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Anyone remember the McClaren Venge?
Oisin (ush-een 😉) O'Callaghan also paints a pretty clear picture in a short interview on Their Erlangsen's LesGets recap: https://youtu.be/TSP1J1LjYYQ?feature=shared 4min 20 sec mark.
He is asked if he is claiming unemployment benefits, says he may as well be, and that he's not even sure he'll see out the rest of the season with them
There was a bit of a pricing arms race going on there. IIRC a road bike I designed at Felt (2010 AR0) was the first (non-boutique, non-Italian) production bike to break $10k. Specialized responded the next year with the McLaren at $15k.
It always surprised me that road bikes were more expensive than suspension MTBs, they don't have any pivots, shocks, droppers, they're made with 10lbs less material, and back then the road bikes still had mechanical rim brakes.
There you have it people, the current pricing trend is Tim's fault for designing the 10k Felt road bike back in the late 00's.
The 20k bike is brilliant- if they sell at full pop you make a huge margin.
If they don’t sell and you mark them 50% off you still make decent margins.
Also- we’re all talking about it.
Dammit, Tim... Thanks for starting this mess.. 😆
But. The Venge did come with custom matching shoes and helmet.. A second set wheels also, IIRC...
Shoes and a hat! Bargain!
In my defense, the bike was also available at (much) more affordable spec levels, even the tour team didn’t get such fancy spec.
You guys know that the Chris Currie designed custom ti made to order full suspension bikes with all the 3d printed parts that Josh Ogle and Firefly are building now are $30,000, right? Firefly ships a few custom road bikes every month that easily cost $15-20,000. My friends at Ritte also sell a few $15k custom ti road bikes with custom 3d printed parts and nice finishines every month, too.
Specialized is way behind the curve when it comes to making expensive bikes these days, imo.
(No sarcasm here friends… but when only the rich are getting richer, Veblen Goods get absolutely wild.)
my only real gripe is that we're not the ones selling $20k bikes. maybe the vital forums should come together and enter the high end luxury bike market.
Just rumors but... the word around Bentonville is that YT has investors lined up to set things straight and something should go public in October. My concern is that the amount of damage done to the brand image and consumer trust in the time between now and October will give the investors cold feet.
Cool, but based on comments from Oisin and Andi Kolb it sounds like they are not even getting paid right now. If YT comes back maybe they'll sell to people who don't know, but they have lost so much goodwill. This isn't the first time they have dumped their riders/team. And we're just seeing the situation for the most public employees of the brand, lots of other staff are affected.
Here's a fully bonded $8495 USD road wheelset to guide us back to the debt and bankruptcy path: MEILENSTEIN ART
I'd be really curious who these investors are and how the deal will be structured. Of course, there is a way to make this work, but I'd really want to dig in and build a plan to the future, not the past.
https://bikerumor.com/3d-printed-no22-reactor-aero-bike-production-carbon-ti-bar-stem-combo/
also with no22, but at least there the bike looks the money too
No22 bikes are stunning.
The guys at 22 are rad, but the no22 superblbike is still unridable, 2 years in. All those printed sheets are welded together and then the welds are ground off. So, clearly that method will never make production, or a straight bike
If you want sintered ti weldments done right, Josh Ogle is the designer you need. His lair in Durango just got a really special delivery, surplus out of one of the top engineering labs in American academia, so soon he will be printing in house.
With bentonville thrown in the mix it makes you wonder if its the Walton grand sons. They probably have the cash and everybody knows they want a premium bike company. If that were the case I'd imagine they would want to keep the race team and it sounds like that's not happening.
It's quite surprising how prolific 3D printed Ti seems* to be, given as it initially seemed to be a marketing program for Renishaw.
I was an early user of CFD on aero bikes, similarly that was in large part a marketing angle for CFD providers so they could write more engaging trade publications.
* I have never seen 3D printed Ti bike outside of a trade show.
The YT case is kinda reminiscent of the KTM deal.. The North America branch doesn't seem to be seeing the same issues as the head European offices.. However, it seems to be KTM USA is cutting back on the race team budget for 2026.. YT potentially cutting the WC DH team is a typical cutting of the marketing budgets first... Now, YT North America is cutting prices to move bikes, but isn't everyone right now?
Pass the popcorn.. I wanna see what's next...
I'll beat the drum of a different tune on this one: YT is fundamentally broken no matter the region. While I don't have most recent financials, they were abysmal as of 2023 and things have not improved since. I've mentioned it above, but they are underperforming across all profitability KPIs, and there isn't top-line growth to somehow justify it (its not an AI company, lol).
I buried this in my post a month ago but YT was forced to shift from taking delivery of complete bikes to taking delivery of frames and assembling on their own. While this may seem relatively small big picture, I'm guessing this is a big deal for a company who is already on the edge. Whereas before they'd likely ship that inventory (completed bike) in days/weeks, now they are forced to deal with parts from all over the bike industry arriving at different times, plus the complexities of assembling in house. Salt in the wound = interest rates are notably higher than 36 months ago.
