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Lama cycles, the last cool distributor in Canada is going on "Hiatus" for the time being as per the other site. Unfortunate as they were the only place to get nice DJ stuff in the country and was a huge supporter of DH in eastern Canada, although they were smaller than the big guys. Very sad to see them go.
I would still consider NRG entreprise (seems to keep doing their own stuff even after the Lanctot buyout) & Orange Sport Supply to be cool in Canada. Pretty sure many shops have done Maxxis orders through NRG instead of HLC just for the 1-3 jolly ranchers included in the shipping box even if the unit cost was slightly higher. The next 1-2 year ain't gonna be fun for most distributors in Canada & USA. Cash flow is probably still very tight, inventory on recurring/old stuff still high & Direction unwilling to spend more cash to get the new stuff in at decent inventory. But I think we could see new players fill the vacant spots in 3-5 years.
I always disliked the condescending views about "influencers" and think don't hate the player, hate the game - you can't knock people for having a go at making money from something that they were led to believe could be successful. At the end of the day they wouldn't even get started if there wasn't people watching them, or at least an algorithm serving those videos to everybody.
I would argue huge chunks of the bike industry is unsustainable - in its current state I struggle to think of many players who are completely rock solid. Shimano? World Cup racing is struggling to make itself a profitable sport that gives returns for the athletes as well as WBD - despite racing being better than ever. Servicing should be sustainable but manufacturers are resistant to making repairable parts and mechanics aren't valued enough to be retained in the industry. Bike shops barely make enough profit on bikes despite soaring prices - so I think influencers get far more of the relative hate than they deserve IMO
NRG is still cool, but now that Lanctot owns them a lot of the spirit is gone. You are right about Orange though, I missed them when thinking about Canadian distributors. They're more bike nerd or shop kid cool than 2008 TLD pajamas at the bike park on a Morewood cool though.
I dunno, NRG is still cool because Lanctot seems to more or less have kept their operation intact (and their B2B still sucks ass it just isn't AS bad as it was). If anything NRG made Lanctot a lot cooler because I don't think any of the XC ski distributors in Canada are remotely competent in comparison to the bike guys. You can phone NRG to have some of your Lanctot problems solved, and that's kinda cool!
Edit: Sad to see Lamacycles shut down. I bought my first staff deal full suspension bike from them - a 2013 NS Soda Air - so fond memories of ordering stuff up from one of Canada's cool little distributors. Hopefully they can restructure (using the term in the official capacity or no) and come out in operations again.
Spomer that was a freakin awesome rant, thanks for that.
Vital is awesome. Your work is appreciated!
ok on topic.
Its a bike industry apocalypse right now. If you can afford too buy and need a new bike, great timing. If you work in industry at any level, tough times.
Thoughts on the influencer thing.
Been a big YouTube guy since its beginnings as a place to publicly post videos for your friends to see (usually with ads turned off) to where it is now as a fully fledged media form.
I’m sure it’s easy to blame the algorithm. But really there is just such an infinite amount of quality content in 2025. And at this point a lot of these content creators have a pretty significant budget. Wether it’s traditional media choosing to create content in the instagram and YouTube space where they once ignored it. Wether it’s extremely resourceful content creators with a solid backing of patreon and traditional sponsors. Or true professionals like Aaron gwin, Troy brosnan, chase sexton, etc who no longer see social media as a tiny aspect of the job but a huge part of it.
In a world that is so saturated it’s really easy to see why the majority of creators who get even a moment in the spotlight find it extremely fleeting.
Lastly I’ve recently switched to YouTube premium. Enough of my family members watch regularly that I pay for the family plan. I guess previously I had been more accustomed to ads. So ads within content was less jarring. And while I’ve never been a fan of obvious schills now I find myself constrantly turning off content that is ad filled. Which I think shows the duality of the true “influencer”. When they are starting and first start getting somewhere then they have no product to sponsor. Then once they do sponsoring that product turns off people like me. And while some are very good at marketing subtly or making it such a small portion of the overall content that it’s not a big deal. Some are commercial tv levels of bad with product and ad placement.
