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Bike so far have been fine as long as they are not built or manufactured in the US, at least in the Canadian side, so anything made and packaged overseas that are being warehouses in the US have not been affected yet.
One of the big 3 announced it would cover the tariffs on anything affects for Canadian dealers so they wouldn't have to pass it on to consumers or take the hit, but it would only affect a few products.
...and everyone called me stupid and said I was overreacting for stretching a bit and buying a bike pre-election because I knew what was going to happen with these tariffs.
Of course, I'm not a bike company but I'd hate to be shutting down my riding because I couldn't deal with the tariffs.
I was looking to WR1 for new wheels when I eventually go beyond help with my current ones. Might have to shift to Nobl since they now have an in-the-US facility.
By the back of the envelope calculations, they say Factor has a worth of $62.million..... even if they are just assuming their debits, this seems off.
Factor has been the 'cool' kid road bike for a bit, and while they have acquired marketshare they are no means fully 'in'. Kinda like Crestline IMO
Maybe worth noting is Project 321 was sold to a Canadian company in Ontario, made there now. Wishing the best to our brothers up north!
Well the big news in Australia yesterday was the Tarriffs imposed on our Aussie steel and Aluminum, which is a huge export for us and arguably the best raw metals in the world. Will have a major impact on our local economy and employment unfortunately. Everyone was expecting Donny Boi to exempt those imports for Aus.
Now I'm presuming the impact on the bicycle industry might be minimized via clever shell companies overseas purchasing the raw billets/tubing but who knows.
Not to try downplay this, but its actually pretty small, and very small compared to the tarriffs being discussed in this thread. Aus exports around $600million of steel and $440 million of aluminium to the USA last year, so around a combined $1 billion. That's pretty tiny. But yes it will obviously impact the producers down here. Most of our steel and aluminium go to Asia, where it then can end up in the USA as manufactured goods.
When Canada are threatening to disrupt the crude oil going into the USA, which is 60% of their source of crude oil, now that is absolutely bonkers. Canada exports around 4 million barrels of oil a day to the USA. Tariffs on that are an order of magnitude higher than anything we've seen in our lifetime.
Nobl rims are made China so price is going up for US customers regardless of them opening a sales office in the US.
Meanwhile Temu and Shein skate on through as it's low value direct to consumer.
Damn. I thought it was more than a sales office.
The search continues!
you really thought someone is able to produce carbon rims at this pricepoint in the us? can i sell you a bridge?
For now. The de minimis being lowered from $800 to $0 is part of the Chinese tariff but is waiting to be put into practice when US Customs says they can handle processing the sheer volume of packages.
There is also this to close the loophole for all countries: https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/03/04/congresswoman-…
In M&A news of brands voted most likely to not be on VitalMTB's collective radar, Lombardo Bikes in Italy has acquired Cicli Olympia. Lombardo was doing €34MM and Cicli €17MM.
Zipp, Enve and Forge&Bond make carbon rims in USA. Boyd are working on it. There may be others
I really thought they were possibly a good option and at some point was going to look into pricing and availability. I've only really been paying attention to the reputation of the products and not looking at prices because I know they'll change and I don't have a need for wheels yet.
Sure, I'll look at your bridge if I'm ever in the market for a bridge. I probably won't be in that market for a few years - sort of like how I won't be in the market for new wheels in any sort of immediate future so I'll look at pricing and availability at that time.
And if your bridge is priced in a way that works for my budget and I can find a good use for it, I'll consider. This shit's easy, man.
before they folded, i'd heard a rumor that revved (GG) was working on contract mnfg of some rims for another company.
Caley Fretz (long-time cycling journalist, primarily on the road side of things) has a great piece up on Escape Collective about the Outside media empire's self-immolation. Not directly related to companies that make & sell bikes, but it does touch on the topics of VC and scale that have been discussed a lot in this thread.
https://escapecollective.com/theres-a-wildfire-outside/
Escape Collective also has a story up about the closure of The Service Course, a high-end road-focused shop in Girona. Surprise, surprise: that story also involves outside investors who pushed the business to expand dramatically in anticipation of cashing out on their investment...
