Bummer. I had a few sources tell me they were going to pull out of the tailspin, but honestly I didn't see how they'd do it...
Bummer. I had a few sources tell me they were going to pull out of the tailspin, but honestly I didn't see how they'd do it. This will be (likely) a very notable event for the European bike industry, but probably won't have a huge impact in North America. For those wondering, brands under their umbrella include Haibike, Ghost, Lapierre, Raleigh, and Batavus etc doing close to €1 billion in annual revenue. (with a B )
The biggest near-term impacts will likely be dealer losses, warranty uncertainty, supplier pain and another wave of heavily discounted inventory. Bla bla bla. Different year same shit.
Assuming formal insolvency proceedings do in fact occur, the strongest brands will likely be sold and continue under new ownership. Who wants to go buy LaPierre and Ghost with me!? lol.
When I saw your post about Accell Group going into insolvency, I thought Diamondback would be one of the brands listed in the insolvency agreement alongside Raleigh. I remembered Accell owning Diamondback (another brand that we've observed to be struggling mightily in this thread), but I didn't see it on the list in the Reuters or BikeBiz.com articles about the recent insolvency agreement for Accell. Turns out Accell sold Diamondback and Redline (their US businesses) way back in 2019.
This is all a surprise to me. I either never heard any of this history or I forgot about it, but this morning when I was trying to figure out who bought, sold, or owned Diamondback I ended up learning a bunch about Mavic's recent ownership odyssey. Forgive me if all of this has already been covered in the thread already:
Accell Group sold Diamondback, Redline Bikes, and iZip (ebike brand) to a private equity group called Regent LP based here in Los Angeles in August, 2019.
Mavic was allegedely also owned by Regent LP at that time, as they'd been sold off by Finnish conglomerate Amer Sports Group (owner of Salomon, Arcteryx, Atomic, Armada, Wilson tennis, Louisville Slugger, and former owner of Enve) between March and July of 2019.
But Mavic was never actually purchased by Regent."Despite Mavic appearing on Regent LP’s portfolio, the CSE claimed the acquisition never took place and Mavic instead went to the hands of a mystery company in the USA... Mavic staff representatives learned that, contrary to what had been publicly announced, Salomon had not sold their company to Regent LP but to a Delaware-based company M Sports, without any capital link with Regent LP."
In December of 2019, M Sports-owned Mavic went into something less than bankruptcy in France, "a process called 'conciliation' which, under French insolvency law, seeks to arrive at an agreement between a business in difficulties and its creditors."
Then in May of 2020, Mavic went into full blown bankruptcy, which in France is called "redressement judiciaire" or what's basically receivership.
Then, as I'm writing up that timeline, I went back and read the whole Road.cc article about Mavic going into receivership and I got to the bottom of the article where it said that, behind the curtain, "M Sports" in Delaware was one-and-the-same with Regent LP all along, even though the people who managed the sale at Amer Sports and the employees at Mavic allegedly didn't know any of this:
"However, Amer Sports told France Bleu that it, too, “is a victim” and that “Regent hid the true identity of the purchasing shareholder.” According to BRAIN, company documents registered in France show Mavic as being owned by M Sports International LLC, and that it is represented by one Michael Reinstein, who happens to be the chairman of Regent LP. That leads us to believe that there is nothing untoward going on. Unlike a publicly listed group of companies such as Amer Sports which produce consolidated accounts, private equity firms manage their investments through setting up individual holding companies for them. For legal reasons, Delaware is a popular state for companies in the US to be registered in, and M Sports International is exactly the kind of name that a private equity house might choose for the company it is setting up to house the acquired business. Add in Reinstein being named in those French business filings, and it all seems above board, even if at first glance it appears that the companies are unrelated."
It's exhausting trying to keep track of who owns who. It feels like the plot of The Big Lebowski. A lot of ins and outs, Maude.
Your friends get fired and the name on the check changes. The impromptu party for the fallen is ill-attended and there’s a meeting next week where you’ll learn how much worse the new health insurance is.
And the beat goes on. “Those guys that got fired sure are riding a lot…and on weekdays damn!”
Fox Factory results are out. I'll do my normal substack thing but the stock has responded positively in post market trading with the stock up ~8% and up pretty notably on the week (from $16 to $20/sh).
SSG (bike+baseball) sales are down year over year, with the company citing "oem order timing and channel destocking in response to market-wide economic conditions".
Other interesting points as I skim the release...
Guidance "raise" is fake. Revenue up, EBITDA unchanged. Zero incremental margin on the raise.
Implied Q4 EBITDA: $41-69M. High end needs ~17.7% margin, never been done. Answer's in the bottom half.
Sequential margin expansion measured off a disaster. Q1 was 9.7%. ~50bps of the Q2 print is a one-time tariff refund. Ex-refund: 12.2% vs 13.1% LY. Still down.
