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Fraezen is insolvent
Too quiet in here. Are there signs of life in Taiwan manufacturing? Giant, Merida, and Ideal all posted increased revenue vs last May. YTD, they are all still down double digits. Does anyone think they turned a corner last month?
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/international/2026/06/15/taiwan-bike-ma…
Companies have finally got rid of the post C19 inventory and are slowly starting to order again. However, I'm willing to bet current tariff situation hasn't helped much..
Still lots of deals to be found on older bikes. Often tariffs have inflated the price on the newer stuff so it’s like getting double discount as a consumer.
Certainly makes the prospects of selling new pedal bikes and parts a bit difficult to anyone who isn’t pretty well off. But I do imagine the market is way healthier than it was a couple years ago for sure. And it seems clearance bikes tend to be much lower stock for sure versus essentially standard.
Market definitely still more consumer friendly and competitive than it was pre pandemic. But I’d think most brands are in a fairly healthy place and at a better place all together. Where a few definitely lost their lunch on that roller coaster.
Jeff’s barbell theory seems to really be at play. With specialized selling both a 2500 dual crown park bike and a 11,000 dollar dh race bike.
This sucks. Such a beautiful place, a great bike park and a stellar race venue
This feels very akin to DJI/Avinox. Seekrun's about page states that they are backed by HIGO, who manufactures cables and connectors for E-bikes and e-mobility markets: About HiGO – Leading Manufacturer of Connectors & Harness Systems - HIGO Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.
Have not read/listened yet but based on the previous episodes I'm betting this will be interesting to a lot of you: https://escapecollective.com/part-3-will-the-chinese-brands-change-the-…
"There are clear parallels with what's happened in plenty of other industries. Jayu Yang, a Taiwan-based industry expert, told us the decision to go global was made decades ago, as a Chinese national-brand strategy — the same one that made DJI, Xiaomi, and BYD leaders in consumer electronics and electric vehicles, respectively. Yang explained to us that, much like in the Global North, in the South, the pandemic accelerated everything, and with the cycling sector specifically, it pushed companies to expand manufacturing capacity enormously, only to then leave that capacity looking for somewhere else to go when the demand dropped."
I know it's not quite this simple, but it seems to me that for western brands to actually land counter punches against the incoming Chinese brands, they should adopt the pricing model that Funn uses. They're a "real" brand but their bars and stems are priced around $75, slightly below the industry standard of $100+. If i'm picking between a Chinese brand like ZTTO (I swear by their DT hub internals, freehub bodies, dropper levers) with a stem for $40 and a "real" brand like Funn at $75, I'm going with Funn.
Aenomaly seems to have done this to an extent in dropping their prices to combat the counterfeit Switchgrades out there. (which actually seem like they're just QC rejections, but that's a different topic)
Obviously this can't work for every brand or for every product. Industry 9 will always have a $150 stem, but non "bling" brands like Deity, Burgtech, Leatt, OneUp, Spank, DMR, RaceFace (just listing off the millions of stem brands out there)
Funn is fully vertically integrated(like Fratelli/aka Spank), they even own the brothel they entertain product managers at!
Being an actual manufacturer gives a brand like Funn a lot more margin to work with.
With the introduction of Hope’s new $2000 brakes I’m feeling increasingly correct in my assessment that the bike industry (or at least the western bike industry) is capitalizing on growing wealth inequality and is increasingly relying on a small constituency of rich fanboys* to keep the lights on, while increasingly high quality, low cost Chinese products capture the low dollar part of the market.
*non-derogatory
I'd get their mid-priced T4V4s (or the newer Evo models) over cheap Chinese clones 11 times out of 10 again. This is IMO Hope's halo product, a marketing tool, nothing more. 1,000 sets limited edition is hardly a sign of a market shift.
I’d argue we’re exiting “Chinese clone” territory and entering regular “Chinese product” territory. Mountain biking is growing rapidly over there, soon there will be high level Chinese racers working with Chinese suspension and Chinese frames that they test at Chinese bike parks. As with the Avinox motors we’re getting to a point where the Chinese won’t need to copy western products. The writing is on the wall with BYD imo.
