The Bikeconomics (Mega)Thread

I'm going to take a shot in the dark regarding the Intense news..

As someone pointed out on the other site, the Intense brand doesn't have the same value and legacy that it has here in the US.. I'm guessing they has a European distributor that has a good amount of product that they haven't sold and now they owe Intense money.. That's money Intense needs to pay their bills. So, cutting off a market that isn't buying products should be a positive move for them in the long-term...

Their quality control on their US frames was terrible though. Made in the US only really works when the quality is equal or better than the foreign products.

I had a friend who worked in the warehouse for a bit during the late 00’s and heard numerous stories of misaligned frames and even bikes getting painted and shipped without cable guides.

I also bought a custom DJ frame built by one of their welders. He welded the BB on backwards then chased the threads the correct direction. (effectively rendering the bike useless) In the end he refused to admit the mistake and replace my bike or give me a refund. Such a huge disappointment to a young person who put down a premium for something they thought would be a high quality product. While not Intense directly, this was the dude welding many of the intense frames.

I'm down to listen to a Jeff-on-Jeff podcast 

Nice! I read the Win98 version, made me feel young. Thanks!

Brines – thanks for those finance blogs, some solid reads in there. I’m subscribing.

On Rapha (and bike apparel in general), saw someone in the thread say, “Walmart bought it, I’m out.” Bit unfair, no? It wasn’t Walmart—it’s the Walton grandsons. Say what you want, but they’re bike fans. And if we’re being honest, if any of us were billionaires, we’d probably scoop up some cool bike brands too. I think they’ve also got their hands in Allied and Wahoo? Honestly, not the worst portfolio if you’re trying to uplift cycling. Rapha’s got a new CEO too, and from what I’ve seen, it looks like they’re trying to right the ship...but they have competition like they've never had; Velocio (disclaimer, I work for SRAM, Velocio parent), Maap, PNS, legacy euro brands, etc...

On SKU rationalization – absolutely critical. I ran product line (apparel, helmets and protection) at a big MTB apparel brand and in 2018 led a massive SKU cut. Designers always want “just one more color,” “just one more graphic,” but eventually you end up cannibalizing your own line. Too many SKUs means confusion for buyers, confusion for customers, and boom—margin erosion and off-price chaos. We built a sell-in/sell-through scoring matrix—A-B-C style. It wasn’t as easy as just cutting the C’s—you had to know what was being featured in marketing, what regions needed what, etc. But two seasons of doing that? Sales and margin both went up. Fun work. Important work.

Now on to Intense… my true love. I worked for Jeff Steber back in ’99 doing product for his tire line. My wife and I were also business partners with him and Jenn for 10 years running a clothing store in Temecula. I even went back in 2009-2010 to help get the brand pointed in the right direction again, but left in 2011 to MTB apparel. Jeff’s the real deal—a true creative. That term’s overused, but not here. The guy can make anything: custom guitars (which he plays), cabinets, furniture, car parts, firearms—and of course, bikes. Some of the most beautiful bikes ever made. He’s a kind soul and one of the most genuine humans I’ve ever worked with.

He didn’t set out to build a brand empire—he wanted to build rad bikes that felt like an extension of you. That was always the vibe. The M1? Total game-changer. There was a time when factory teams from the biggest brands raced Intense frames in disguise because their brand’s DH bikes were garbage. I lived that—worked for one of those brands. Everyone wanted to ride Intense.

Yeah, the company’s evolved. It had to. But part of me still wishes it stayed that small crew, few thousand frames a year, all handmade in SoCal. I get the grow-or-die mentality, but damn—I hope they pull through this latest challenge. Jeff is an icon, full stop. Built MTB history with his own hands.