Operating cash flow down 65% ($13.2M vs $37.5M H1).
Capex is 23% of D&A. $9.5M spent, $41.2M depreciated. They're harvesting the asset base.
Deleveraging isn't from operations. $9.1M net debt cut funded by the Phoenix sale and asset sales. Revolver went $150M to $163M while term debt amortized $18.8M.
Covenant widened 4.5x to 5.0x in May while sitting at 3.7x. Nobody buys headroom they don't expect to need...but CFOs like to sleep at night, too.
The growth engine is margin-dilutive. Powersports +22.5%, PVG segment EBITDA down YoY. All the guided H2 upside comes from here.
Inventory contradiction: balance sheet down $5.7M, cash flow shows a $17.4M build. Building WC into a channel they call "destocking."
Add-back creep: $2.8M of "strategic transformation" consultants (Guys, I'd do this for way cheaper
), added back to the metric measuring the savings those consultants found.
Bottom line: $25M of savings captured, ~$20M of input inflation eaten. Running hard to stand still (tough business, eh?). Interest expense ($23.8M) exceeds GAAP operating income ($23.5M) for the half.
Raleigh going under as part of this is a real kick in the teeth. It’s a big part of British industrial and cycling history, it was once the biggest bike company in the world with a huge footprint in Nottingham. Growing up everyone wanted a Raleigh bike for Christmas. I do hope they can find someone to take it on, the name holds real cultural significance.
When I was a little, 5-year old kid in the 80s, I won a full-sized, red Raleigh mountain bike in a draw at the general store in my tiny, Newfoundland hometown. The old man was fucking stoked. Both myself and my older brother each road it for a time when we were older. I think he still has it out in the garage.
All to say, I'm sad to hear of their demise as well, as I have a lingering fondness despite their products holding zero consumer appeal to me.
Bummer. I had a few sources tell me they were going to pull out of the tailspin, but honestly I didn't see how they'd do it...
Bummer. I had a few sources tell me they were going to pull out of the tailspin, but honestly I didn't see how they'd do it. This will be (likely) a very notable event for the European bike industry, but probably won't have a huge impact in North America. For those wondering, brands under their umbrella include Haibike, Ghost, Lapierre, Raleigh, and Batavus etc doing close to €1 billion in annual revenue. (with a B )
The biggest near-term impacts will likely be dealer losses, warranty uncertainty, supplier pain and another wave of heavily discounted inventory. Bla bla bla. Different year same shit.
Assuming formal insolvency proceedings do in fact occur, the strongest brands will likely be sold and continue under new ownership. Who wants to go buy LaPierre and Ghost with me!? lol.
When I saw your post about Accell Group going into insolvency, I thought Diamondback would be one of the brands listed in the insolvency agreement alongside...
When I saw your post about Accell Group going into insolvency, I thought Diamondback would be one of the brands listed in the insolvency agreement alongside Raleigh. I remembered Accell owning Diamondback (another brand that we've observed to be struggling mightily in this thread), but I didn't see it on the list in the Reuters or BikeBiz.com articles about the recent insolvency agreement for Accell. Turns out Accell sold Diamondback and Redline (their US businesses) way back in 2019.
This is all a surprise to me. I either never heard any of this history or I forgot about it, but this morning when I was trying to figure out who bought, sold, or owned Diamondback I ended up learning a bunch about Mavic's recent ownership odyssey. Forgive me if all of this has already been covered in the thread already:
Accell Group sold Diamondback, Redline Bikes, and iZip (ebike brand) to a private equity group called Regent LP based here in Los Angeles in August, 2019.
Mavic was allegedely also owned by Regent LP at that time, as they'd been sold off by Finnish conglomerate Amer Sports Group (owner of Salomon, Arcteryx, Atomic, Armada, Wilson tennis, Louisville Slugger, and former owner of Enve) between March and July of 2019.
But Mavic was never actually purchased by Regent."Despite Mavic appearing on Regent LP’s portfolio, the CSE claimed the acquisition never took place and Mavic instead went to the hands of a mystery company in the USA... Mavic staff representatives learned that, contrary to what had been publicly announced, Salomon had not sold their company to Regent LP but to a Delaware-based company M Sports, without any capital link with Regent LP."
In December of 2019, M Sports-owned Mavic went into something less than bankruptcy in France, "a process called 'conciliation' which, under French insolvency law, seeks to arrive at an agreement between a business in difficulties and its creditors."
Then in May of 2020, Mavic went into full blown bankruptcy, which in France is called "redressement judiciaire" or what's basically receivership.
