I was browsing through MTBR.com the other day when I decided to hit up the Turner, Ventana and Ellsworth forums. What did I find? A ghost town…
It really wasn’t that long ago when those forums were some of the most active on the site. The Turner Homers were some of the most loyal customers in mountain biking and the frames of boutique, smaller aluminum bike companies were dream builds for many riders. I can remember the day I got my first Ventana and Turner. It was like Christmas getting to build up the bike that I had always dreamed of. Those were the bikes that I used to drool over in Mountain Bike Action and other magazines (also pretty much dead now thanks to the internet). When you built up the first one of your own, it was a special moment.
Fast forward to now…and you don’t even hear about them anymore…much less see one at your local trail.
What happened to the premium brands of the past?
There was basically a change of the guard that happened once Asian carbon frame manufacturing became a reality. There were new brands popping up embracing the opportunity and using carbon to make designs that just were not possible with aluminum. On top of that, you had a the popular boutique aluminum bike companies updating their suspension designs but ultiamtely staying true to who they were…aluminum frame bike companies. Several tried to make the switch late but the momentum was already gone.
That isn’t to say that aluminum still doesn’t have its place in mountain biking. However, that landscape has changed to where the high end bikes are almost strictly carbon and the lower end is aluminum. The marketspace for a high end aluminum bike is now very small if existent at all.
You no longer have large scale domestic manufacturing
Asian manufacturing also opened up more of the “design firm” model of mountain bike manufacturing. You no longer have to invest huge capital into manufacturing. Your sole purpose is design, marketing and customer service. This lowers the cost of entry into the market and makes marketing/design the most important part of your brand without the hassle of big capex expense.
This also opened the door for “direct to consumer” bike companies which did not even exist in the past (example: YT Bikes, Canyon, Commecal). As internet sales continue to push forward, you are even seeing some bike brands that were LBS only switch to that model.
Did the brands just retire?
There is also a natural changing of the guard happening here too. These boutique brands of the past were generally small businesses owned by a single person. They have been at it a long time and maybe they are just thinking about slowing down life and possibly retiring. Unless you are willing to sell to private equity (ex. Santa Cruz)…or even have potential buyers…it might just be time to enjoy life and let the next round of brands have their chance. You have accomplished what you set out to do.
As the mountain biking industry became larger and more profitable, the larger brands and private equity firms really started to take hold. That makes it harder for smaller brands to compete against companies with much deeper pockets. It take a lot of money to change models as quickly as they do with mold production costs and marketing expenses. In the days where everyone expects something new every year, it can be hard to keep up in that environment without the capital influx of a large corporation/private equity. That can be exhausting towards the end of your career and some may not be interested in selling off their brand just to watch it go down that route.
It is a different market today vs. then…
Whatever the reason may be…the mountain biking market of today looks very different than it has since the conception of the sport. The idea that you can start in your garage building frames and become the next Santa Cruz bikes is not the same dream as it was in the past. There are those that are still pulling for it like Guerilla Gravity but even those have gone to carbon manufacturing now as well and they look to fill a specific niche in biking.
It isn’t all negative though. We have some of the best built, most capable bikes than we have ever had in mountain biking. There are also more people out riding than ever before. With each change of the guard in the industry, there is still a lot positives. There are also fresh, new brands really shaking things up in the industry which is driving innovation in design…but also business practices. We have more options today than we have ever had in the sport.
The high end, welded aluminum, boutique brands are a thing of the past. While I love to see the technology that is hitting the market today, it is sad to see what used to be such a huge part of the industry get left behind. That is part of life though and the next generation will never know what that part of history in biking was like. Then again…they will probably have their own version of it as well.
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