Also it’s just generally really common for a bit of fame to go to people’s heads. But when your job is to promote yourself and your life directly to people several times a day that can be a very slippery slope.
Crazy news from Portland, Oregon: longtime MTB anchor Fat Tire Farm is closing after 40 years in business. For me, this news felt like it came out of nowhere. Obviously the bike industry is hurting, but the Farm has weathered a lot of storms, and every time I go in they seemed to be going from strength to strength. They were probably the best, healthiest bike shop I've ever been to, and it's a huge loss to the Portland riding community. They supported local trail work, ran their own summer race series, had their own pro suspension service and tuning center, and have been a starting point for many young racers and industry veterans. Wild times.
I’ve been a fan of FTF from afar for a decade at least. I’ve never set foot in and bummed I won’t be able to.
I wonder how much of them being robbed so many times and (again from afar) the Portland biodome has pushed them to close. Maybe those factors weighed heavier than the health of the bike industry?
Bummed to see an OG culture shop close.
Unless something has changed when I lived in Portland the homeless and crime problems was an afterthought for 90 percent of people.
Ftf summer super d has a place in my heart.
The people I know who live in/around Portland currently say the same thing. The media sources that like to rely on fear have done a great job at making a fear mountain out of molehill.
It sounds like FTF had some problems with crime and that sucks either way. Hopefully they were able to close the bike shop in a good position rather than holding on too long and causing financial problems for everyone.
That's a bummer to hear. While it's not my part of Oregon, I've heard good things about them. I remember getting ads for a "name your price" sale a few months back (give or take) and wondered what that may have indicated about the health of the shop. While they obviously wouldn't sell you an $8k bike for $500 because that's the price you named, I wondered if it was a way to get around discounting product that wasn't supposed to be on sale (or on as deep of a sale as the shop was willing to offer).
Sounds like it's a rough time for the shops combined with someone is ready to call it a day.. If someone was willing to sail troubled waters for a bit, it could be a good deal..
Yeah when I stayed in Portland 12 years ago the number of homeless people was already jarring for someone from New Zealand at the time! (Not the same now though sadly). From the outside it does seem like people try to make that sound like a new thing in Portland
Big bummer about Fat Tire Farm though - when I was there it was one of the shops the guys at Chris King said I had to visit, they were super cool.
Major bummer for FTF. They are one of the OGs and they kept it real, no corporate overlords there. I thought it was a sweet move when they opened the satellite shop in Hood River and visited that a few times.
Long live the independent bike shop!
Damn. I bought my first "Real." mountain bike from them back in '94. A GT Avalanche with one of those new Judy forks with the plastic cartridges.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/tenet-components-enters-wheel-market-coven-al-wheelset
Thought it was worth highlighting on this thread the "no private equity" aspect of their marketing. Anybody got any informed thoughts on using Kickstarter like this?
FWIW, I thought they did a great job explaining the technical aspects of the product in a clear, concise, and compelling way. They goaded me into heading over to the Reserve website to see if their aluminum rims had directional spoke drilling. Not sure how much it matters, but it got my attention. Different animal, but my Convergence rims sure do ride well.
They said it themselves - the market is over saturated and there are cheaper/lighter options. If your jam is supporting small manufacturers, there’s already a bunch to choose from. This project has to be on kickstarter because no one in their right mind would fund this project. Especially in a time when established companies are struggling. Why they are doing this, I can’t fathom.
This exemplifies the old adage “the best way to make a million dollars in the bike industry is to start with two million”.
At the end of the day, they might just be looking at this Kickstarter as a low-risk viability test...and low-cost website and webstore build.
"If we can get [whatever number they deem convincing enough] preorders, we can make a go of this."
And Kickstarter will collect all the information, sort out all the financial stuff, and hand them a list of what they need to deliver and to whom they deliver (yipes, awkward sentence construction).