Then, as I'm writing up that timeline, I went back and read the whole Road.cc article about Mavic going into receivership and I got to the bottom of the article where it said that, behind the curtain, "M Sports" in Delaware was one-and-the-same with Regent LP all along, even though the people who managed the sale at Amer Sports and the employees at Mavic allegedly didn't know any of this:
"However, Amer Sports told France Bleu that it, too, “is a victim” and that “Regent hid the true identity of the purchasing shareholder.” According to BRAIN, company documents registered in France show Mavic as being owned by M Sports International LLC, and that it is represented by one Michael Reinstein, who happens to be the chairman of Regent LP. That leads us to believe that there is nothing untoward going on. Unlike a publicly listed group of companies such as Amer Sports which produce consolidated accounts, private equity firms manage their investments through setting up individual holding companies for them. For legal reasons, Delaware is a popular state for companies in the US to be registered in, and M Sports International is exactly the kind of name that a private equity house might choose for the company it is setting up to house the acquired business. Add in Reinstein being named in those French business filings, and it all seems above board, even if at first glance it appears that the companies are unrelated."
It's exhausting trying to keep track of who owns who. It feels like the plot of The Big Lebowski. A lot of ins and outs, Maude.
You are right, the "who owns who" question is dizzying. Makes me think, maybe the best way to make a million dollars in the bike industry is not to start with two million, but to instead be an lawyer in the M&A space. (real knee slapper there eh Jeff?)
@jeff.brines regarding the above, do you have any thoughts or analysis on legacy brands expanding into the high end kids / tweens MTB market. I...
Takes from q2 substack
@jeff.brines regarding the above, do you have any thoughts or analysis on legacy brands expanding into the high end kids / tweens MTB market. I see more kids then ever on MTB's locally, with numbers at organised clubs and race events following suit. Commencal is far ahead of the pack here, but I doubt it stays that way for long. The inherent turnover of bikes as a kid grows naturally leads to sales, and engaging a user young can help to align a rider with a brand from an early age. KTM did the same in the early 00's by pouring massive amounts into their minibike range, and it worked.
Good question. A few thoughts.I do think there is some opportunity in kids’, tween, and teenage bikes, but I suspect most of the economics will accrue...
Good question. A few thoughts.
I do think there is some opportunity in kids’, tween, and teenage bikes, but I suspect most of the economics will accrue to brands with genuine economies of scale. I also do not think any major part of the market is completely unserved today.
Price sensitivity matters enormously because parents know the bike may only fit for a couple of seasons. Everyone wants the Pareto-frontier kids’ bike: as light, capable, and durable as possible without spending adult-bike money. That generally favors larger brands with scale economies than more bespoke smaller volume type of players.
Though I think there is room to innovate here, any short-term product advantage will probably commoditize quickly. The larger prize is creating the kind of emotional attachment many moto riders have to KTM, Honda, or Yamaha because that was the brand they rode as a kid. Done properly, a youth program is customer acquisition measured over decades rather than seasons.
That said, I am not convinced bicycle brand loyalty works quite like it does in powersports. A great kids’ bike may create familiarity and goodwill, but it probably does not lock someone into the brand for life, but maybe?
As a slight tangent, I expect kids’ e-bikes to become much more common as prices, and to a lesser extent weights, come down. One of the biggest unlocks for a parent who wants to take a legitimate trail ride with a 10-year-old is giving the kid enough assistance to keep the group together and enjoy the experience.
So, big picture, I do not think anyone is going to have a breakout quarter because they introduced the right kids’ bike. Nor do I think selling a killer kids’ bike necessarily creates a customer for life. But it is an interesting part of the market, with stronger participation trends and more room for meaningful product improvement than the mature analog adult-bike market.
The number one challenge for any brand in the Motorsports or bike world is to get someone to actually have tried your product. We are a wierd subset of gear heads. I’m sure the majority of us have spent cash purely to try something they never intended to own just to try the tech. And plenty of us have interests in spending money to try something from a brand we have zero personal experience with.
On the flip side a lot of people have never ridden anything besides what they have owned. And there is a confirmation bias that whatever they own is awesome.
So I’d see a ton of value in putting a kid on a quality bike (or even not so quality for non mtb purposes). So 20 years later they google Trek, pinkbike and vital say the slash is good. And homeboy buys matching slashes for him and the Mrs cause it turns out there is a trek dealer within a reasonable drive. And they are interested in the hobby and not the tech.
it’s no different in the music world. I can outfit an entire band and still have gear in storage and my collection is tiny compared to the real gear heads. But I know way more people who played an epiphone as a kid cause they liked slash and bought a Gibson as an adult and that’s the only guitar they ever intend to own or play.
Raleigh going under as part of this is a real kick in the teeth. It’s a big part of British industrial and cycling history, it was...
Raleigh going under as part of this is a real kick in the teeth. It’s a big part of British industrial and cycling history, it was once the biggest bike company in the world with a huge footprint in Nottingham. Growing up everyone wanted a Raleigh bike for Christmas. I do hope they can find someone to take it on, the name holds real cultural significance.
