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Barad-dûr

As a CFO (outside of the bike industry), and a lifelong mountain biker, I've been following the current boom/bust cycle in the bike industry. I have very reliable sources at GG and banker friends who lend to multiple bike companies or their parent companies. @whitesq comments on GG are basically correct, they sold a majority equity position to a private individual investor. Initially they believed that investor had a shared vision for the company which included developing high end bikes and ebikes, in addition to growing their in house domestic revved carbon manufacturing as a contract manufacturer to other bike...

LOL. Fair. But its better than the company ceasing to operate. Plus, if you read between the lines here I'm obviously just hoping a google search brings this thread up and they reach out to hire me to run the portfolio of bike cos they are rolling up...

I'd wager if Wiggle goes under what would happen is all the brands would be sold off in bankruptcy. It honestly could be a killer opportunity for the right private equity fund to pickup a good asset at pennies on the dollar, depending on what the balance sheet/income statement really looks like. One thing we never can be certain of in the space is how a brand is really doing. Good product & meaningful profitability don't always go hand in hand.

This is a good synopsis of "how did we get here" if anyone doesn't want to parse through a bunch of other posts. I think the fun part is to look to the future being I can broadly agree with Dave's recap (few quibbles, but not important for this conversation). Here are the keys to consider when peering into your crystal ball/magic 8 ball. 1) Mountain biking went through a phase of increased demand during COVID. This demand is better thought as "pulling future demand to the present". This means higher than average demand was followed by lower than average...

I never thought I'd get to talk about the interest rate environment, capital allocation & what the past can teach us about the present/future in a mountain bike forum. First, Robot is right in the big picture that its not business Armageddon and rates have certainly been higher most of history. Funny enough, I think BofA released a chart showing the history of interest rates from ~3,000 BC to now (or at least it was circulating on Twitter/X recently). Turns out, for most of the period following the time of Jesus & the Roman Empire to now rates were somewhere...

"There are CEOs, CFOs, fund managers & capital allocators that have built their entire career on a net-zero interest rate environment." This is well said, and pretty scary to think about. People who have only ever thought in terms of high risk, long-runway projects and now have to learn to live within their means and make money the boring, slow, old fashioned way- selling physical products to actual customers. Makes me think about Silicon Valley, where seemingly any and every idea was getting funded and the revenue model was "sometime we'll make tons of money, somehow, in the future." I...

Norco sounding likely but I could also see Greg talking to someone local to him in Andorra. There’s always been a lot of mutual respect between him and Max Commencal? Or I’d be equally unsurprised if Greg/Roskopp/Whitely are working on something with Unno in Barcelona.

FMD trolling ???

Greg to Frameworks? Didn't they say they would have a 3rd rider who has podiumed at World cups?

Speculation is that Greg was supposed to have a big year last year (World Champs Fort Bill) and go out 'on top'. Or at least with a good year under his belt. Santa Cruz hurting like all other brands right now probably planning to have him off the payroll for 2024--which was likely a huge relief. Then his season started going to shit and and it all started piling up. He had tons of bad luck and his season was lack-luster. He has said himself he didn't want to go out like that. Also, I don't think Greg is getting...

imagine next week they say "introducing Santa Cruz factory racing, with our rider Greg Minaar" I will be pissed lol

Maybe I'm misreading but it does sound like there are some misaligned expectations of outcomes here. I think racing is super cool, and I'd encourage anyone to go chase their racing dream, whatever that may be, but be eyes wide open. 99.9999% of racers will not see a financial return on the effort they put in. In fact, most won't see any financial return at all even if they have okay results at the pro level. This all the while taking incredible risk that is far in excess of most other sports with no real safety net, D1 scholarship or...

It’s clear that the shape of that shirt is creating an M shape so must be a Mondraker…

half of your comments are "hehe i know something you guys don't but I'm not telling you" we get it, you're an "industry insider", but could you either drop the pre-schooler attitude or just not say anything unless you can/want to contribute?

Meh, i’s wait a few more years until they get their QC sorted. Mine was sidelined almost all summer with warranty issues. Got it back, one ride, back in for another warranty.bike is great when it’s not in the shop.

That's cool to hear! I definitely think having raced at a World Cup level adds a lot of legitimacy to your reviews as well. Great to have folks riding at that level reviewing products and actively putting them through their paces. It seems like one of the inherent problems with a lot of bike reviews is that reviewers simply don't have enough time to replicate owning the product for a season or a couple seasons, so its good to know you're going out with the intent to smash, haha!

This is a pretty good review, but I have to say, I would have an extremely hard time trusting an E13 product again after my experiences. I had the old LG1 wheels on my enduro bike a few years back and they had every problem under the sun, including spokes exploding out of the wheel under the extreme force of... seated pedalling on a flat path (repeatedly!). Their BB was also really poor and developed a literal centimetre of play after a month or two and needed to be replaced multiple times within a year or so of riding (with...

“If I had more time, I’d write a shorter letter.” - Mark Twain