I think it’s safe to say, lessons have been learned.
I'm certain they haven't.
very good article
Fuck Robin Thurston, that guy is a cancer upon the cycling community
That was an interesting read. Thanks for posting.
I think it's safe to say the cycling industry has a tendency to repeat mistakes..
Someone needs to get Richard Schwinn(now that Waterford is closed, too) on a podcast and ask him how he feels NOW about moving the majority of Schwinn production to Giant in the mid 80’s.
I have a buddy that works at the Columbia bicycle factory in Massachusetts. Founded in 1877, and currently located in the 1914-built factory, Columbia stopped making bikes iright around the same time Schwinn moved to Giant, somehow the Columbia factory is still open, still bending, brazing and chroming in the factory they built more than a hundred and 10 years ago.
If you went to public school or prison in America, you have likely sat in a Columbia chair, or used a Columbia desk. It took a management buyout to save the factory back in ‘87- Imagine if management had saved Cannondale and GT’s factories from their fates… but once PE digs in, they don’t let go.
In some parts of the country, like the CT river valley, manufacturing is in our souls.
Slight derail: IMO the Escape Collective is doing a bang-up job w/ the subscription model; for $99/year you get an incredible amount of content (mostly road/gravel focused atm) in multiple formats.
I originally joined for Dave Rome's stuff (I'm a bit of a tool nerd) but have gradually started diving into the rest of their work and it's excellent. ON top of that, not having ads makes SUCH a difference; they're so ubiquitous I think I don't really notice them but I do, and being able read a long-form article without ads competing for my attention is delightful.
/fin
I would be willing to pay for Escape Collective if they didn’t cover gravel but did cover domestic road, cx and XCO in America.
As a life long mtb, cx, road racer, gravel racing is clearly a horrible, regressive trend that is doing irreparable damage to legacy bike racing.
The most expensive races, ever, with the lowest costs for a promoter and the least amount of production value possible? Covering this shitshow only makes it seem legitimate.
The independent, non-captured cycling press, if it still existed in a meaningful way, would not have elevated gravel, it would have interrogated gravel-
but;
The media roll-ups happened at the same time that the corporate bike industry was desperate to see growth in a “new category”, so this regression became institutionalized.
maybe we need a "cycling media" thread
To crowdsource unpaid labor for the leaches that are left?
Nah.
The number of times that i KNOW people who work for Outside have stolen information from these forums is too great for anything like that.
Making unpaid posters do the work that journalists used to, so the tiny number of civilian people who care can score some cred?
I’ve been in the sport too long to feed AI large language models and neophyte journalists for free.
i meant more just to discuss the state of cycling media.
This is a little over the top, no? Did gravel hurt you? I agree it's a bummer that we have little domestic coverage, but have you looked at the economics of such coverage?
I have been so happy with my paid subscription to Escape Collective and will continue to pay the cost of less than a new set of tires to support true journalism in the bike space(no dig vital). While I still subscribe to MTB magazines, the writing is unfortunately subpar, and EC is a much better investment, IMO. They also just hired another American mtb journalist to cover more mtb tech and racing. Also their discord channel has way more useful info than modern forums.
Back to company talk....
Can some college student do a deep dive into Giant and how they have always played second fiddle, but seem to keep chugging along relatively fine? I know they own factories, but whats the details.
Even though Giant is one of the big 3, they do less marketing than Specialized or Trek.. Generally, solid bikes but they just don't push a message to the masses that says, "You want this bike!"
Giant is not just their name. It truly is an accurate description of how big of a co they are, producing for other brands, notably Trek, in addition to their own. I'll wager those contracting co's also share a bit of responsibility in this lil lovebomb: Giant operating profits down 60% last year | Bicycle Retailer and Industry News
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