My first “nice” bicycle was a Raleigh Chopper like this one:
If SRAM hadn't shit the bed with the Powertrain, would it make financial sense for them to produce an e bike frame a la Amflow? They could pretty much spec a whole bike and be quite competitive I'd think. Could they realistically do a catalogue frame? Would they piss off their customers too much to try?
In addition to Lapierre filing for judicial reorganization, Raleigh (Accel UK/Ireland) has filed to appoint administrators. Both are trying to restructure separately from the Accell holding company. Should be interesting.
@jeff.brines regarding the above, do you have any thoughts or analysis on legacy brands expanding into the high end kids / tweens MTB market. I...
Takes from q2 substack
@jeff.brines regarding the above, do you have any thoughts or analysis on legacy brands expanding into the high end kids / tweens MTB market. I see more kids then ever on MTB's locally, with numbers at organised clubs and race events following suit. Commencal is far ahead of the pack here, but I doubt it stays that way for long. The inherent turnover of bikes as a kid grows naturally leads to sales, and engaging a user young can help to align a rider with a brand from an early age. KTM did the same in the early 00's by pouring massive amounts into their minibike range, and it worked.
Good question. A few thoughts.I do think there is some opportunity in kids’, tween, and teenage bikes, but I suspect most of the economics will accrue...
Good question. A few thoughts.
I do think there is some opportunity in kids’, tween, and teenage bikes, but I suspect most of the economics will accrue to brands with genuine economies of scale. I also do not think any major part of the market is completely unserved today.
Price sensitivity matters enormously because parents know the bike may only fit for a couple of seasons. Everyone wants the Pareto-frontier kids’ bike: as light, capable, and durable as possible without spending adult-bike money. That generally favors larger brands with scale economies than more bespoke smaller volume type of players.
Though I think there is room to innovate here, any short-term product advantage will probably commoditize quickly. The larger prize is creating the kind of emotional attachment many moto riders have to KTM, Honda, or Yamaha because that was the brand they rode as a kid. Done properly, a youth program is customer acquisition measured over decades rather than seasons.
That said, I am not convinced bicycle brand loyalty works quite like it does in powersports. A great kids’ bike may create familiarity and goodwill, but it probably does not lock someone into the brand for life, but maybe?
As a slight tangent, I expect kids’ e-bikes to become much more common as prices, and to a lesser extent weights, come down. One of the biggest unlocks for a parent who wants to take a legitimate trail ride with a 10-year-old is giving the kid enough assistance to keep the group together and enjoy the experience.
So, big picture, I do not think anyone is going to have a breakout quarter because they introduced the right kids’ bike. Nor do I think selling a killer kids’ bike necessarily creates a customer for life. But it is an interesting part of the market, with stronger participation trends and more room for meaningful product improvement than the mature analog adult-bike market.
It’s always been so funny to me when adults are leery of kids being on e-bikes. Their muscles are much less powerful in relation to the size of their bike and the trail. They may deserve to be on e-bikes more than adults!
It’s always been so funny to me when adults are leery of kids being on e-bikes. Their muscles are much less powerful in relation to the...
It’s always been so funny to me when adults are leery of kids being on e-bikes. Their muscles are much less powerful in relation to the size of their bike and the trail. They may deserve to be on e-bikes more than adults!
My step daughter (or...will be step daughter in 2 months) is 45 pounds. Her bike is at least 25 pounds. She tries SO hard to get up relatively small hills, and is a total trooper for doing it. But it'd be 1000% more fun for everyone if she had a tiny bit of assistance, like just enough to make her bike that is over 50% her body weight feel more like its 20% her body weight.
In this case I'm not sure it'd actually work, being the motor+battery would add weight to the point she might be scared of the bike, but I still think its worth noodling on.
It’s always been so funny to me when adults are leery of kids being on e-bikes. Their muscles are much less powerful in relation to the...
It’s always been so funny to me when adults are leery of kids being on e-bikes. Their muscles are much less powerful in relation to the size of their bike and the trail. They may deserve to be on e-bikes more than adults!
My step daughter (or...will be step daughter in 2 months) is 45 pounds. Her bike is at least 25 pounds. She tries SO hard to get...
My step daughter (or...will be step daughter in 2 months) is 45 pounds. Her bike is at least 25 pounds. She tries SO hard to get up relatively small hills, and is a total trooper for doing it. But it'd be 1000% more fun for everyone if she had a tiny bit of assistance, like just enough to make her bike that is over 50% her body weight feel more like its 20% her body weight.
In this case I'm not sure it'd actually work, being the motor+battery would add weight to the point she might be scared of the bike, but I still think its worth noodling on.
