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RE: lifetime warranties on rims. When WAO sold to I9, there were several interviews with both sides. Neither of them indicated that warranty replacements were a big cost item. Surely it's non-zero, but there is so much other shit going on in the industry that are bigger factors. Likewise, for Santa Cruz / Reserve, their warranty replacement costs have got to be such an insignificant line item. But the big difference between Reserve/WAO and the CSS wheels is the former are tough as hell. Yeah, it's possible to break them (I broke 2 different WAO rim models, and I know a few guys who've broken Reserves), but it's not common/frequent. Companies should be offering rim warranties because they've tested the durability extensively, and stand behind their product - not because they feel they need to do it to be competitive.
I do think the warranty discussion is super interesting and worthy of its own thread. I have my own thoughts, but I'll save them for if (when) that thread is spawned.
I'm sure most of you have seen the YT video from the other site, if not, its worth the watch. I'll likely publish some thoughts over the next 24-48 hours. There is still a fair bit of confusion around what is happening there.
I don't want to be that guy here, because every internet guy has a story like this, and because this thread is about business viability and not product.
But... I have personally broken a rear wheel on a Forge and Bond demo wheelset and I have seen in person, two other forge/bond wheels get broken on rides. While I have broken many wheels in my riding career, I'm not a wheel killer (at least not typically all that often these days). One of the three F/B wheels I have seen broken was not the wheels fault, but I have seen 2 that failed on stuff that should have been fine.
In cases like this, where breakages are rampant based on a very small sample size... I could make an argument that the warranty processing could actually be a balance sheet killer. Especially so if they are compensating shops for warranty rebuilds (I have no idea if they are or are not).
Real quick distraction here just cuz there's no better place/person to ask... With everything that's been going on I've really been thinking more and more about Orbea's ownership situation (CoOp). And it implores me to ask if there are any other bike (and/or parts) brands like that? I'm assuming if there are any at all they could be counted on one hand likely... (Excluding, of course, small operations that are 1 man operations or just 2-3 partners alone.)
Your experience makes sense. 4 years ago, for the first time, I rented an ebike at Kanuga. Aside from having a wicked-good-time, I couldn't noticing that there were these small groups of riders: maybe an 8 yr. old kid, a teenager, and an older man or woman, all riding together. They were families, actually all riding together, UPHILL. I checked memory, and realized how seldom I'd seen this in my 40 years of biking. Ebikes are a great tool for families to enjoy mountain biking together. Full stop.
If Ebike manufacturers haven't taken advantage of this marketing opportunity, well, here's your chance, ya hacks: Market Ebiking as a Family Activity.
There, a million-dollar idea from a guy who's never made a dime on mountain biking.
Around here as far as I see most people use a pull rope thingie to assist kids on the ups and usually use an ebike themselves (the adults). That way the kid has a lighter (and cheaper) bike.
I'm definitely seeing more of that now too... Trust me, if I didn't have access to free demo bikes at the time, my son wouldn't have been on one.
I've seen it dozens of times where the ebike is the equalizer.. One person is the stronger rider and the spouse isn't as strong or as serious of a rider.. Suddenly, the ebike allows them to ride together and both are able to have a good time.
If there's one thing I've learned during my 30 years in the bike industry, it's the bike industry does an amazing job of marketing to the customers that they already have..
The equalizing factor of an ebike for my GF (testing one on a ride) meant I almost died when I tried to keep up with her only for her to hardly break a sweat. And she was on a Levo SL on the lowest support level.
All 5 of us (my wife, myself and 3 kids who are now teenagers) all ride together at least once a week. We ride at Kanuga probably once a month together. We all ride ebikes. They allow us to all ride together and turn it into a family event. Without ebikes my family would have never stuck with or enjoyed riding. I don't care what anyone thinks of ebikes, they changed our lives forever.
Please take the personal opinions about the general concept of e-bikes somewhere else. Here, for example: https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/e-bike-talk-not-tech-rumor-derailme…
Respectfully, I don’t agree with your final statement. I have been an avid rider (all types) for close to 30 years. I have owned (I hate to admit this) well over 100 bikes.
I feel like the mountain bike companies and traditional industry in particular doesn’t speak to me at all. I feel like they completely forgotten/ignore people like me.
Anything I do feel affinity toward are made by the outsiders and iconoclasts that the industry also largely undervalues.
Just a short note re warranties - I had a chat with a carbon rim supplier a couple of years ago when discussing warranties, from what the supplier implied, they take out an insurance policy for each rim. The premium was only a small amount per rim - around £30-£40. It wasn't annual either, it was a simple one-off payment.
Happy two-year anniversary. @jeff.brines got on the horn with @TEAMROBOT and I to discuss what's happened in the bike industry over the last two years. The podcast is below, but I can't thank all of you enough for such an incredible discussion. The knowledge and courtesy in this thread makes me proud to be involved with Vital, and as I say a few times in the podcast, this thread in particular has felt like receiving a free education.
