[DaveW]

Hurts seeing this happen to Kona, once upon a time my shop (that I sold up last year) was the biggest reseller of Kona in the southern hemisphere.
I had a great relationship with them.... I got my own personal bikes direct from them bypassing the local distributor.
Caleb the Marketing manager at Kona is a mate, haven't heard anything from him and I hope he's ok... I reached out to him, but I suspect he has far too much on his plate to get back to me right now.

 

[canadmos]

There was once a time when I'd goto Quebec and basically every other person at Bromont was on a Kona.

 

[ChrisRobin]

There was once a time when I'd goto Quebec and basically every other person at Bromont was on a Kona.

I remember those days. Early 2000s or so?

 

[jstuhlman]

to be fair, my kona dawg was probably the worst fs bike i ever had...

 

[SylentK]

So let me see if I got this right.

1) Kona, established brand, is bought by an investment group
2) Investment group makes decisions (arguably dumb ones, but the awesome minds of the investment group was sooooper smart)
3) Kona is out of business

Am I missing anything?

 

[Adventurous]

So let me see if I got this right.

1) Kona, established brand, is bought by an investment group
2) Investment group makes decisions (arguably dumb ones, but the awesome minds of the investment group was sooooper smart)
3) Kona is out of business

Am I missing anything?

2a) Investment group clears a cool profit by extracting all monetary value of the brand while saddling it with crippling debt it has no way to repay

 

[canadmos]

to be fair, my kona dawg was probably the worst fs bike i ever had...

You must not have found the missing link!

 

[canadmos]

I remember those days. Early 2000s or so?

A bit later than that, when I was going regularly at least.

 

[Jm_]

Kona has always dabbled in some progressive stuff. Hasn't always worked out, but they've been a useful brand IMO. The Process when it first came out was definitely pushing boundaries at the time. I rented a stout carbon fiber Kona DH bike a few years ago, to this date probably the best I've rented for just being a good simple frame with no jackass pivots or unnecessary shit.

 

[djjohnr]

A 2000 Kona Stab Primo with a Monster T was the shop DH bike when I first got into downhill. I sent many staircases, drops to flat and sketchy Northstar lines on that thing.

 

[FlipFantasia]

Hurts seeing this happen to Kona, once upon a time my shop (that I sold up last year) was the biggest reseller of Kona in the southern hemisphere.
I had a great relationship with them.... I got my own personal bikes direct from them bypassing the local distributor.
Caleb the Marketing manager at Kona is a mate, haven't heard anything from him and I hope he's ok... I reached out to him, but I suspect he has far too much on his plate to get back to me right now.

Caleb is good shit, feeling for those guys!

Caleb set me up with a Honzo, shit, 8 years ago now, for this NSMB review https://nsmb.com/articles/kona-honzo-cr/

 

[rideit]

I was wondering about Marin today, they are in that ‘neither big nor small’ category, which is difficult to navigate in the best of times.

 

[Jm_]

I was wondering about Marin today, they are in that ‘neither big nor small’ category, which is difficult to navigate in the best of times.

Seems like a company that's been on life-support for years...

 

[rideit]

Another one I’m curious about is Devinci. I never see them on the trails, I don’t think they even have a shop here.

 

[DaveW]

See them around down here but just in small numbers... The Devinci importer also brings in Leatt/Chromag/Box.

 

[slimshady]

Seems like a company that's been on life-support for years...

They seem to be quite popular down here. They don't have the fanciest equipment or suspension system, but they work.

Aren't they under the same umbrella as Polygon? They both used that asshattery with the sliding tube behind the BB, and they both are usually locally distributed/imported by the same company...

 

[rideit]

My bestie is the importer for Peru, he hasn’t heard anything. They are definitely more popular abroad, for whatever reason.

 

[SylentK]

Well. This may be the late nights talking, but if all these bike companies who got jacked by investment groups and as such going out of business...have all this inventory and maybe other stuff sitting around. And need to sell it for pennies on the dollar (yeah, I'm using freedom units here) couldn't we somehow take advantage of that?

IDK, this is why I'm not in the bike industry business........yet.

But still. I'd just like to say something about the passion and support and the love all the people have given to the industry. Well done. I feel for ya. Keep riding! Don't give up.

 

[bullcrew]

Alot are dropping like flies this year...be interested to see who else has to restructure and cave in...

 

[bullcrew]

They seem to be quite popular down here. They don't have the fanciest equipment or suspension system, but they work.

Aren't they under the same umbrella as Polygon? They both used that asshattery with the sliding tube behind the BB, and they both are usually locally distributed/imported by the same company...

Polygon and bikes online are an intertwined. Company...bikes online moves a fair amount of stuff ..they sponsored the loose riders SD crew for the national DH and enduro team backed them with polygon bikes.