Without diverting this too much, but adult on a full power eeb towing kid on lightweight kid-sized bike solves this problem better, as long as you're riding winch & plummet trails. Which is what a lot of the young rippers prefer. If you're doing rolling up/down stuff, then towing is less practical.
How did we ever have fun riding bikes as kids before batteries and motors? What a terrible childhood I must have had.
I am 100% in agreement with your above sentiment, but I have to ask, if you can share any details.... how's the Reaper Powerplay been for you guys? Genuinely curious, it launched as I was exiting the industry so I never got to see any results first-hand.
I am 100% in agreement with your above sentiment, but I have to ask, if you can share any details.... how's the Reaper Powerplay been for...
I am 100% in agreement with your above sentiment, but I have to ask, if you can share any details.... how's the Reaper Powerplay been for you guys? Genuinely curious, it launched as I was exiting the industry so I never got to see any results first-hand.
Sales numbers were understandably small as several factors contributed to this: new category development, youth platform pricing, e-mtb regulation updates across the globe, and challenging economic headwinds both within Rocky and across the broader industry. In the end, the restructuring process and product portfolio clean-up put the Reaper Powerplay on the chopping block.
There was a point where the ebike made it possible for my son to ride with me... Now, I could use one to ride with him... Although, he does want an ebike for getting around town and such..
How did we ever have fun riding bikes as kids before batteries and motors? What a terrible childhood I must have had.
Part of the reason this thread has gone on so long is that we’re not just talking/thinking about what cycling looked like in the rearview mirror but we’re also speculating about what comes next while trying to use the lens of yesteryear to draw a trend line.
Of course kids can have fun without motors. They can also have fun without suspension, disc brakes, derailleurs, stryder bikes, BMX bikes, dirt bikes, chairlifts, or half the other stuff we happily buy them. The whole “I had fun without it” isn’t much of an argument against a new product category.
My point is simply that e-bikes are going to get lighter, cheaper, and better. If Mom and Dad ride, and a little assistance lets a 45-pound kid ride farther, climb more comfortably, and spend more time riding with the family, I have a hard time believing there won’t be a market for that. I also have a hard time believing everyone is going to want an analog bike and look at emtbs as a freak sideshow thing. Heck, many of my buddies have completely given up even owning a non electric mtb.
I suspect most of us, given the choice at age 10 between pedaling the heavy bike we had or occasionally pressing the magic uphill button, would have thought the latter was pretty damn fun.
So yeah...A decent sub-$1,000 kids pedal-assist bike is coming. While motors/batteries don't follow Moore's Law, they are getting cheaper, and they are getting easier to integrate into a (pedal) bicycle. When it happens, I think it will sell very well.
That’s the prediction and It isn’t an indictment of anyone’s childhood.
Completely agree. Someone at some point made the same observation when comparing mountain bikes from 1990 to 2010. Today I would prefer to ride the 2010 bike myself, but 6 year old me wouldn't have compiled enough experience to care as long as the tires weren't flat.
I've seen some kids <10-12 years old trying to descend on adult small (in one case they were on that Specialized kids Levo hard tail), and it looked terrible. Plopping them on an adult small ends up with something that's too big AND too heavy. The weight is a really big thing. A 50 lb ebike is around 33%-25% of an adult male (~150-200 lbs). A 50 lb ebike is 50% of a 100 lb kid - it'd be like you trying to ride a 100 lb bike if you weighed 200, or me trying to ride a 75 lb bike at 150. You'd need to get the ebike down to 33 lbs for it to it to be proportionate to their weight, and that's just not possible. Even if you took a size XS Levo SL, the lightest you're going to get it is like 38 lbs or so with a VERY expensive, very weight-weenie build.
It's a different story for teenagers but it's not really possible to make a good kids (<12yo) ebike.
In addition to Lapierre filing for judicial reorganization, Raleigh (Accel UK/Ireland) has filed to appoint administrators. Both are trying to restructure separately from the Accell holding...
In addition to Lapierre filing for judicial reorganization, Raleigh (Accel UK/Ireland) has filed to appoint administrators. Both are trying to restructure separately from the Accell holding company. Should be interesting.
The Amsterdam District Court has revoked the suspensions of payments of the Dutch Accell companies and simultaneously declared these companies bankrupt, the two court-appointed trustees announced this afternoon. The consolidated factory in Hungary has stopped production.
There are six entities listed on the Dutch insolvency register:
In addition to Lapierre filing for judicial reorganization, Raleigh (Accel UK/Ireland) has filed to appoint administrators. Both are trying to restructure separately from the Accell holding...
In addition to Lapierre filing for judicial reorganization, Raleigh (Accel UK/Ireland) has filed to appoint administrators. Both are trying to restructure separately from the Accell holding company. Should be interesting.
Update from Bike EU: The Amsterdam District Court has revoked the suspensions of payments of the Dutch Accell companies and simultaneously declared these companies bankrupt, the two...
