[Electric_City]

When Richard Long died that's when things went downhill. Once Pacific bought them it became a mess. They told my LBS (who was a GT dealer since the companies early days) that they were trying to find a place for GT. They at first thought department stores. Then they said they'd keep them at the LBS, but under $1,000. Then they decided to keep them as-is. I thought I read a couple of months ago that GT was now back to doing their own bike development? It sucks. But I can understand why they're not selling them off and just dissolving the company. But it sucks. The whole backstory to GT was quite amazeballz.

 

[HardtailHack]

Seems Luis left a year ago, anyone know what he's doing now?

Luis Arraiz on LinkedIn: #cannondale #gtbicycles #ridebikes #livelife #evolve #newbeginnings | 49 comments

I had the privilege to begin to work at Cycling Sports Group on the 1st of August 2015. I was fortunate to work with a great engineering team and I was able… | 49 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

 

[Muddy]

Eric Carter, Brian Lopes, Mikey King, Rich Houseman, Cheri Elliot, Tinker Juarez, Dave Cullinan, Toby Henderson - all progressed into Mountain Bike from an era of BMX GT dominated, even more so in Freestyle w/ Eddie Fiola.
Pretty sure anyone boning up on 1980's freestyle bmx would have found more pictures of The King than any other rider.

 

[Jm_]

Pacific Bikes. Yeah, that's when it went to shit.

 

[Nick]

First mountain bike was a fully rigid Univega, but my first "real" mtb was a GT Avalanche with a 80mm Judy and XT/XTR.

RIP GT.

 

[gonefirefightin]

ooof I nearly forgot I had a GT in the late 70's, it was purchased from the next door neighbor, used in 79 me thinks,

I rode the bearings off that thang a couple of times over, twas a wheelie machine, added a rotor, pegs, and mags the same year

 

[FlipFantasia]

RMB step on up, you're next on this week in bike industry troubles! Had heard some rumblings, Spomer posted a screen cap over on Vital forum

 

[trib]

Industry is beyond fucked.

 

[Toshi]

RMB step on up, you're next on this week in bike industry troubles! Had heard some rumblings, Spomer posted a screen cap over on Vital forum

this is @rideit level screenshot skill here

 

[Electric_City]

I feel most is due to the covid fuckups.

I literally saw 2 customers walk into a shop and say they were looking for bikes around $400 each and the owner tell them "That's not happening". He told them $600 was the starting point. Nope. $650? $700? $750! He found the starting point at $750 and told them to pay Mike at the other register and as Mike logged on to the website he looked at Dan and said "Nope. They're sold out" (of that model). Dan refreshed the page and sure enough, they were gone... So people brought in 30 year old bikes from the last bike boom in the 90"s and got them repaired.

But once people started returning to work, the bikes got hung back up and nobody was needing to buy a new one anymore. Bikes were backordered for 2-3 years. When the industry caught up, customers already had a working bike and now didn't need a new one. New bikes sat on the racks and repairs were slim cause everyone did that during covid.

I think every company over did it the year after covid but nobody needed the bikes. As I said elsewhere, right now is a great time to build a dream bike because the whole industry is on clearance.

Just my useless 2 cents

 

[CBJ]

This is what I am talking about how so many just thought demand would continue. Like there was one guy doing regression analysis of sales and just kept say the trend is only going up and nobody found it worthwhile challenging that assumption. I am not just saying this in hindsight. I crunched the numbers myself and did not buy a bike before I know the industry was in trouble and got a 2000 Euro discount on my Trek just with a quick search in 2023. Hopefully this will make the industry completely unattractive to private equity and the stock market so we can just enjoy some long term sustainable focus.

 

[slyfink]

I feel most is due to the covid fuckups.

I literally saw 2 customers walk into a shop and say they were looking for bikes around $400 each and the owner tell them "That's not happening". He told them $600 was the starting point. Nope. $650? $700? $750! He found the starting point at $750 and told them to pay Mike at the other register and as Mike logged on to the website he looked at Dan and said "Nope. They're sold out" (of that model). Dan refreshed the page and sure enough, they were gone... So people brought in 30 year old bikes from the last bike boom in the 90"s and got them repaired.

But once people started returning to work, the bikes got hung back up and nobody was needing to buy a new one anymore. Bikes were backordered for 2-3 years. When the industry caught up, customers already had a working bike and now didn't need a new one. New bikes sat on the racks and repairs were slim cause everyone did that during covid.

I think every company over did it the year after covid but nobody needed the bikes. As I said elsewhere, right now is a great time to build a dream bike because the whole industry is on clearance.

Just my useless 2 cents

what I was told by a couple of bike shops is that the bigger bike companies weren't allowing them to cancel the back-ordered bikes (MY 2020 and 2021), even though MY 2023 bikes were being shipped at the same time. Shops were carrying huge inventory and had to liquidate the earlier MY stock. But then no one was buying the more recent MY inventory anymore. My theory is only the small shops who don't have capacity for large overhead managed to dodge that bullet. And only the shops with excellent service were able to survive...