I've talked with some folks about the idea of low-count, exclusive/handbuilt products in my line of work and using Kickstarter to be the storefront was definitely kicked around for the first few products.
It's funny, and I know this is semantic, but Kickstarter is like the private-est of equity.
Also, regarding the viability of releasing a mid-price alloy wheel in 2025: is there an overstock of wheels? I've seen forks, bikes, and clothes on sale, I've even seen tires on sale, but I haven't seen a lot of wheels on sale. And alloy wheels are kind of a disposable wear item for people who ride.
Good point, if people are upgrading I bet they are upgrading to the likes of carbon rims or fancy hubs. And I'd bet wheel upgrades are in the range of crank upgrades of how often people do it.
As far as I've seen, people upgraded wheels because their hubs or rims were detonating. Case in point, a friend of mine "splurging" for a 350/ex511 set to replace stock Newmens on his Propain after rear rim gave up the ghost. And I've tried getting people to upgrade, if they needed, to this exact combo as its ubiquitous and unproblematic.
This might not be the correct thread for this- but how does a company like Intend make any money on that fork they just released?
From the press release- the initial run is 85 units priced at 1450 (euros?)... that's only 123,000 in revenue. Not enough to pay for the engineer much less testing/prototyping etc etc. Maybe this one is a hit and they can sell a few thousand per year? Probably makes sense at that volume.
Hurts my brain coming from RS where we'd break way more than 85 units in the test lab.
I would assume that Intend is a maximum 5 persons operation so I am thinking there is not a lot of overhead cost and all the trinity brake batch always get sold out in 10 minutes that solidify their cash flow. Also pretty sure Kornelius does all the engineering himself so not a real full time engineer salary to pay out.
do you have problems understanding clear english?
"Details Let's be honest: The Ebonite model, a right-side-up fork, wasn’t a lasting success for Intend. Customers’ initial hesitation toward the upside-down design didn’t translate into strong sales for the Ebonite. And over time, our upside-down suspension forks gained popularity.
As a result, some Ebonite tubes remained unused. While technically compatible, their tapered upper section made them unsuitable for our closed Optimized cartridge and our curve-optimized Travelizer air unit. These Ebonite tubes are now used in the Essential, which is why the first production run is limited to just 85 units. That said, future replacements are secured, as the Essential forks remain compatible with the stanchions from our current fork line-up."
they use the tubes they had laying around from their old ebonite forks nobody bought and they use the old damping system they used before they switched to the new one. what exactly do they need to test here!? its just a remix of 2 of their older designs.
a remix? now I'm imagining Cornelius Kapfinger moonlighting as a DJ in a german technohaus.
Most americans dont realize that the german bike market alone is nearly as big as the entire US bike market. We're too busy doing important things like defending the continued use of the imperial unit system and changing map names to the Gulf of America (aka the gulf of small hands and fragile egos).
I wouldn't say that. Putting money into a Kickstarter campaign makes you an unsecured creditor at best.
The top three and eight of the top ten largest crowdfunding projects in history were cryptocurrency related (and one of the others is Star Citizen!), which I think just about tells you everything you need to know about crowdfunding.
That’s pretty much what I think about most of the bike industry. I can’t fathom how it’s done, and it’s not super surprising we are seeing so many companies struggle.
I saw a picture of everyone who works at WeAreOne. There’s like 40 employees. How the heck are they selling enough wheels to pay 40 employees? At a low average peremployee cost of $50k that’s $2 million in salaries alone. And I assume that’s a low salary in BC. Who know what their margins are, but that would require 20,000 rim sales if $100 from each rim just goes to payroll. dang. How many rims are they selling? And it’s not like they made a disposable aluminum rim, so people aren’t replacing them left and right.
Maybe not all 40 employees are full time?
I know of a biotech company that inflates their staff numbers for the investors by listing e.g. their freelance marketing guy, their interns, cleaning personal, tax consultant, etc. as "staff" although most of them do only get a tiny fraction of their full salary from them.
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