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Just cause wd40 is the biggest company on nekos jerseys doesn’t mean they are the biggest sponsor. It does not seem the bike division of wd40 has some incredible marketing budget allocated towards it in any way at all.
My (not so) hot take of the year is that the bike race scene will remain largely self funded. With the one routine exception being riders with energy drink headgear.
Isn't that how sponsorship works though? The more you pay the bigger more prominent spot you get?
That's typically the case.. Also Neko has done a great job of building the brand with the video series on the bike development. WD40 knows that people are watching, so there is a value for them.
I'm sure someone else can find the podcast or clip, but I'm 99.9% sure Neko gave specifics about the WD-40 deal and how WD was floating a lot of the team's $400K budget. I do know in the Vital pod with neko he was on record saying (this is a direct quote) "pretty much uh WD40 has a line of bike products and that's where our budget comes from"
Neko is incredibly transparent about how Frameworks the company (and team) works. One of a gagillion reasons I love the dude.
Anyway, this wasn't a point of speculation from me, this was something I know Neko talked directly about. If I got any detail wrong, I'm happy to correct it, but I don't think I did.
Aight, well now EVERYBODY is talking about WAO going to I9 so it might as well get posted here. Sad for us in many ways.
Wait what? They're being bought out by i9?
Not too surprising since WR1 was making carbon rims for i9 for the last 4 years. Hopefully this helps simplify the i9 wheelset line as they have way too many options. Happy for WR1 because the real tragedy would've been if they went under.
I really liked WR1's cockpit collab with 77designz, oh well.
77designz will continue selling their cockpit, but are working with a new supplier. Obv takes some time to get everything set up - But it will be available again
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo breaths oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
I want to like i9, but I just cannot get behind their hubs. Are they still doing their rims out of Kamloops though?
I hope so, having WAO local was one reason I bought my wheels last spring. Since they've started in Kamloops it's been impressive watching them grow and be part of the community, while staying somewhat competitive price wise
Nothing is done yet but that's the rumour; it's been bouncing around for a few months now. I think whether production moves will be highly tariff dependent.
If y'all keep this up Spomer's gonna start a new thread for Industry Nine reviews. Back on topic, please?
The one company I am most bummed about closing albeit it was a quite a while ago was Twenty6 Products, I still have a ton of Tyler’s stuff that I haven’t had to do a damn thing to.
Coming off of supercross weekend, I found this "logo size" commentary kinda fun and I make the similar observations you all would. But, I can tell ya this without naming names-but, I have seen scenarios where a certain moto rig/jerseys have all kinds of brand logos, in the industry, outside the industry and one would think these are high dollar deals-some perhaps, but I know for a fact a few logos don't pay a penny, some logos are put on there in hopes they come on BIG in the future as well-which is nuts-but it happens. Point of the post is, don't always assume big logo or any logo means there is a cash infusion.
This is a bummer and not for any I9 neg vibes, they are awesome, it would be a bummer to see WAO falter-unless this creates some ultra awesome super partnership. Wishing the best to both brands.
I was thinking this morning that WAO is in a bit of a unique situation.. Since all of the frame production was in house and they made their tooling, shutting it down while everyone else is flooding the market with discounted products makes alot of sense. They don't owe someone else money for making frames. Let things stabilize and go from there. Why make frames to have to sell them at an unsubstanable price?
As for WAO selling to I9, it would kinda fit what Dustin has done in the past.. Maybe he feels it's time for him to move on to something new?
Especially if the "25% tariff on everything from Canada" from orange man comes into play.
If that great example of a bad idea happens, a strategic partnership with I9 could be quite beneficial..
done (sort of). i've nuked all the specific product review posts. they belong here. feel free to start your own forum topic about I9 or WAO (or any other brand).
So I think the frames are done forever.
The KBRA (local public trail association to WAO) posted a raffle recently, where a large Arrival is the top prize. They said directly in the listing that WAO spun up the tooling for the very last time for the prize bike and that the raffle bike will be the last arrival made ever. So yeah.
WD-40 Has logo'd shuttle trucks at Rock Creek. They aren't funding Frameworks. Neko got some money from Loctite to glue a frame. His sponsor rank is listed in order on all his posts. 2025 5 dev is the main sponsor. Last year they were the top as well but not title position. They make him custom parts so not sure if it's a money deal or free machining. Most likely he gets moderate amounts of money for 20 sponsors vs 1 big whale or funding sponsor.
The shuttle trucks are Michelin.
So I guess that WAO news explains why we haven't seen any more progress on WAO releasing the handlebars they debuted at Sea Otter last year?
Oh yeah There's wd-40 bike washes. I swore there was a truck too. Blue logos get confusing. Either way. WD-40 isn't a top frameworks sponsor.
Weren't the molds also temp/not full production molds or am getting WAO mixed up w/ Crestline?
I know I'm going to sound like a dick, and I don't mean to, but can we stop the thread derailment? Was this an AI version of Neko being interviewed by an AI version of Spomer in this video? Link to video. This conversation is a discussion relevant to "semi-known" 2024 team financials. For clarity, this thread isn’t focused on team rumors—there's a separate thread for that.
The intent of discussing team sponsorship and dynamics here is to highlight the significant costs involved in running a team. For smaller companies, the ROI might not make sense unless they can successfully collaborate with multiple sponsors, or have a big boy sponsor like WD step up. This approach minimizes the financial burden on the bike frame company, limiting their contribution primarily to providing product (which is the case here). Obviously, we could have a whole separate thread as to the ins and outs of how it all works, and how good of an investment it really is, but I'm not so interested in that broadly speaking atm.
instead of nuking i would prefer you'd transfer offtopic posts to a new topic so the origin of the discussion remains and can continue
Just to reference a very good vital podcast ep, Spomers podcast with WAO last year? is worth a listen. In it, Dustin straight up said the frames weren't profitable, they were going to stop making them and focus on other things, but learned a lot from making it. They only made money when they sold rolling chassis and I think I also saw they'd offered up the arrival design to anyone willing to make it, but I may be wrong on that.
For anyone interested (it's very good): https://www.vitalmtb.com/features/we-are-one-inside-line-mountain-bike-…
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