Be good to see what these young guns will do a couple are fast as hell and love the PG bike...

 

[HardtailHack]

I was wondering about Marin today, they are in that ‘neither big nor small’ category, which is difficult to navigate in the best of times.

Aren't they part of Polygon? They seem to have the same issues with cracking.

If Kona come back I'd love to see a new 111 with a 64deg HA and 490mm reach, oh and no Trunnion.

 

[William42]

So let me see if I got this right.

1) Kona, established brand, is bought by an investment group
2) Investment group makes decisions (arguably dumb ones, but the awesome minds of the investment group was sooooper smart)
3) Kona is out of business

Am I missing anything?

Yes - you're skipping the period where they were making bikes with geo that was 3-4 years behind the time that were carrying 30% more frame weight than their competitors, used basic single pivots with mediocre leverage ratios, and were producing bikes like the coilair. They did that for 6-7 years and wrecked their brand name. They had a few good years when they brought out the Operator and Process lines, but by then the damage to their market share was done and the market was matured and filled with competitive bikes.

Then they sold to outside investors. (Actually my memory is hazy, they might have sold to outside investors and then made the process/operator line, but that actually underscores my point even more).

They were toast before that, and the outside investors failed to turn them around and eventually cut bait.

The lesson here isn't "outside investors suck" (which I mean, they obviously do, but for different reasons), but rather "the bike industry has shitty margins and attracts a lot of stoners who just like bikes but don't really have any idea how to run a business"

 

[djjohnr]

I was wondering about Marin today, they are in that ‘neither big nor small’ category, which is difficult to navigate in the best of times.

When I started working there their north star was "to be the number one second tier bike company", which I thought was a weird outlook. That was back when Bob Buckley owned the company.

 

[trib]

When I started working there their north star was "to be the number one second tier bike company", which I thought was a weird outlook. That was back when Bob Buckley owned the company.

I quite like the approach - being a super expensive boutique brand is relatively easy. Making super cheap bikes is relatively easy.

Making bikes that are accessible to people buying their first “proper” bike and also desirable to experienced riders is a much harder challenge. Knowing your position in the market and understanding how you want to be perceived by your audience makes things easier.

how did you and the other staff members consider the brand?

 

[FlipSide]

Another one I’m curious about is Devinci. I never see them on the trails, I don’t think they even have a shop here.

Devinci are everywhere around here, but they are local.

I have absolutely no insider info regarding the financial situation of the company, but I can imagine they're doing OK. I know they had big contracts for supplying the bikes to bike sharing programs for big cities, so that should certainly help the bottom line. They also seem to be keeping a fairly limited range. They stopped offering high-end road bikes at one point. They also stopped offering a DH bike as well. These could be signs of a well-managed brand that doesn't want to be caught over its head with an extensive range and inventory they can't sell.

I may be wrong, but I'm not too worried about Devinci.

 

[sethimus]

Well. This may be the late nights talking, but if all these bike companies who got jacked by investment groups and as such going out of business...have all this inventory and maybe other stuff sitting around. And need to sell it for pennies on the dollar (yeah, I'm using freedom units here) couldn't we somehow take advantage of that?

IDK, this is why I'm not in the bike industry business........yet.

But still. I'd just like to say something about the passion and support and the love all the people have given to the industry. Well done. I feel for ya. Keep riding! Don't give up.

you already could kinda, in europe, with the signa fuckup. lots of deals could be had all over bikester, fahrrad.de, wiggle/crc et. al

 

[djjohnr]

Making bikes that are accessible to people buying their first “proper” bike and also desirable to experienced riders is a much harder challenge. Knowing your position in the market and understanding how you want to be perceived by your audience makes things easier.

Identifying your ideal market position is key, however so is how you define and communicate that position. This could have been done better.

how did you and the other staff members consider the brand?

It was my first and only experience working for a bike manufacturer; frankly my fantasies on how bike companies were run were somewhat crushed by the experience. A lot of employees in key positions didn't ride and a lot of corners were cut from my perspective. I was moonlighting in the bike industry for a few years after the dot-com bubble burst, and had a very different perspective on how to run a brand and business from my tech background. That said, I still met a lot of cool people and had some awesome experiences with those folks. Bob really cared about his people and it showed.

 

[ChrisRobin]

When Kona release the Process X in 2021, I think that could have been a good re-start for them but the damage had already been done with their years of not really doing anything special. But even with the Process X, they were expensive, build kits weren't great and the bearings were/are prone to wearing out because they were constantly exposed to the elements (for a bike designed in the PNW, I find that weird).

