brands come and go. some go out with a bang, some just disappear, others morph into something new. lots of this in the bike industry. whatever happened to Nema Clothing? They were pretty popular for a while. Can't remember what happened to them.
Had a few pairs of their Crown Jewels, they were the diaper-type baggy with a saggy liner. Tried to like em, but couldn't...
I have a pair of their moto style pants and shorts. Construction seemed OK to me. Never had an issue with them ripping or anything during crashes.
whatever happened to...... using thrust bearings with coil springs? that was kind of a flash in the pan sort of thing. seemed like an OK idea, but then pretty much died out
I've tried that before and it made no perceivable difference and removed it. That's probably why it died. Lower friction shock bushings make a bigger difference (ie Igus vs DU).
Hopefully, we will never hear about the company selling vibration damping stickers based on quantum mechanics or other nonsense again.
Sunline components - I liked their half waffle grips and their handlebars were one of the few wide options at the time. Kenda - After the Nevegal and SB8 on my trail bike tried killing me multiple times, I ditched those tires and never looked back. Do they still make crappy tires?
they still exist, but got out of MTB (back to just moto) and a google search indicates that were purchased by ONE industries back around 2010-2011 Kenda goes in the "somehow still around" thread.
The big problem that Kenda will always have is that nobody will be willing to even CHANCE their tires after any experience with Nevegals. So they could make the unicorn of all tires and nobody would ever know...
Still using a Sunline stem on one of my bikes, bought for $32 from Chainlove 8 years ago. It's 100mm, so probably unrideable despite the 1000's of miles I have on that bike
i've got 3 sunline stems (including the direct mount) and i wanna say 4 handlebars, 2 of which are flat bars. only 2 are still in use, one is on my trainer bike.
i make a point of dusting off the old steed at least once a year for some whistler laps; headed up for closing weekend. despite sporting some fairly tired dampers, and wee 26" hoops, the suspension platform still impresses, 11 years later (though reach is cramped by modern standards). a longer big(ger) wheeled iteration of this would just slay. alas...
I had some Nema Shorts which I loved, super heavy but lasted forever. Based on the first pair I bought two more and they were garbage, they changed the sizing(Inches got bigger) and started using weak materials. On one pair the stretch panel on the back was so long it would hook the nose of the saddle and try to end you, they also removed mesh pockets and used a solid type fabric which let sweat in bu t not out and my phone did not enjoy that. I still have the carbon helmet coz they looked awesome, never used it as I am weak and no longer ride DH. Dark Cycles, .243 Racing, 24 Bicycles, Dobermann, Stratos, I was going to say Straitline but they still seem to be going. Does anyone know what happened to One Ghost? I seem to remember them having some really odd posts on their site, they promised a lot. https://oneghost.weebly.com/bikes.html
Tantrum cycles? What happened? Made a unique product, made a lot of noise... more than a few controversial public statements which should in the modern social media environment have assured them a massive following of mindless drones and bots. But....... where are they now? are they on track to become the North American Lahar?....
He's still active, and didn't he sell his entire first batch and is getting another one going now? I'm pretty sure a few monkeys have ridden them and had good things to say. The same cannot be said for the kona coilair which I think was also his design, and was hands down the worst full suspension bike I've ridden short of a URT design. Actually, the Marin DH bike a buddy got that had a 68 degree HA, a 15.3" BB, a super short front center, and a rear end flexier than a cirque du soleil contortionist was probably worse. Point is, the coilair was awful. I'm glad he's designing bikes that he gets to have a little more input on, so that if it sucks its on him and if its good than it wasn't fucked up by somebody else. And kenda is still big in the low end OEM market, they make a ton of rubber for other companies. Fortunately their shit isn't coming on any high end bikes anymore. I think all the sun lite rubber parts are kenda, which is big in low end tire/tube products. Here's a whatever happened company... Hayes. They put out the stroker lineup, all the companies stopped stocking them on their bike, nobody was buying them aftermarket, and they disappeared for what seemed like years, and then I just heard rumours of a new brake from them? Is that actually happening? Are they still in business? And what happened to Foes? are they still going?
I was interested in their DH bike back in 2014, but the guy was struggling with the business. The next thing I saw on FB was him asking for donations for his dog who needed to go to the vet. That was the end for me.
Why didn't the Tioga Comp 3 make it into big tire sizes? Also, wheres the Big Cheese grips? That dual rubber compound with the hard stars was amazing.
RIP. Their bikes provided many a fun time, I always wished that they could have made it into the mainstream, the Jedi was a fantastic bike.
Bell bottoms. Cool then not cool then cool again then not cool agaoin. JHFC make up your minds people.
it amazes me they keep putting out bikes, but i can't say i've seen one in person in years. IIRC bikes is just a side business for the company. IIRC Brent is primarily involved in truck racing.
they always made really nice bikes. they (reluctantly i believe) offshored production in order to keep prices competitive, but i don't think they ever really took off the way they wanted despite this. pretty much all the bikes they still have listed on their website are on clearance. unless they're getting ready for a major relaunch, that's not a good sign.
I think the Mutz and Mixer are the "lifeline" right now. There's a guy that has a pair of Mutzs around here and every time I see him out on the trail I laugh to myself a bit, maybe pushing around 40lbs of poor rolling rotating mass is "fun", but it's surely not fast. It's not optimal for the tight winter stuff and it's a bear in the summer. More of a novelty.
They basically admitted that the stuff they'd been making sucked, and said that they were going to go back to the drawing board and take their time getting a new brake out so that they could really nail it. The new brake hit the market recently and actually sounds really good on paper. https://www.bikemag.com/eurobike-2018/eurobike-hayes-dominion-brake/
Hayes got bought up by (or maybe they were the ones buying?) Answer, so now they're a conglomeration of "where are they now" companies, Hayes, Manitou, Answer, Ringle, and a couple others. They released a new brake a while ago, it got great reviews, but the only pair I've ever seen was on a Foes demo bike. Brent Foes is still buddies with one of the higher ups from Answer, and the Foes demo bikes are always DVO suspension and Hayes group for everything else. Foes seems to be doing okay, I still see them on the trail every once in a while, more often then many other boutique brands, I think they're also selling a decent number of fatbikes. Their new Ridgeback looks interesting, I think I'm still going to buy buying a GG, but I want to at least give the Foes a test ride. I think the real killer for them has been the death of alloy DH bike demand at around the same time all the big names got their DH bikes sorted out, the DHS was their bread and butter. To a lesser extent the death of Sport Chalet has also hurt them they were selling Foes to fill the gap in their bike range due to their oddball deal with Santa Cruz. Sport Chalet seemed to sell a surprising number of FXRs, or at least they had different ones every time I went in there to buy fishing shit.
Foes has always been more of a "west coast" brand as far as i can tell. only ever saw a handful of them out here