The stories about QC and warranty issues with Intense frames are as old as the brand. However, not many have stats on it, all rumors. I am not saying that this is not true, but maybe wildly exagerated. I own 40+ Intense frames and only one has slight tension when you assemble the swingarm and main frame (maybe 3-5 mm offset at the upper link). Different LBS that carried Intense and that I shopped from had low rejection or warranty rates. One snapped 951 rear triangle at the yoke (heavy rider, undersprung bike), one frame came with bad paint. In both cases Intense stood behind it and warrantied them. There were also a bunch of OG Tracer VPs from the first batch that had a weak spot at the swingarm that broke under heavier riders. Intense fixed the issue in subsequent batches and warrantied all affected frames for the shops I dealt with. One should not forget that Intense aluminum frames were some of the lightest at the time and that makes them more vulnerable to failure by fatigue.

I get what you're saying and I mostly agree. And while my intel is anecdotal, it comes directly from a very trusted source who was there and involved directly with many of the issues. I've also owned several Intense frames from around the era and wasn't blown away by build quality and had numerous issues. I saw first hand everyone (including myself) who had gravity focused Intense frames have to zip-tie their upper link bolts in place one summer in whistler because they would back out incessantly even with loctite. I started to carry an allen in my pocket and check them every half run.

I guess my point was on an earlier commenter saying that Intense should have leaned into the made in the USA and my point was (maybe not articulated well), that I'm not sure that would've worked when their frames had just as many or slightly more quirks than Taiwanese frames made for a lot less money. Made in the USA will get you a premium if it all gets you superior quality and control, otherwise, people will go for the cheaper option.

Thier chief engineer passing in a bike commuting accident certainly set the brand back a couple years at a very key time.  While not bad bikes they were definitely a bit outdated for about a product cycle right when everyone was putting out what I would consider to be modern geo.  And unfortunately I think this also made it so they were in a bad position and maybe were too slow to react to make the most of their sponsorship of Aaron, Neko, and Dak.  Ultimately I think a lot of people were excited about the prospect of that team but it never quite panned out like people hoped and borderline expected.

would love if intense hired some more fast South American riders.  Definitely bringing a lot of excitement to the brand and I imagine the results for the investment of the current intense team is really dang good.  Probably only beat by rogue racing in the value department and there is an obvious asterisk when it comes to rogue/thibault.  

The current gen of bikes is back on point.  Really I just think they just need some good marketing and direction to counter the perception of a “legacy” brand that’s fallen a bit behind.  And hopefully focusing on their primary markets, product, and racing programs will allow them to do that.  

I also hope they release some high pivot trail and e bikes using the dh format.  Competing with Santa Cruz on vpp is a tall order.  Especially in the long/mid travel department.

I only worked there for about a year and a half, but I’ve known the brand and the people for a long time. And yeah, I tend to agree—it might’ve been exaggerated. Kinda like that rumor about Lopes always parking crooked in his van because someone snapped a pic a couple times... and now it’s gospel lol.

Point is, I knew how many frames were made and sold during my time there. I wasn’t in warranty or CS, but I was close enough to the crew to see what was going on. It wasn’t like  frames were flying out the door as replacements every week. And honestly, I met way more stoked riders than pissed-off ones.

I think we all know the downfall of Intense is when they went to Kenda tires, any brand to takes sponsorship money to race on concrete tubes is doomed. 

Jokes aside, that was a very curious choice and really started the downfall of the racing program, not sure how it factors into sales, but I'm sure it doesn't help. 

I have little to contribute to the discussion of Intense as a business, but I am happy to inform you that footage of Matti's tomahawking bike is still around.

DIRT TV!!!!!!

Intense needs some AF models IMO. Do they offer the Carbine, 279, and Tracer in aluminum? If they do, I've never seen any in person. And just like YT, Intense was another company that was all-in on the Shimano powered eebs. They had some crazy fire sales on their e bike line the last few years, and that couldn't have been good for their bottom line.

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/07/30/novatec-wheels…

Gotta love that the PR came out a month later..

They mostly only cover whatever is in press releases they receive. If I closed up shop making an announcement about it wouldn't be high on my to do list.

Come to think of it I never sent BRaIN a presser when I started in business. Is it too late now?

Hopefully I don't need any parts to keep two sets of factor hubs alive. I was sad to see that brand go, sad to see novatec gone in general. 

Based on the writing it's the US operation that is gone, not the whole company... 