If the price is right China is going to start eating Taiwan's lunch big time in the bike market. Frame design for pedal bikes has plateaud super hard at this point. All the big hype lately has been about components/EEB Motors rather than new bike releases.
well I'm all ready there tbh.
No need to invade if you can just soft power annihilate every industry they have.
Kove Motorcycles and ZXMOTO, also from China have scored wins in Dakar Rally, and World Supersport. A lot of people thought that Chinese companies would never do well in competitive racing series, but that's not the case anymore.
That Kove also has a lot of strings attached for both their win and for their stock public product. It's certainly something others aren't offering, but in a lot of ways, it also isn't what it reports to be. If you want the Dakar ready model, be prepared to spend KTM money for it.
F9 said it pretty well. How did they get it to such an insanely low weight? Easy. They lied about the weight.
...I still want one.
I know this should go in the e-bike thread, but Gobao just dropped a bit of a bomb https://www.pinkbike.com/news/first-look-gobao-joins-the-emtb-arms-race-with-a-1500-w-150-nm-ecvt.html
While no brand has committed to the package and there are no first hand reviews, this is a very fascinating development and a great indictation of what is to come. I'd guess Aventon is to follow with this being integrated into their rumored enduro eeb. Also might explain why Angel was signed to their team...
Another point to China.
I wondered how long it would take for eCVTs to make it to two-wheeled vehicles with pedals on them
Any bets on how long before Specialized, Trek and Giant are bankrupt?
I think the one advantage a US operations based bike company may have (for the longest time into the future) when compared to a Chinese company is accessible customer support.
The number of warranty issues I’ve had with bike frames and suspension products has to be close to 50%. I’m currently working through a multi-frame warranty issue as we speak.
I have no reason to believe that a Chinese based company is going to have exceptionally better quality than the current established brands. Thus, I would expect that with my luck a warranty claim is coming sooner than later. To entice me away from the legacy brands they would need to have a reputable in country customer support program.
Genuine question, are there Chinese brands in other industries that have demonstrated this?
Agreed that this motor/CVT is predictable, inevitable, and nonetheless a really BFD for the ebike market and makers of traditional derailleur-driven drivetrains.
I know I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but high performance eMTB sales represent a very small market, whereas the real effects of this are going to be seen in the touring/commuter/pavement pounder market. I'd wager Shimano and SRAM sells 100 times more derailleurs/shifters/cassettes to the touring/commuter/pavement pounder ebike market vs. what they sell for high end eMTBs.
True that, Charlie. Look at all the ebikes in for service where only the 14 tooth cog has ever been used. People struggle with shifting. That was before motors double their output.
Even in the eMTB space I don't see the derailleur and cassette drivetrain surviving the power wars. Our beloved and wickedly efficient bicycle drivetrains didn't evolve to put out 150 Nm and 1500 freaking watts. Constant watts. That's 2 HP for Joe and Jane Blow compared the 1/4 HP a reasonably fit human puts out. You're simply going to need thicker cogs hanging off that back wheel. But then you run into chainline issues due to thicker chains. It starts to add up. Maybe consumers will accept a burlier option with 9 or so gears - sure don't need 32/52t gearing.
Planetary gearsets like this are brilliant, just ask Toyota. For those that don't know, this is a miniaturized version of the bomb proof transmission in Toyota hybrids. It requires two motors (1 of them quite small) to work, so it's not an option for regular bikes. They're well understood, in cars they're literally the most efficient and most reliable. Will it work and take over ebikes? Who knows, but something needs to change if Class 1 is truly dead, as I suspect it is.
There's near zero chance DJI isn't working as hard as they can on a planetary eCVT. Add SRAM and Shimano to the list of companies that I'm very worried about.
If you had said only Shimano I'd believe you. Sram's portfolio is different, with not nearly the same depth of entry level price points as Shimano.
Yes, fair point about SRAM's conscious move to target mid-range and up. Shimano wipes the floor with SRAM on cheap bikes. But my 100x guesstimate might still be true if you lump Shimano and SRAM sales together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8kKGqHXsAQ
Well there you go.
I have it on good authority this is true, though always marketed as "gearbox". So who knows if its CVT, a true "gear box" or something else entirely.
Will be interesting to see the impact on M2 equipped bike sales now that the cat is out of the bag.
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