[luelling]

Its a brief article on cyclingnews.com, but I thought it was interesting. Its sounds Hayes Bicycle Group is really going to try and improve the manitou brand.

"We have purposely reduced our product offering for the upcoming model year in order to maintain better control over the processes - from engineering through manufacturing," said Kirkwood. "It is critical that we deliver quality products on-time to our customers throughout the world. Integrating operations will enable us to utilize the engineering discipline and process already in place at HB."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id=tech/2007/news/03-28

 

[Bicyclist]

That's good to hear, hopefully they can get their act together.

 

[big-ted]

Be interesting to see what this does for the industry as a whole. Hayes now own Sun-Ringle, and Manitou. DT Swiss recently bought Pace, the British suspension fork company. Are we moving towards an era where the market is dominated by just a few major players developing entire component lines?

 

[CBJ]

In a maturing market that sounds about right I would think.

 

[offtheedge]

Be interesting to see what this does for the industry as a whole. Hayes now own Sun-Ringle, and Manitou. DT Swiss recently bought Pace, the British suspension fork company. Are we moving towards an era where the market is dominated by just a few major players developing entire component lines?

moving? i'd say we are there. the only difference is the Bigs are just letting everyone develope their own products, buying them out and then adding it to their product lines......capitolism, beautiful capitolism.

 

[Slugman]

Be interesting to see what this does for the industry as a whole. Hayes now own Sun-Ringle, and Manitou. DT Swiss recently bought Pace, the British suspension fork company. Are we moving towards an era where the market is dominated by just a few major players developing entire component lines?

That's how a lot of industries work. Big guys crank out their product, little guy comes along and makes something better. Big guy buys little guys; little guys are happy and start up another new company.

Not a lot of internal innovations with the big guys, so little guys are always needed.

 

[MtnbikeMike]

This would explain why I saw so few Manitou forks in the QBP catalog.

 

[auntie bob]

and why all of a sudden there's no travis.

-doh-

 

[AlexYuen]

Supply is there, just low in demand...

and why all of a sudden there's no travis.

-doh-

 

[Threepointtwo]

With consolidation, change happens and I was bummed to hear that my friend, biking hall of famer, Dave Clinton will be leaving Manitou this year.

 

[CBJ]

From Interbike I understood they improved the Travis but from there website (informative search engine optimized hbsuspension.com) I can't read anything about what they did or didn't do.

 

[RMboy]

hope it makes there stuff good, always liked the look of there forks, just quality was bad...as known..lol

 

[bikerpunk98199]

hmmm mabey april fools day.