They have to raise prices, cut expenses and bring in totally disciplined management or this is going the way of GT, even if they do have the Waltons plowing some cash into it.
ps, I'll come help, but you won't like me.
To me the shocking thing is that I see YTs everywhere, so it likely was never a sales issue. Even before they started dancing with the margins and blatantly generating 'discount wars' and later on saying it was those exact 'discount wars' (that magically appeared in the industry in their eyes) that killed their company.
Aka, yes I'm blaming management. The bikes were improving, they were selling, the team riders were winning and selling the idea of bikes. I wish it was more transparent which misstep did the most damage cuz, the business was passing the eye test for a while and looked like it could be the new dominant d2c brand for a second. (That feeling when they released the izzo and a gravel, like ok they are more than a core lord brand now).
I'm still impressed at brands that were reading the covid timeline with much more wisdom and seemed to coast through it with almost no drama. In my eyes like Norco? Not one of the 'huge' brands but simply continued to produce and develop amazing bikes the entire time, keeping bikes in stock, with the amazing Fluid line up, and now jump starting a top of the line race team already catchin Dubz. (And I'm sure it wasn't 'easy'... They played their hand and played it well.)
I would think the Walton’s could easily start their own brand/sub brand with just about whoever they wanted. (Don’t they already have one). Doesn’t seem to make a ton of sense to buy into a brand with a tarnished reputation and a ton of unnecessary hurdles when you have a ton of capital and access to one of the most robust distribution infrastructures in the us both online and storefront.
would be cool if they bought gt. Put the department store stuff on the shelves and the premium stuff dtc or ordered to storefront. Way richer history and far less negative views. It’s not like yt disappointing customers is anything new. They have had issues for a long time with customer service and poorly handling athletes.
YT has been about margins since day 1.
2015 baller carbon capra, $5500 https://www.vitalmtb.com/product/guide/Bikes,3/YT/Capra-Pro,14533
2015 baller sworks stumpy, $9300 https://www.vitalmtb.com/product/guide/Bikes,3/Specialized/S-Works-Enduro-29,15201
this isn't perfect apples-to-apples spec, but you get the idea. IIRC, back then it was the only way to get people to consider DTC in the first place.
I'd say YT was probably the best, but then it brings up the idea of how other d2c brands fared much better from Canyon to Commencal to Polygon. We can see where Canyon was propped up by road (and still struggled), Polygon clearly runs a leaner program overall, and Commencal has older roots and arguably less drama outside of people snapping Furious frames over n over.
It did feel like they wanted to run a lean program with small margins like Polygon, but also be seen as a legit household racing brand like Commencal or Canyon. Like they wanted to 'have their cake and eat it too'. Can't imply I'd have run it better. And I see why they wanted top operate in that space. But ya would just love to know what ended up as the nail in the coffin. Like most things, it likely was a mixture of many things... But one thing must have truly sank the boat there.
20k ebike from Specialized is just a PR stunt and does exactly what is supposed to do - people talk about it all over internet.
At the end it will add new sales in low tier bikes as people will start lurking what else they offer. That’s all on that plan. It was never about how serious is that price and build.
And Fox Podium USD fork is most likely the very same hype product just to get more attention and overall sales.
Polygon is basically the in house brand of a manufacturer that also does Marin, Scott and Kona’s bikes so they can rely on the business as well.
Anyone remember all the chatter when YT and Canyon came to the US? They were going to take over and put a hurt on the big 3 with their prices... Now, we are questioning if they will survive... Maybe they needed a little higher price tag?
If they didn't have as many warranty issues they would probably have a better shot at it. The price is right, the customer service is garbage and has turned many people off dealing with them.
I don't really think Canyon or YT have any product that would be really comparable to let's say Fuel EX gen 6 (7) or Stumpy Evo (15) to take over the market, at least in trail bikes or enduro.
In the good old days, Canyons and YT's competitive edge was quite simple and affordable bikes. And I mean times when they were just starting in Europe. Canyon is really "meh" when it comes to bike technology; there is nothing truly exciting about what they offer at all, and even with an unlimited budget, I would struggle to find anything from their portfolio that I would like to ride...
YT is pretty much similar; the only advantage in the past was usually a bit better build at a good value. At least for them, there was some more specific design language unique to the brand, a bit of development... which sort of died over time too. What was the last time they shipped anything that would be truly the next iteration of something people liked?
All together, it's not really bikes that make exciting reviews; there is no "can't wait for what they release next".
I think it's good not to be the next Trek and Specialized, but it is also good to position yourself somehow, to have some vision, and to sell it to a certain user group. Perhaps there was something a little bit in YT with the focus on "being free thinker" which could resonate with some buyers. But for Canyon, it is probably the most "empty brand" bicycle maker I can think of - there is really nothing that you can relate to. And that is a hard place to build an interest in.
From my shop experience, Trek and Specialized don't mess around with warranty or crash replacements, while the D2C brands took time and cost more on the back end, although I'll says, Commencal is usually better than the rest and answer quickly.
Hard to put the hurt on the big guys when they are 5 steps ahead in customer service.
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