We all hope anyone who has lost a bike industry job in the last two years is back on their feet or finding their way there. THANK YOU!
Sspomer can you please lock this thread in 5 hours and 11 minutes? Thanks.
Edit: I think we should probably have a warranty cost-benefit discussion thread or continue it here as I think it would be an appropriate topic in the "economics and the business of mountain biking" successor thread to this one (if that happens), or whatever we want to call it ("Jeff's big business thread for teaching vital users who don't learn good"?). 30-40 pounds per rim as an insurance payment is a strange approach and honestly not one I would expect. In my professional life, when someone is taking out that kind of insurance policy it's to ensure that users aren't left holding the bag if failures occur if the company folds - which we know just isn't the case in bike world. Further, they're not doing it for themselves, but for contractual or regulatory compliance.
Otherwise, you'd think they'd be self-insuring for 30-40 pounds per rim. I'd really like to look behind the curtain of something like this and see if they actually did the requisite background analysis of finding a failure rate, estimating costs, applying a price per rim, and then coming to the conclusion that it makes economic sense to bet against an insurance company in that capacity. Really, that's what they've done - if their rims are better than they think and they get less failures, they lose and the insurance company wins. If they get more failures than expected, they win. Interesting model.
I say keep it going, there's more drama to come. Would rather have it in this one thread.
based on this week's events gonna throw strava here as a wild card, they thought it was a good idea to file a lawsuit based on a questionable patent against a company ~25x their size (based on net worth)
Power to the People: Do you all want this thread locked being we've hit the two year mark and a new one created or should it persist?
How to Vote
Thumbs Up - Lock It
Thumbs Down - Keep It Open
Voting window is through the weekend.
Boy, for personal reasons I hope you are right but I'd bet a lot of money this gets settled outside of court. What I really want to see happen is the "IP" Strava has is invalidated. I still can't believe matching data is somehow something you can patent in the modern era, meanwhile the transformer was something Google just let sit on a shelf.
Mind blowing.
If anyone is wondering what Jeff is referring to...
https://research.google/blog/transformer-a-novel-neural-network-architecture-for-language-understanding/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10452978B2/en
Lock it to preserve its integrity.
A new thread can be made for future occurrences. But also I hope this concept is 'rare' enough going forward that people can just... Start a solo thread per incident. And that it's not so saturated we yet again need a 'megathread' to cover the implosion of our industry.
(Also optimistically hoping any future incidents aren't as much tied to the covid boom and more so a result of their own process, aka failure... so hoping things look different going forward. It's not like all these things happen due to covid. Thinking of how long ago Ibis was sold and bought back, before all this nonsense.)
oh i have no realistic expectation that they go under as a result of this. and you're right this will most likely be settled out of court. i'm just a bit dumbfounded that strava thought this was something worth pursuing. while it's not published, a quick google indicates speculation that garmin users account for roughly half of stravas paid user base. they are far more reliant on garmin than vice versa. there has to be something else going on behind the scenes, i have a hard time believing this is all its about considering how astoundingly short sighted it is.
Carbon wheel warranty, for what’s it worth I worked for a carbon wheel manufacturer for a bit. The lifetime warranty was built into the price for some models, and could be purchased as an add on for other models.
Warranty claims come in from a wide range of users, rim models and breaks. User could either get a rim and rebuild themselves or send in hub and have new wheel rebuilt, paying for rebuild labour at a reduced rate, nipples and spokes if needed and shipping.
I don’t recall the number/percentage of claims vs sales, but it wasn’t that high.
On a side note I don’t know how Reserve managed their warranties. They would send out a new wheel and not ask for the old one, so the user kept a hub. How is that feasible?
I watched a dc rainmaker video about this and he mentioned that Strava is planning on going public and this may have been a bit of a misguided attempt to shore up their ip.
I’m for keeping this thread open and just changing the name if possible.
Oh also regarding the 20k Sworks eeb that is talked about in the podcast, I just saw something funny yesterday that will be interesting to keep an eye on going forward... A local shop (Orange County Cyclery? maybe) has it listed for 19k.
And my thought was... There it is... The first price slash to get it closer to the aftermarket value of the build (without the bowling ball paint). Around ~17500 I think.
Still chuckling at the idea that discounting it ~2500 off doesn't quite save you money yet, aside from the cost of a unique paint job. Tell me when it gets to 17000 or less!!! Steal of a deal!
i saw about the IPO as well. this is exactly the kind of blunder you want to avoid if you're trying to go public.
the more i think about this, the less sense it makes.
the S in MSRP stands for "suggested"
It’s a marketing cost, that is all.
as in, we "suggest" you buy the lower tier or just build this same bike piece by piece.
also I hope none of these 20k Sworks buyers see Brines' experience with the Fox Podium lol
I don't even think Jeff's hard riding helped cause the failures, they seemed to start 'out the box' for him
My significant other just broke a reserve rim. They sent out a replacement rim and paid the bike shop labor for relacing it so not a whole new wheel. Total time from warranty submission to done was a week.
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