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Just because they launched the bikes doesn't mean they can fend off creditors long enough to get those bikes into customer hands and realise profits.
https://theradavist.com/revel-bikes-is-closing/
"There is no easy way to say this. Revel Bikes as it currently stands is closing its doors. Regrettably, though we have tried every avenue possible, we have exhausted all options and run out of funds to support the business. This decision comes at a critical juncture for our capital requirements, and we cannot weather this one alone. Our circumstance is tough, though not unique in the market, with product delays, significant payments coming due and a very soft market. We are on the ledge and we lost our safety net as a result of continued losses with no end in sight........."
Bummer.. Definitely a company that has some bikes that I would like to try..
Trek quietly raising prices. This was $6999 earlier today...
https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/mountain-bikes/electric-mounta…
Same, I tried to get a ranger here in oz but way to expensive. If these brands could get their bikes to other markets without greedy middle men would make a huge difference.
Damn. Questions if anyone knows...
1) Reading between the lines it seems like all the swanky new stuff they unveiled is going to be (mostly) vaporware, too eh? Liquidate what they have and move shutter the doors. Maybe I misread?
2) Seeing they have $8M in (securitized) debt outstanding, I wonder how that breaks down (bikes, parts, build kits, tooling, real estate etc)?
I know, this is stuff that usually isn't disclosed. I'm asking for learning, and because I'm genuinely interested in the brand and the product.
Bummer to anyone at Revel or who is effected. Been there. It sucks. Brighter days ahead.
Terrible news. I figured things were likely rough for the last year or so – just given market conditions and the discounts they were running – but I was hopeful for them based on all their recent product introductions.
Things are grim across the industry, to say the least.
$8 million!!
Am I naive or is that a helluva lot of debt for a small company?
Wait didn’t they just announce a new line up? Im confused.
The season just barely started so Revel was probably sitting on it's highest level of inventory for the year and it looks likes they assemble their bikes in Carbondale, Colorado in 20k ft square HQ. a move they made in 2023-2024. Couldn't find if they owned or leased their HQ but I would assume a decent chunk of their secured debt is their HQ.
Let's say they had about 1000 bikes worth of frame and parts currently unpaid, that can easily be 1-3 millions of debt to various suppliers.
https://www.postindependent.com/news/revel-bikes-makes-carbondale-its-hub/
https://www.aspentimes.com/news/revel-bikes-celebrates-new-carbondale-headquarters/
So i am not too surprised about the 8 millions secured debt.
Newish building in CO and newish office in Taiwan plus inventory and it wouldn't take much to rack up something in that neighborhood. Their site isn't loading at the moment but something like 7 models X 4 sizes X 2 colors each X 4 build options X 8? of each in stock (conservative).
From a BRAIN article in April '23 "Revel contracts with three manufacturing factories in China and two in Vietnam." With the massive Chinese tariffs and the originally proposed Vietnam tariff at ~46% it was going to be tough sledding. NextSparc was listed as a minority investor so maybe a high leverage deal and persistent covenant issues in the industry shit show. Obviously sucks for all the employees.
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2023/04/21/revel-bikes-making-headlines-growth-expansion-innovation
https://nextsparc.com/next-sparc-invests-and-partners-with-award-winning-mountain-bike-brand-revel-bikes/
topical b/c of business/tariffs i guess, but this was posted as a diff forum topic - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/whistler-bike-park-seasons-passes-not-being-sold-yanks
Passes aren't available in Canada either right now. Not buying this one.
Trek went nuts, cheap finished and quality bikes at premium pricing, they clearly lost the plot
hoping it's fake news.
Not every company needs to grow into Specialized size but if there was an investment involved, that is usually what is demanded - never ending growth.
Sad to see companies run like that no matter what field.
Revel shutting down really sucks, I think they had great products, maybe priced a bit high. CBF suspension is rad. Cost of living in Carbondale is quite high and must have been a large factor.
I will add into the depressing news: I have heard that the Juliana brand will cease to exist at some point in the near future.
Quick, someone go check on Canfield...
IF trek raise their prices anymore in NZ, They might aswell forget about selling a bike.
They Cant sell the slash here unless its at dealer pricing(cannot disclose as its how i got mine for testing). - currently down at $6734nzd for a Slash 8 down from 7499NZD
That 6700 is insane, Theres quite a few brands offering Higher spec and no bonty parts for less.
Canyon (yes canyon) Sells their spectral full carbon dt wheels, perf elite suspension etc for less than that shipped to your door.(full price)
our local trek place just sells all the trek bikes cheap and hopes to make profit from parts and service
I'd highly (highly) doubt this is real; double checked, passes aren't available in Canada as Chris mentioned, Vail is a US company and the tariff thing way too up in the air. If anything, they'd want to sell them now before we get in some slap fight with Canada and they make tourism hard.
Can we go back to 2015 again? (but with today's bikes)
If we can keep today's bikes I'm going back way further than that. 🤣
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/04/16/specialized-announces-pricing-strategy-account-increased-tariffs
TIRED OF WINNING YET?