Huh. Novatec USA closing is a bit of a funny one. I don't actually know what they did in the US, but maybe that's because I'm Canadian. My only real memories of Novatec stuff is bike manufacturers speccing their front hubs deep into their high end product catalogue and their rear hubs at the pricepoint models. Parts support was non-existent from Novatec itself, the frame manufacturers ended up keeping stock themselves of some service parts. Strange to learn they had a USA operation this whole time. 

On the Canadian bike shop front, a Novatec hub coming in for anything but new bearings signified a long conversation with an unknowing consumer that they were shelling out for a new wheel or wheel build on a new rear hub because Novatec support was non-existent. It's like RST support, sometimes there would be a temporary surge and you'd actually get help with something, followed by years of nothing. 

No drawings, no support pages, no parts lists, no clear details on parts and what gen of wheels they went to. I don't think it matters how low or high end your parts are, if you have absolutely zero support for your product, therefor shops and customers can't get parts for their stuff, your going to fail. 

I'm sure this was not the fault of the US office arm, as its been consistent for 15+ years, and it sucks people lost their jobs, but I'm not surprised. If a bike I bought came with Novatec, even if they were nice ones, I'd get rid of them immediately. 

Anything Novatec I've had the misfortune of using has been absolute garbage tier, I wouldn't be sad at all to see them gone completely.

I'll have to carve out time to read the full blog, but to go along with that, here's a short article from Bike-eu https://www.bike-eu.com/50389/pierer-mobility published this morning. I don't think this one is behind a paywall.

You might have dodged the bullet. I naively ordered them from Rapha's "US site", and now they are stuck in the US customs hell without any ETA for delivery. FFS Rapha, a bit more transparency about overseas shipping to US customers would be helpful.

YT sent out this statement today:

“We want to sincerely apologize once again for the inconvenience caused by our ongoing restructuring. We understand that waiting for a resolution is frustrating and we want to assure you that we’re working hard to remedy the situation.

We’re actively working with the involved payment providers on a legally compliant solution that will allow us to resolve every customer case. While we can’t give an exact date just yet, we’re making great progress within the given legal framework. We have already started refunding several orders and are confident that all cases will be sorted out in the coming weeks.

Rest assured, we will do everything possible that no customer will suffer a loss due to this situation. We’re taking full responsibility and doing everything we can to regain your trust.”

wuts the saying... 'day late, dollar short'

in this case maybe ~1 month too late and apparently (hundreds of) millions short? something like that...

I love this thread, thank you to everyone who is contributing, it is a great read!

I do want to say that I think I will always have a soft spot for Intense, I hope that they can turn this new gearbox bike into something. 

I have a Tazer ebike and I actually really like - its not the latest and greatest, but its been dead reliable for me (of course, it will probably explode tomorrow now that I said that)

Speaking of Intense i had to go check Lenz Sport. Seems definitely gone too. Its interesting how all these brands including Turner, Tomac or Foes were unable to find a path forward from their victorious days where budgets were infinite. 

Was the carbon frames what killed them all?

Sorry for OT. Always had a soft spot for big moto like dh bikes. 

Most of them just didn't keep up with the trends. 

Turner had a huge following but was stagnant at updating as enduro bikes kicked off. Wasn't there like 5 years of "new RFX coming soon"? By the time it arrived loyal customers had moved on to become Knolly and Banshee fans. 

Foes it feels like they just made the same bike for 15 years without visual change and it just looked dated (my own opinion).  

When did Lenz make anything that was actually relevant? 

Tomac licensed the brand off to Planet X in 2013...so that's dead and gone ages ago. Once a passionate founder steps back and licenses off the name that's going to kill off a brand. 

Turner's still around, just doing that whole Ti frame thing.  I think for some of the US makers, Sapa's closing kinda did em in. Losing access to domestic manufacturing of that caliber def set a few back. Guessing having to pivot to Asian carbon is a helluva labyrinth for small ops. Heck. Cambria still has carbon RFX frames for sale. Not sure who Turner's sourcing their Ti frames from, but Brent at least manages his own fabrication. They're definitely not on trend, but I admire the hell outta his tenacity and Foes' 'not a bike' offerings.