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This news on Giant goes hand in hand with a rumor I heard the other day that they are contemplating on focusing on manufacturing and not having their own brand..
That there is a rumor!
I would LOVE if we got that announcement before October 3rd. That is WILD.
Because this forum thread opened on October 3, 2023, Spomer, Brines, and myself are planning to record a podcast recapping the last 24 months in the bike industry and looking forward to what's coming in the next few years. Two requests from the rest of you in the peanut gallery:
1. Let us know what questions you want to hear discussed by Spomer, Brines, and myself on the "Will more companies be shutting down in the next 12-24 months?" podcast.
2. Take a look at "THE LIST" I've included below and let me know what comments, corrections, or additional info you have. Based on the discussion in this thread, I've been keeping track of all the brands that have gone under, filed for bankruptcy, or had to sell off or restructure during the last 24 months. In a perfect world, I'll add dates to the list, too.
THE LIST: post-Covid bike brand graveyard
1. Kitsbow
2. Guerrilla Gravity
3. Ridefast Racing
4. Nukeproof/Ragley/Vitus/Chain Reaction/Wiggle (NP back up and running in lean form, all other brands toast)
5. Blackspire
6. Eminent Cycles
7. BLine indoor MTB park in Calgary
8. Pole (maybe coming back?)
9. Kona (back up and running!)
10. Planet Cyclery/Colorado Cyclist
11. Stages Cycling
12. Tweedlove Events
13. GT (“Paused” according to Pin)
14. The Pros Closet (closed, but came back under new ownership)
15. Wrenchscience.com
16. Fat Tire Farm (iconic Portland Bike Shop)
17. Lama Cycles Distribution (“back up and running” on 8/22/2025)
18. Archer Components electronic shifting
19. Alchemy bikes (up for sale 7/2/2025)
20. LightInMotion
21. North Shore Indoor Bike Park (killed by pickleball?)
22. Revel Bikes (They’re back!)
23. Husqvarna- and GasGas-branded e-bikes
24. Borealis fat bikes (on pause?)
25. Stif Cycles in the UK (make their own hardtails, and distributor)
26. Scor (paused)
27. Bionicon (they were still in business?)
28. Diamondback (not dead yet, but down to six employees) “Heard from a friend that Diamondback is down to a few last employees and is selling off last ”
29. YT restructuring/administration/bankruptcy
30. Novatec wheels U.S.
31. 7 Anna (NS Bikes owner) filed for bankruptcy, but “operations, sales, and warranty support will continue while it searches for investors.”
32. Woodward West in Tehachapi, CA
RIP
if you wanna have some internet fun, you could discuss how Arena Group (bikemag parent media company) decided to sell off / shut down ridemonkey and the users ponied up to buy the IP and website, taking it back into private ownership.
If the rumors Im hearing from industry friends are true, there is going to be an edit needing to get made to one of the brands on the lower part of that list in the coming days
Would love to hear some thoughts on limited edition releases / drops to keep full price (or above) sales going. We've got $20k Levos, green 38s, silver Transmission, retro Yetis, etc, etc.
YT liquidation?
Rocky Mountain (creditor protection in late 2024 new investors early 2025)
not sure if it would be getting off topic to discuss their race team here
The rumour I've heard is that YT is dead-dead, not just the race team. I did not view it as from a credible source which is why I did not post it here when I heard.
Honestly probably it's own podcast topic but I agree.
Do you think the survivors have learnt their lessons??
North shore bike park has moved into the old Air Rec site and is planning to reopen this fall.
Diamondback seems like they have lacked direction for quite sometime.. Some decent bikes here and there, but nothing to really grab people's attention..
Something I'd like to hear about is if you can more or less confirm (anonymous sources?) that the big companies drove up the overseas orders... Essentially starting a bidding war that kicked off most of these problems.
If it's still just speculation then no need... But I keep hearing it as a 'rumor' and I'd love something more concrete on if it outright happened, happened but wasn't the cause of issues, didn't quite happen as described, etc.
And, secondly, I'd love some conversation (if there is any concrete info to draw from) on how some brands seemed to weather the storm so much better than others (that aren't the 'big brands'). For me, notably, Norco seems from my PoV to have just CRUISED through the entire ordeal while if anything growing during the time and now fielding a top of the line race team already collecting wins (under the eye of Minnaar). I mean you'd almost think the timeline was good for them as they feel more talked about than ever (or at least, compared to the direct covid era).
But yeah basically the idea of who GREW throughout post-covid... And how does it seem they did so?
Paying riders and content creators while not selling bikes is a Coffin move.
From what I understand is they released new bikes, the Geo Evolution happened and Their Models were instantly outdated.
Paying a families lifestyle like porters, heavy sponsor of Seth and many other Youtubers Just Dug them a hole with their outdated Bikes.
I'd love to see brands Marketing Teams numbers when sponsoring Riders and creators, like does it actually do anything? is there any ROI?
I've only out-right bought 1 bike because of a creator/rider which was Phil and the Latest GT Force.
Norco far from cruised through the ordeal. They had hardly any bikes arriving at all over the worst of COVID compared to a ton of other brands I dealt with. If it seems like they did, it's because their SCM/supplier dickswing was not great and they got shoved to the bottom of the pile for orders which may in the end have worked out okay for them because they, for the most part, ended up not holding the bag on receiving MY2022 bikes as late as early 2025 like Trek ($3,600 CAD Trek Slash 9.8s, anyone?). They just didn't have the orders in.
Now, this is just pure speculation, but I also think Norco has received some cash injection when the Lewis family bought out the rest of LTP a year ago.
Possibly.
There's an interesting phenomenon during big downturns you see in the investment/finance world where after big crashes a lot of people exit the industry for good.
You think that people will learn to spot the bubbles and not repeat the same mistakes, but actually the companies are staffed with either juniors or people who weren't in the industry during the first crash, so they run head first into the next crash 7-10 years later. There are quite a few interesting economics papers written on it, but very few people tend to work through multiple crashes, they mostly exit for good after 1 or 2, meaning a lot of the wisdom leaves as well.
Things would be cool to dissdiscusscuss:
-SWOT analysis of the industry as a whole
-Where we think the Big 4 are at (will be interesting to see whats going on with Giant)
-What players are doing it right
Speaking of companies lacking direction... GT is another one I put in that category.. At least they had some better bikes.. The Force was definitely one I wanted to try.. Even the Sensor got some decent reviews, but they seemed like they were lost in the shuffle of the other Pon brands..
Small update but Fat Tire Farm in Portland has been revived, more or less, after being purchased by another local shop. Pretty sure their Hood River location is gone though. Now called Cyclepath Northwest.
https://www.instagram.com/cyclepathnw/
The big jeans, the white canvas painter pants: what’s the over/under? Canyon Factory Racing showed up to Lenzerheide track walk looking like me 2 (and 30) years ago with vests over hoodies, what’s the ebitduh on the denim disruption
just remembered Trust Performance was also a casualty in spring 2020
I mean, the fork didn’t do some basic fork things. I’m not sure they make the list. I think it was purely coincidental.
The discussion about the Trust fork on the PB podcast the other week was hilarious..
Perfect timing for the Vital podcast.
source article:
https://enduro-mtb.com/en/bad-news-yt-shuts-its-doors/
Damnit... was in the process of trying to get my cracked Izzo frame warrantied. I wondered if something new was up, as I was having really great customer service with the CSR promptly responding and getting additional information up until like 3 days ago, when he went silent.
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