Trek raising prices 10% across the board: Trek tells retailers of immediate price increases | Bicycle Retailer and Industry News
I originally posted a longer comment here but deleted it it read too much like a blog post, and I figured most folks wouldn't be into it. Still, I stand by the analysis, so if anyone’s curious (or wants to subject themselves to it), you can read it here:
https://jeffbrines.com/2025/04/17/why-did-revel-maybe-go-bankrupt/
For context: $8M at 8% interest is $640K annually. That’s a serious cost (even if its a "spike" in the debt due to inventory or other reasons)—especially if you're carrying ~30 employees spread across continents. Even assuming $2K in gross profit per bike (which they likely weren’t making), you’d need to move 750 units just to cover payroll, let alone everything else.
What frustrates me is how blind management seemed to the macro backdrop and everything we've put in this thread for well over a year. It’s like seeing a hurricane headed straight for your city and deciding, “We’ll be fine. Let’s just carry on like normal. No need for precautions over here!”
Yeah, I get this kind of Monday morning quarterbacking rubs people the wrong way. But I said similar things when GG went under back in October 2023, and the parallels here are hard to ignore. Maybe I’m tactless, maybe I come off a little harsh—but I’ll always take intellectual honesty over polite silence.
If even one company reads this and avoids the same fate, it’s worth sharing.
PS - I'm not saying this was avoidable, but when I see the amount of debt + headcount I go "man, they didn't even make a move in the c-suite. they just sat there - completely delusional" - I could be wrong, maybe they did pull on a lot of levers, but for a number of reasons, I don't believe they did.
Juliana going away would not surprise me at all. It's belt tightening that makes sense. All they are is literally SC bikes with different paint, different shock tunes, and different touch point components. So a lot of exposure in terms of inventory that tends to move slow.
That said, hopefully SC carries the lighter tunes over onto their smallest sizes, and brings back XS on some of their trail bikes to cover that gap. A buddy just bought a Bronson 4.1 XS for his kid and is stoked on it - better geometry and components than dedicated kids bikes of that size, and way lighter which makes a big difference for <100 lb rider.
Starting to see some real head scratchers of pricing on complete bikes this year. Wondering if PMs and accountants have to price things a certain way despite logic.
Check out the yeti SB140. https://yeticycles.com/en-us/bikes/sb140/kits We will use the non LR version for this comparison.
Yeti actually has a pretty cool mechanical transmission build kit that uses an x0 crank, chain, and cassette, but the 90 series mechanical shifter and derailleur. This bike is $6600, it’s the T2 build.
The next level up is the T3 which is the x0 transmission build. Every single part is the same, aside from shifter, derailleur, and battery/charger. There is a $2200usd difference between the two bikes.
Now if you’re even a little analytical of a bike shopper, which I would argue, consumers have never been more informed, you can buy this t2 bike, but if you really want the x0 electronic shifting, even if you bought a full group set at retail, which would give you an extra cassette, chain, and crank, you would still have $600 left over vs buying the t3 electronic bike at retail. In reality, market pricing on these x0 kits is closer to 1100-1300 so you’d save around $1000 vs buying the bike from Yeti, plus you’d have an entire usable group set to sell or use on another bike.
Blog post was good. This will be rough on Carbondale which sucks. Did hear that some of their staff was highschool kids assembling bikes after school, aka rad company IMO. Nevertheless, your points on their business were true. I love their vibe, but they were never big enough or differentiated enough to be long term viable.
Still feels bizarre that Revel went from launching 3 new (or updated) models to pulling the plug in just 10 days. What the hell was the plan?
Thinking about it, I wonder if the Sea Otter launch was targeting outside investors rather than riders -- i.e. a hail Mary trying to bring in an infusion of capital to keep the brand afloat. If that was the plan, it evidently didn't work. But if that wasn't the plan, why go big on bike launches when the company is circling the drain?
I makes me think of the humanness of the situation, it's like a speeding car full of passengers heading for a cliff. The driver either doesn't see the cliff or thinks they can jump it, some passengers might be pleading to turn, some might be asleep in the back, some might even be thinking about grabbing the wheel. It's easy to just lump it all into the faceless persona of the company but so much harder to distill the individual emotions/actions that led them to this point.
How likely is it that the 8m figure was related to new releases?
I wasn't aware of their expansion in facilities/employees, so that makes sense, but the positioning of this figure combined with several new releases seems like it can't be a coincidence. I'd expect that frame dev and orders from overseas would have a high up front cost, maybe the 8m figure wasn't related to operating expenses but was incurred to facilitate the new models and was intended to be short term, paid down when these models arrived and were sold. You'd have to consider components in that, as well as the manufacturing of the frames themselves.
OTOH, maybe not, if you take half that figure and divide it by the manufacturing costs of a frame, it seems doubtful they'd have that many made, so maybe it was a drop in the bucket?
Post a reply to: The Bikeconomics (Mega)Thread