Update from Bike EU:
The Amsterdam District Court has revoked the suspensions of payments of the Dutch Accell companies and simultaneously declared these companies bankrupt, the two court-appointed trustees announced this afternoon. The consolidated factory in Hungary has stopped production.
There are six entities listed on the Dutch insolvency register:
Accell Duitsland BV
Accell Global BV
Accell Group BV
Accell Group Europe BV
Accell Group Holding BV
Accell Nederland BV
I never thought this thread would require such a thorough education in EU insolvency/bankruptcy law...but here we are.
Along with weight and price - legislation (and enforcement or lack thereof) make things challenging for kids ebikes. In BC it's 14 or 16 to ride an ebikes depending on power whilst in Alberta I think it's 12.
Whilst it's possible for shops to have an XS adult bike and be in a bit of a grey area I'd imagine actual models aimed at kids might be a bit more in the spotlight as it were.....
Agree with previous comments on weight both up hill and downhill. Kids like to jump.. Towing with adult bikes is the ideal compromise especially as it will hopefully last longer. I have yet to get more than 2 years out of any of my son's bikes...
Thanks for the bungee suggestion. My bank account won’t allow the kids’ eMTB thing to happen even if I wanted it to, so I bought two of these. DM me with pro tips.
As for the weight thing, I disagree, mostly because I’m around a lot of kids on the moto side. Those bikes are often heavier than the kid riding them, and they don’t seem to struggle with the weight all that much until they drop them. I know it’s different, but I also know I got perpetually smoked at races as a junior by kids who grew up on dirt scooters. Kids are pretty damn good at adapting.
What does screw a kid up, though, is putting them on something that is just flat-out too big. If the bike is too tall, they can’t touch the ground, the standover is bad, etc., that’s a much bigger problem than the raw weight of the bike.
Thanks for the bungee suggestion. My bank account won’t allow the kids’ eMTB thing to happen even if I wanted it to, so I bought two...
Thanks for the bungee suggestion. My bank account won’t allow the kids’ eMTB thing to happen even if I wanted it to, so I bought two of these. DM me with pro tips.
As for the weight thing, I disagree, mostly because I’m around a lot of kids on the moto side. Those bikes are often heavier than the kid riding them, and they don’t seem to struggle with the weight all that much until they drop them. I know it’s different, but I also know I got perpetually smoked at races as a junior by kids who grew up on dirt scooters. Kids are pretty damn good at adapting.
What does screw a kid up, though, is putting them on something that is just flat-out too big. If the bike is too tall, they can’t touch the ground, the standover is bad, etc., that’s a much bigger problem than the raw weight of the bike.
Also a big fan of the towhee. Having a “quick release” system that wraps around the stem has made taking it on and off quickly a lot more convenient. I cut a piece of camping parachord instead already had instead of spending another $10 on their branded one.
When I saw your post about Accell Group going into insolvency, I thought Diamondback would be one of the brands listed in the insolvency agreement alongside Raleigh. I remembered Accell owning Diamondback (another brand that we've observed to be struggling mightily in this thread), but I didn't see it on the list in the Reuters or BikeBiz.com articles about the recent insolvency agreement for Accell. Turns out Accell sold Diamondback and Redline (their US businesses) way back in 2019.
Even if Accell still have a Diamondback landing page on their website:
This is all a surprise to me. I either never heard any of this history or I forgot about it, but this morning when I was trying to figure out who bought, sold, or owned Diamondback I ended up learning a bunch about Mavic's recent ownership odyssey. Forgive me if all of this has already been covered in the thread already:
Then, as I'm writing up that timeline, I went back and read the whole Road.cc article about Mavic going into receivership and I got to the bottom of the article where it said that, behind the curtain, "M Sports" in Delaware was one-and-the-same with Regent LP all along, even though the people who managed the sale at Amer Sports and the employees at Mavic allegedly didn't know any of this:
"However, Amer Sports told France Bleu that it, too, “is a victim” and that “Regent hid the true identity of the purchasing shareholder.” According to BRAIN, company documents registered in France show Mavic as being owned by M Sports International LLC, and that it is represented by one Michael Reinstein, who happens to be the chairman of Regent LP. That leads us to believe that there is nothing untoward going on. Unlike a publicly listed group of companies such as Amer Sports which produce consolidated accounts, private equity firms manage their investments through setting up individual holding companies for them. For legal reasons, Delaware is a popular state for companies in the US to be registered in, and M Sports International is exactly the kind of name that a private equity house might choose for the company it is setting up to house the acquired business. Add in Reinstein being named in those French business filings, and it all seems above board, even if at first glance it appears that the companies are unrelated."
It's exhausting trying to keep track of who owns who. It feels like the plot of The Big Lebowski. A lot of ins and outs, Maude.