 

[Electric_City]

I'm just throwing this out there. But you have the big bike companies (Trek, Specialized, Giant, Cannondale, YT and so on) calling their manufacturers in Asia. And they're also calling their suppliers too (Sram, Shimano, Joytech, Tektro and so on) in Asia. All the bike co's want 100,000 brakes, derailleurs, wheels, etc... They're the ones who are taking the biggest hits and folding. Meanwhile co's like King, Hadley, Hope, WAO are probably hurting, but they're not an OEM company losing millions. They are more controlled by what and WHEN the consumer wants something. They don't have to try and predict how many bikes are going to sell this year. If I want a Hadley, I can let them know the size, color and spoke holes and have it within a couple of days/weeks. Where big companies are sitting on those 100,000 stems, wheels, tires, brakes, saddles, seatpost, bars, forks... That's a problem for "The Industry".

If the big companies are forcing it on the IBD's then the bike companies are running the LBS's into financial issues. Almost like they want them to close.

 

[sethimus]

My theory is only the small shops who don't have capacity for large overhead managed to dodge that bullet. And only the shops with excellent service were able to survive...

or shops that sell stuff AND bikes and not bikes AND stuff. we only feeling the sting since summer this year, stuff sale are booming though so still getting a rise. life is still good

 

[rideit]

I have a feeling that we might not be seeing completely wireless XTR for quite a while.

 

[JustMtnB44]

I just finished rebuilding my dad's old (late 90s) Zaskar for him. The whole drivetrain was worn out. I also swapped the handlebars and stem for something more modern.

Current picture of aforementioned Zaskar:

Bonus old pic of LTS that I had from '98-'04. It would be hilarious to ride this thing today.

 

[rideit]

Almost as hilarious as skiing hard pack on wood skis and leather boots.

 

[SylentK]

Love GT. Always will. Was it "Gary Turner"? Died in moto accident on the way up the hill to a mtb race? Did I get that right?

See pic below. Hmm...GT and Univega (dr. Nick, you Univega nerd . A little old skool Yeti and Scary Fast. Stickers from Vail 2000 ish I'm sure. Still on a bench in the garage.

Can we bring back Scary Fast? Crowd funded? Or whatever you kids do these days?

Anywho, my first proper mtb was a GT Karakoram. Then Zaskar, ball burnished, w/ yellow Judy SL.

I totally wanted a LTS. Couldn't afford it at the time

 

[OGRipper]

Gary Turner is the namesake frame builder. Richard Long was the business guy who died in a moto accident.

 

[Redwood Mulch Chucker]

Story hour:

My grandparents lived near the GT factory in SoCal, I used to ride my bike over there and lurk around the place when I was a little grom. They had some jumps and a little track where the sponsored pros would show up.

My grandfather was a restaurant owner and into the business scene around LA. He got me into the factory when I was 7 and I got to meet Gary Turner and check the fabrication shop out. They made all the BMX/freestyle frames, stems, cranks, etc there. Even the chrome plating was done on location. It was BIG TIME during the BMX glory days of the early 80's, tons of $.

I was obsessed with those bikes for many years.

 

[Westy]

Story hour:

My grandparents lived near the GT factory in SoCal, I used to ride my bike over there and lurk around the place when I was a little grom. They had some jumps and a little track where the sponsored pros would show up.

My grandfather was a restaurant owner and into the business scene around LA. He got me into the factory when I was 7 and I got to meet Gary Turner and check the fabrication shop out. They made all the BMX/freestyle frames, stems, cranks, etc there. Even the chrome plating was done on location. It was BIG TIME during the BMX glory days of the early 80's, tons of $.

I was obsessed with those bikes for many years.

I always dreamed of a GT or Mongoose BMX bike when I was a kid, but was firmly in the used Huffy economic strata.

 

[mykel]

I always dreamed of a GT or Mongoose BMX bike when I was a kid, but was firmly in the used Huffy economic strata.

GT or Goose were definitely on the list, but for me it was Redline that I drooled over.
My reality was home-builds with scavenged catalogue frames.

 

[jrewing]

I always dreamed of a GT or Mongoose BMX bike when I was a kid, but was firmly in the used Huffy economic strata.

Same

 

[toodles]

Same

Malvern Star represent

 

[JustMtnB44]

Love GT. Always will.

Anywho, my first proper mtb was a GT Karakoram. Then Zaskar, ball burnished, w/ yellow Judy SL.

I totally wanted a LTS. Couldn't afford it at the time

They were definitely cool bikes back in the day, I spent a lot of time looking at the catalogs in high school.

My dad originally bought a '97 Karakoram as his first real MTB as well. It had an issue where the frame got damaged, and they offered him this Zaskar frame as a warranty replacement since it was all they had available at the local warehouse at the time. He thinks the Zaskar frame is a '96, I thought it was a '98, but I don't think there were any changes from 96-98 anyway.

The only reason we (my dad and I) ended up with the LTS was that we won it in a raffle at a local XC race. It was probably the best prize ever given away during those years that I was racing. I say we because we each received a raffle ticket for entering the race, but mixed them up, and one of them won. My dad never really cared for the LTS but he's not an aggressive rider. I had a Trek 8500 hardtail as well, but eventually started riding the LTS more as I transitioned from XC riding into "all mountain" or whatever stupid term people started calling it back then, and even and some light DH. Eventually the rear triangle shock mount cracked, and I bought a frame off ebay to steal the rear triangle from, which is why they are mismatched shades of red in that picture. The original rear was polished and the replacement was anodized since it came from a higher spec frame.