but aren't selling well overall.