Be their tenure two days or two decades, everyone there calls it something different:
seattlebikesupplyraleighdiamondbackaccellNAregentSpaceForce
Your friends get fired and the name on the check changes. The impromptu party for the fallen is ill-attended and there’s a meeting next week where you’ll learn how much worse the new health insurance is.
And the beat goes on. “Those guys that got fired sure are riding a lot…and on weekdays damn!”
Fox Factory results are out. I'll do my normal substack thing but the stock has responded positively in post market trading with the stock up ~8% and up pretty notably on the week (from $16 to $20/sh).
SSG (bike+baseball) sales are down year over year, with the company citing "oem order timing and channel destocking in response to market-wide economic conditions".
Other interesting points as I skim the release...
Raleigh going under as part of this is a real kick in the teeth. It’s a big part of British industrial and cycling history, it was once the biggest bike company in the world with a huge footprint in Nottingham. Growing up everyone wanted a Raleigh bike for Christmas. I do hope they can find someone to take it on, the name holds real cultural significance.
When I was a little, 5-year old kid in the 80s, I won a full-sized, red Raleigh mountain bike in a draw at the general store in my tiny, Newfoundland hometown. The old man was fucking stoked. Both myself and my older brother each road it for a time when we were older. I think he still has it out in the garage.
All to say, I'm sad to hear of their demise as well, as I have a lingering fondness despite their products holding zero consumer appeal to me.
You are right, the "who owns who" question is dizzying. Makes me think, maybe the best way to make a million dollars in the bike industry is not to start with two million, but to instead be an lawyer in the M&A space. (real knee slapper there eh Jeff?)
The number one challenge for any brand in the Motorsports or bike world is to get someone to actually have tried your product. We are a wierd subset of gear heads. I’m sure the majority of us have spent cash purely to try something they never intended to own just to try the tech. And plenty of us have interests in spending money to try something from a brand we have zero personal experience with.
On the flip side a lot of people have never ridden anything besides what they have owned. And there is a confirmation bias that whatever they own is awesome.
So I’d see a ton of value in putting a kid on a quality bike (or even not so quality for non mtb purposes). So 20 years later they google Trek, pinkbike and vital say the slash is good. And homeboy buys matching slashes for him and the Mrs cause it turns out there is a trek dealer within a reasonable drive. And they are interested in the hobby and not the tech.
it’s no different in the music world. I can outfit an entire band and still have gear in storage and my collection is tiny compared to the real gear heads. But I know way more people who played an epiphone as a kid cause they liked slash and bought a Gibson as an adult and that’s the only guitar they ever intend to own or play.
Lapierre have issued a statement on their farcebook page regarding the Accell situation, sound like they may be looking to go independent again?
My first “nice” bicycle was a Raleigh Chopper like this one:
If SRAM hadn't shit the bed with the Powertrain, would it make financial sense for them to produce an e bike frame a la Amflow? They could pretty much spec a whole bike and be quite competitive I'd think. Could they realistically do a catalogue frame? Would they piss off their customers too much to try?
Sram is established enough to not have to go that route.. But, they will need something really special to compete with Avinox...
In addition to Lapierre filing for judicial reorganization, Raleigh (Accel UK/Ireland) has filed to appoint administrators. Both are trying to restructure separately from the Accell holding company. Should be interesting.
Bike EU article may be paywalled
It’s always been so funny to me when adults are leery of kids being on e-bikes. Their muscles are much less powerful in relation to the size of their bike and the trail. They may deserve to be on e-bikes more than adults!
My step daughter (or...will be step daughter in 2 months) is 45 pounds. Her bike is at least 25 pounds. She tries SO hard to get up relatively small hills, and is a total trooper for doing it. But it'd be 1000% more fun for everyone if she had a tiny bit of assistance, like just enough to make her bike that is over 50% her body weight feel more like its 20% her body weight.
In this case I'm not sure it'd actually work, being the motor+battery would add weight to the point she might be scared of the bike, but I still think its worth noodling on.
How did we ever have fun riding bikes as kids before batteries and motors? What a terrible childhood I must have had.
Without diverting this too much, but adult on a full power eeb towing kid on lightweight kid-sized bike solves this problem better, as long as you're riding winch & plummet trails. Which is what a lot of the young rippers prefer. If you're doing rolling up/down stuff, then towing is less practical.
I am 100% in agreement with your above sentiment, but I have to ask, if you can share any details.... how's the Reaper Powerplay been for you guys? Genuinely curious, it launched as I was exiting the industry so I never got to see any results first-hand.
https://www.amazon.com/TowWhee-TWTOW-Kids-Original/dp/B07Y29WHJD
Sales numbers were understandably small as several factors contributed to this: new category development, youth platform pricing, e-mtb regulation updates across the globe, and challenging economic headwinds both within Rocky and across the broader industry. In the end, the restructuring process and product portfolio clean-up put the Reaper Powerplay on the chopping block.