As for Devinci, I never see any around here on the local trails. I'm sure I've seen more Yetis than Devinci bikes. Maybe I see the older style 4-bar Spartan once in a while but I never see their high pivot model (which is pretty neat I think and I'd like to try one). In Whistler you'll see a ton of Wilsons but that's because the local shops had them in the their rental fleet.

Overall it sucks... what can you do...

The Norco, Rocky Mountain, and Santa Cruz presence out here is insane. They're all over the place!

 

[William42]

Santa Cruz has always had a pretty good business model it seems.

Make a good DH bike and mediocre everything else bikes that are 3-4 years behind the competition, but bake in a lifetime supply of bearings (for the first owner) to the cost of the frame, then charge an extra 30% on top for shits and giggles. Then slap a baddass paint job on it and call it a day. The DH'ers who are 'cool' and trend set want your bike because it's actually pretty good, and the goobers want it because the cool people want it.

Also high quality paintjobs help, and never trying to make them so light they start breaking a lot.

 

[Gary]

You forgot the poorly aligned linkages with open bearings but added grease port no one ever purged era.

 

[Westy]

Santa Cruz has always had a pretty good business model it seems.

Make a good DH bike and mediocre everything else bikes that are 3-4 years behind the competition, but bake in a lifetime supply of bearings (for the first owner) to the cost of the frame, then charge an extra 30% on top for shits and giggles. Then slap a baddass paint job on it and call it a day. The DH'ers who are 'cool' and trend set want your bike because it's actually pretty good, and the goobers want it because the cool people want it.

Also high quality paintjobs help, and never trying to make them so light they start breaking a lot.

Funny thing is way back in the single pivot days SC paint was crap. My frame has bare spots on it. Guess there just wasn't enough root beer to go around.

 

[Gary]

TBF back then the majority of Alu bike frames had pretty poor paint adhesion

 

[SylentK]

That's why you go ball burnished. Always go balls (burnished). AGBB?

TBF, my fist gen Nomad was one of my best bikes (it was white, the Superlight was ball burnished). Never had to do anything to that bike, and that's saying a lot. Thanks SC! Try not to fuk it up with the new investment group. It might be too late, unfortunately.

 

[slimshady]

baddass paint job

That's debatable at best. Most of their paint jobs for the past 5-6 iterations seem to have come out of the sale section of some big surface paint shop.

 

[jstuhlman]

i tell you what - i've rawed a number of bikes over the years and the absolute most difficult by far was the old sc jackal (with the humped top tube). that orange paint was THICK and did NOT want to be removed.

 

[slyfink]

For a "local brand" I am not sure if I ever saw anyone riding a Kona. I know a lot of people who talked about getting a Honzo ESD but never pulling the trigger.

I remember back in the day wondering why they had such slack head angles on their bikes (70 degrees).

I have a Humu. My brother's first bike was Lava Dome. One of my regular riding buddies still has his Process, and both his kids rode Processes growing up. Plenty of them out this way...

 

[Jozz]

That's why you go ball burnished. Always go balls (burnished). AGBB?

TBF, my fist gen Nomad was one of my best bikes (it was white, the Superlight was ball burnished). Never had to do anything to that bike, and that's saying a lot. Thanks SC! Try not to fuk it up with the new investment group. It might be too late, unfortunately.

They probably went balls deep on the burnishing of both my Blurs since they cracked like pretzels.

 

[Westy]

With most bikes coming from the same factories in Taiwan, brands are little more than stickers. One brand will die and another will popup. Quite frankly there are a shit ton more bike companies today than there were a few decades ago and very few are unique when it comes to the actual riding experience.

Sucks for the employees, but quite frankly these days very few people I know haven't suffered from corporate collapse at one point in time in their lives. Just part of survival in late stage capitalism.

 

[dump]

Devinci are everywhere around here, but they are local.

I have absolutely no insider info regarding the financial situation of the company, but I can imagine they're doing OK. I know they had big contracts for supplying the bikes to bike sharing programs for big cities, so that should certainly help the bottom line. They also seem to be keeping a fairly limited range. They stopped offering high-end road bikes at one point. They also stopped offering a DH bike as well. These could be signs of a well-managed brand that doesn't want to be caught over it's head with an extensive range and inventory they can't sell.

I may be wrong, but I'm not too worried about Devinci.

Agreed. I see them around here. Not too many mtb, but lots of everything else… city, gravel, road. As you said, their contracts for city share bikes is massive and probably stabilizes their business. Montreal alone has 10,000 bikes, nyc 33,000, barcelona 6,000. And this is recurring revenue with replacement frames and the expansion into ebikes. I think devinci will be just fine.

 

[rideit]

TBF back then the majority of Alu bike frames had pretty poor paint adhesion

Except Klein, their paint program was their finest technology.