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saw that as well. sounds like they've gone quiet?
just went to their website, its not down, but there's no content and says "coming soon"
@Etney as your in Freiburg, how many YT's are out on the trails in Germany? What bikes are 'in'?
In the US, we are often in a bubble on other markets.
My guess would be that they're going to handle distribution themselves.
I will say that the YT Mill experience is pretty amazing (if you've never been to one). I'm not sure how the financials work on them, since they're basically just a marketing effort without any real profitability, but they've done such an amazing job at the one in Bentonville. They're constantly hosting community activations, parties, dig days, jam sessions, screenings, etc...
For example: this Friday they're screening the new In the Hills Gang film at all the Mills (or at least at Bentonville and San Clemente for sure). And at the Bentonville one, they're also showing two edits by local riding collectives in order to promote the local scene more. The people who work there are all super great and are constantly pushing to provide people with a good experience. It's been wild to see this "big" brand come into town and become like the favorite hangout for local riders, regardless of what bikes they ride.
Freiburg has probably one of the most "core" riding community with lots of riders investing in high end gear, dunno if that would be representing germany as a whole. it's THE german mtb city with a huge mtb club and lots of legal trails (in a state that has the famous 2m rule, i.e. no trails with less than 2m with = banned as long as not officially allowed)
Yep, thats why I ask. What are the core lords riding/whats hip? I lived there in 2013ish and sold my Santa Cruz nomad for a pretty penny as it was ''in', but not available to purchase.
More of an industry news: Garen from Santa Cruz moves to Orbea -> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/garen-becker-62766740_ahoy-pals-time-flies-after-nearly-20-years-activity-7285336288897966082-C2V1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
SC is definitely changing directions and will be interested to see what happens in the future. They seem to be bleeding the talent that got them to being the cool fast brand....
Also could be big moves with Orbea and their new team
(Credit to Escape Collective Discord for the sleuth)
moved away in 2022 too
I would agree with Sethimus, that generally whats ridden here maybe doesnt apply everywhere else.
But I've lived in a few places in Europe, and generally its kind of "three phases" or three types of people. People that are somewhat new to the hobby ride a lot of YT/Canyon - Good marketing, and easy to order online, with good pricing.
Then we have the "middle" phase, people often ride bikes from their local bike shop. So in that specific city, if it has a big Spesh dealer, SC dealer, Trek dealer etc - Thats what you see, and people continue to ride.
And then the third phase is the bike nerds. Which as Sethimus says, Freiburg has many of. And german made alu bikes seems to be very popular now. Kavenz, Crossworx, Raaw etc. And, obviously people with home town pride, so you tend to see Intend suspension, and trickstuff brakes etc fairly often here.
(I ride a SC with intend suspension and brakes myself for reference) - Want an alu bike, but not sure which one yet.
I think theres a bit of drama around YT with Aus/NZ - Day Zero NZ got dropped by YT and picked up by pushy's so had to pay to ship from aus to NZ - but recently Day zero has it back????
The 'limited' core range is often never available in nz either - carbons seems like a good ish deal when on special but alloys are just as expensive as Other big brands.
No real benefit buying YT in NZ now - We used to get Good value on YT tues' back in 2017 ish so we ran those with no issues.
I might be completely wrong but have Santa Cruz given up on Juliana Bicycles? They don't seem to offer many models anymore and the Roubion is still the older version of the bronson.
what was the point of this brand anyway? afaik they just offered the same frames under a different label unlike liv with purposely designed frames for shorter women
The frames were the same but I think (others in this thread know more) that the suspension tune was for a lighter rider and the contact points smaller.
Having said that my better half never considered them because your resale market is so much smaller.
You are correct
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rocky-mountain-bike-creditor-protection-1.7434928
Article about Rocky Mountain.
^ I came here to post that, pretty good article. Another thing I was thinking about today is what affect this dive in sales has had in technology overall. If your company is struggling a good business minded owner is gonna batten the hatches and try to weather the storm with smaller inventory numbers and low outlay on r&d and pretty much everything else. How many bikes have truly been game changing since 2020? A few for sure but not as many as we were seeing at the height of the geometry wars.
And while a lot of these companies were sales drunk from the pandemic boom how many of the people who bought in at that time ended up being “cyclists” vs people looking for a way to leave the house? I’d be curious how many of the bikes sold during that time were either sold on marketplace after the lockdowns ended or are collecting dust in the garage.
Interesting note from the bottom of that article about warranties taking months now. Not surprising.
Another little tidbit: I went skiing with a buddy of mine who manages a Rocky dealer. He said there's a number of pretty good deals to be had on complete bikes. He was trying to get a bunch for his floor but the bank currently in control of Rocky essentially refused to ship to any dealer who had a contract with payment terms - his shop was on a ~180 day term for the lions share of payment - the bank wants cash and right now. Jeff probably has a comment on the direction that behaviour points.
2 months ago I bought a new 24' Instinct as my winter project which unfortunately came out of the factory with a long crack in the seat tube. 2 weeks ago I visited a local RM dealer here in PNW (Seattle area) and asked them to submit a warranty claim for me. Within a week they got an answer that it was approved and I should receive a new front triangle within a few weeks (they guess around 2) as they have to paint it first to match my frame (surprisingly they paint frames in BC based on the original color combo). So hopefully they are staying around.