There was a point where the ebike made it possible for my son to ride with me... Now, I could use one to ride with him... Although, he does want an ebike for getting around town and such..
Part of the reason this thread has gone on so long is that we’re not just talking/thinking about what cycling looked like in the rearview mirror but we’re also speculating about what comes next while trying to use the lens of yesteryear to draw a trend line.
Of course kids can have fun without motors. They can also have fun without suspension, disc brakes, derailleurs, stryder bikes, BMX bikes, dirt bikes, chairlifts, or half the other stuff we happily buy them. The whole “I had fun without it” isn’t much of an argument against a new product category.
My point is simply that e-bikes are going to get lighter, cheaper, and better. If Mom and Dad ride, and a little assistance lets a 45-pound kid ride farther, climb more comfortably, and spend more time riding with the family, I have a hard time believing there won’t be a market for that. I also have a hard time believing everyone is going to want an analog bike and look at emtbs as a freak sideshow thing. Heck, many of my buddies have completely given up even owning a non electric mtb.
I suspect most of us, given the choice at age 10 between pedaling the heavy bike we had or occasionally pressing the magic uphill button, would have thought the latter was pretty damn fun.
So yeah...A decent sub-$1,000 kids pedal-assist bike is coming. While motors/batteries don't follow Moore's Law, they are getting cheaper, and they are getting easier to integrate into a (pedal) bicycle. When it happens, I think it will sell very well.
That’s the prediction and It isn’t an indictment of anyone’s childhood.
Completely agree. Someone at some point made the same observation when comparing mountain bikes from 1990 to 2010. Today I would prefer to ride the 2010 bike myself, but 6 year old me wouldn't have compiled enough experience to care as long as the tires weren't flat.
Youth E-MTBs are for the parents, not the kids.
I've seen some kids <10-12 years old trying to descend on adult small (in one case they were on that Specialized kids Levo hard tail), and it looked terrible. Plopping them on an adult small ends up with something that's too big AND too heavy. The weight is a really big thing. A 50 lb ebike is around 33%-25% of an adult male (~150-200 lbs). A 50 lb ebike is 50% of a 100 lb kid - it'd be like you trying to ride a 100 lb bike if you weighed 200, or me trying to ride a 75 lb bike at 150. You'd need to get the ebike down to 33 lbs for it to it to be proportionate to their weight, and that's just not possible. Even if you took a size XS Levo SL, the lightest you're going to get it is like 38 lbs or so with a VERY expensive, very weight-weenie build.
It's a different story for teenagers but it's not really possible to make a good kids (<12yo) ebike.
Update from Bike EU:
The Amsterdam District Court has revoked the suspensions of payments of the Dutch Accell companies and simultaneously declared these companies bankrupt, the two court-appointed trustees announced this afternoon. The consolidated factory in Hungary has stopped production.
There are six entities listed on the Dutch insolvency register:
I never thought this thread would require such a thorough education in EU insolvency/bankruptcy law...but here we are.
I bet there is good business to be had in the kids ebike market. Low effort speed and no noise is a very attractive package to a kid.
Along with weight and price - legislation (and enforcement or lack thereof) make things challenging for kids ebikes. In BC it's 14 or 16 to ride an ebikes depending on power whilst in Alberta I think it's 12.
Whilst it's possible for shops to have an XS adult bike and be in a bit of a grey area I'd imagine actual models aimed at kids might be a bit more in the spotlight as it were.....
Agree with previous comments on weight both up hill and downhill. Kids like to jump.. Towing with adult bikes is the ideal compromise especially as it will hopefully last longer. I have yet to get more than 2 years out of any of my son's bikes...
Thanks for the bungee suggestion. My bank account won’t allow the kids’ eMTB thing to happen even if I wanted it to, so I bought two of these. DM me with pro tips.
As for the weight thing, I disagree, mostly because I’m around a lot of kids on the moto side. Those bikes are often heavier than the kid riding them, and they don’t seem to struggle with the weight all that much until they drop them. I know it’s different, but I also know I got perpetually smoked at races as a junior by kids who grew up on dirt scooters. Kids are pretty damn good at adapting.
What does screw a kid up, though, is putting them on something that is just flat-out too big. If the bike is too tall, they can’t touch the ground, the standover is bad, etc., that’s a much bigger problem than the raw weight of the bike.
Sorry for the double post but ironic this just showed up in my inbox. No way it works at $4,200 lol. But maybe I'm wrong. Barbells and whatnot.
Also a big fan of the towhee. Having a “quick release” system that wraps around the stem has made taking it on and off quickly a lot more convenient. I cut a piece of camping parachord instead already had instead of spending another $10 on their branded one.
https://towwhee.com/products/fast-stem-hook
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