Not sure this is new so apologies if it's already been posted but heard on the latest Geek Warning podcast that OneUp was bought by PON...
The news "leaked" almost a year ago but you can find comments that it happened well before then.
Can't blame you for missing it though, OneUp seems intent on keeping it quiet so they can trick consumers into thinking they're just 29 nice guys up in Squamish and your money is all staying locally.
20 Sept 2022................
aslong as PON dont kill one of the best MTB companies, i am happy - they make stuff I and many others want to buy and ride.
No signs of it, quite the contrary, OneUp is taking more and more the place of Burgtec in the Santa Cruz builds.
There's more than one way to kill a company 🙂
I mentioned this on the pod, but I’m not a bankruptcy expert by any means. That said, I’d be very surprised if creditors could somehow alter previously existing contracts between various parties. While it’s possible there’s a specific covenant allowing for this, I’d find it highly unlikely. On the other hand, it doesn’t surprise me at all that creditors are pursuing accounts receivable. That’s typically how they aim to recover a significant portion of the outstanding debt, as they (the debt holders) are first in line to be repaid. If I were your friend, I’d consider retaining legal counsel if the creditors push hard. At the very least, I’d run my contract through one of the advanced language models to act as a virtual legal assistant and ensure I’m not overlooking anything important.
EDIT: Also, I wonder if there are any outlets blowing out Rockys or GTs? I kind of need a new bike, would love to snatch up a deal...
I tried to unpack this on the pod, but it’s important to clarify that just because a buyer like PON enters the picture, it doesn’t automatically mean things will go sideways or that PON is inherently a bad actor.
I could dive deeper into the pros and cons of companies like this, but there seems to be an alignment of incentives with PON. They don’t appear to divest from businesses frequently, which suggests they have a longer-term perspective. That doesn’t guarantee they’ll always get it right, but I imagine they’ve learned from their experiences—both their setbacks and successes—with other brands in their portfolio, like GT (RIP). Of course, there’s always the possibility that things could go in a not good direction, but that’s not in PON’s best interest, just as it’s not in the broader mountain biking community’s interest either.
They very well could have kept the existing team in place while simply providing access to resources that may not have been available otherwise. Allowing a founder or founding team to take some chips off the table is not something I view negatively—in fact, I see it as a positive. It encourages entrepreneurship and risk-taking among smart, capable individuals who are motivated by the potential for meaningful rewards if things go well. PON is one of the few players in the industry that can offer this kind of exit liquidity, which is a valuable option for founders.
You’re likely correct that the current slowdown has impacted R&D efforts. That said, as a former bike reviewer, I was already observing a noticeable plateau in performance as far back as 2020. While there are still gains to be made, those gains are increasingly incremental and require significantly higher capital expenditures to achieve. This makes them less attractive to management teams. It’s a classic example of the Pareto Principle in action—anyone who has tried to optimize something to near perfection knows that extracting the final 5% of performance is exponentially harder (and costlier) than achieving the initial 80%.
Every industry experiences cycles of rapid innovation followed by periods of stagnation. Mountain biking underwent a remarkable period of technological progression for 15, maybe even 20 years. A lot of this likely stemmed from the sport's road cycling origins—early mountain bikes borrowed heavily from road bike designs, leaving significant room for improvement in areas like geometry, suspension, and braking. Additionally, the long era of extremely low interest rates likely fueled much of this innovation, making large R&D investments more feasible.
One clear indicator that we’ve hit a point of diminishing returns is how much additional performance you can buy with unlimited money. For instance, while the PUSH fork is undoubtedly incredible, I’m no faster on it than on a well-tuned Fox 38. Similarly, boutique bikes may look stunning in the garage, but major brands often deliver comparable performance for significantly less. It feels like the industry has reached a point where its very hard to squeeze out substantial performance gains from current technology—at any price point. This suggests we’re likely to see smaller, more incremental improvements until a breakthrough in suspension, materials, or tire technology fundamentally changes how we approach mountain biking.
Sorry to hear about the issue with your frame Kusa, that's a bummer, but glad things are being handled under warranty. FYI, Rocky Mountain paints replacement/warranty frame parts to match in it's Saint-Georges, QC, offices, not the BC one. There's a massive warehouse there with a paint shop which allows to colour match frames as needed. We can usually match anything still under warranty (so 5 years, sometimes more).
As for shipping, Rocky Mountain has a bunch of parts and warranty orders ready to ship, but due to the restructuring proceedings, we are working with our different courriers to be able to use their services. I can't make any promises, but shipping should normally resume sometime next week.
Seen some good deals online for some GTs.. Top spec Sensor cheap enough to have money left over the address some of the weak points on the spec.. Kinda wish I had the money to jump on one..
If you need a downhill bike the GT Fury is an incredible deal right now. Bunch of shops have the elite version for ~$2450 and Jenson has the pro for $2999. I was already set on keeping my Norco Range for another year but this deal has me exercising my self control...
I've always assumed the VW / Porsche import business pays for all the fun hobbies like Santa Cruz, Cannondale, etc. Also likely explains the lack of divestment, even in tough times.
https://pon.com/en/activities/automotive/wholesale-retail/volkswagen/
https://pon.com/en/activities/automotive/luxury-cars/porsche/
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