Topic: Bike: Biz

:Interbike 2011

By: g | September 21st, 2011 | No Comments » |

Ah yes, I’ve recovered enough to blurb about the thing that was the 2011 Interbike.

So, what was that all about….?

Vegas. I arrived and it was raining. Go figure. The streets were flooded and it’s still a shit hole. After the first visit, where the gloss and insanity last just long enough for it to be fun, I just can’t see the point of the place.

Interbike. For an exhibitor, the show is just a blur of days where your voice gets horse and feet sore. On the first day we realised it was 4pm and had not even thought about lunch. Day two was pretty much the same and Friday was sorta quiet.

For us (wearing my Mountain Cycle hat), it was a good show. We had the first real production bikes on the floor and the response to bringing back the marquee was pretty much overwhelming. In a tough market, dropping in like we have is always a risk but the response was more than solid. Our very modest goals were met and it’s on to stage two.

But there was lots of stuff. Lots. I did a few quick look arounds but honestly, I saw very little new or of interest. The Look carbon hardtails are works of designed art but apart from that, it was much of a muchness. Of course SRAM announced something new to dazzle everyone… 2×10 Gripshift. Yea, that’s what I thought. The overall feeling is that the plateau has been hit and there’s no such thing as a bad bike or bad product these days - unless it’s some funky pointless shit from one of those mad Chinese companies…

So that’s my wrap up. Pretty short huh?

I’d love to get all excited but really, it was lots of stuff, 99% of which we’ve all seen before. Not saying that’s bad but the endless ‘newness’ can not go on indefinitely or even remotely sustainably; I feel that we are starting to see this fact pan out. To think, we’d just dropped our NEW production bikes on the market, after 2 years of work, and a guy from a mag/website says to me, ‘when you have something new, let me know and we’ll try to publish it’!

I personally feel a new leaf is about to turn. One where blinding buyers with newness will be surpassed by companies that provide superior product and service, because when you take ‘new and shiny’ away, what are you left with…?

:A retraction, tyres and an old school attitude to gears… in that order

By: g | September 3rd, 2011 | No Comments » |

Firstly, a retraction.

At the start of the year I fitted Answer’s Haven’s to the test Zen II to see what all the fuss was about. At the time I was evaluating them as an option for Mountain Cycle’s ‘special build’ bikes, after all, these things were all the rave it seemed, so if they were that good we had to give them a whirl.

After putting them on the bike though, my elation turned to confusion as it seemed they were to softest wheels known to man. Bank the bike into a mild corner and the back ‘wheel’ sprung around like some sort of sprung thing. WTF? Was it the bike? I tried numerous things to work out what was going on and eventually came to the conclusion that the wheel was just not great. Off they came and on went another set and there was an improvement.

Well, after a bout of tyre woes, I finally got off my duff and put a set of Conti’s back on the bike. I love Conti tyres and the way, for me, they are the most predictable tyre in pretty much all conditions. The Haven’s had been on the rack (along with a bunch of other wheels) and their blingness cried out to me. So I decided to fit the new Conti’s to them and give them another go; I have been running the carbon Haven’s on my ‘road’ bike and can not speak highly enough of them, so I had to try the Al. versions one last time to see if I was just missing something.

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:The State of affairs… part 2

By: g | April 29th, 2011 | No Comments » |

After what has been a totally manic week, which sees your truly coming down with a case of ‘cabin fever’, after what seems to be the week of endless rain, Friday night is finally here and there’s nothing on the tube but the wedding stuff.

Looking down at the floor, the magazine lying discarded reminds me what this whole part 2 thing was supposed to be about, after part one seemed to poo on the hot topic of the last week, internet forums.

This week I spent the whole week working on a sales strategy document to present to the big boss at Mountain Cycle. To say that it was a head scratcher is an understatement, and after discussing the pros and cons of what I was thinking with several cohorts in this industry, it proved that it was the only viable way forward. What this proved, to me in any way, is that as an industry, the bike biz is messed up beyond any normal person’s wildest imagination; it certainly is not a place to hang out if you have the slightest hint of sanity… what does that say about me I wonder?

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:The State of Affairs… part 1

By: g | April 20th, 2011 | No Comments » |

Just off the plane back from the 2011 Sea Otter and there was plenty of things to ponder, after being on the front lines for 4 days.

As most know, I went over there on official business, doing the Mountain Cycle thing for the 4 days. It was a big event for us as a company, as it was the first time in somewhere around 10 years that Mountain Cycle fronted new bikes to a public audience. The reaction to the line was fully positive, especially when one considers that there are still some tweaks to be done to colours and details. Riders, press and even industry were all amped to see the line and many excited and good things were said, including the all important when and where can I buy. It’s somewhat gratifying after what has seemed a long period of being locked to a screen.

The same though can not be said for reactions of the infamous forums. While most of the online press guys we spoke to were, or at very least seemed to be, genuinely interested and showing a keen interest, the forum crowd took it on themselves to be judge, jury and executioner of our bikes. There are a number of things in what spouted forth that I find interesting and at the same time somewhat sad…

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:Off into the wild

By: g | March 28th, 2011 | No Comments » |

One could sit back and ponder just what the hell was all that about but near a year and a half of work came to a sudden and abrupt head a little over a week ago in Taipei, as the new Mountain Cycle line was finally revealed. It’s been interesting since then…

It stared with the lead up. Several days in Taipei building the bikes which included receiving the San Andreas 2.0 frames at 8pm one day out, after their journey right from the factory, via the Mega Fast Train, to me in the basement of a building - an interesting place to be when Japan’s shaking hard a few hours to the north.

After a late night, it was then to the photo studio the next morning where we undertook a clinically precise shoot - the one thing that I had planned in advance. I then got to go to the hotel, while John, fresh off the plane from the US, got to go and deal with setting the bikes up at the show. Something I avoided after seeing all the things that were wrong when I went and oversaw the final stages of completion. I was chuffed to find on the day that the things we had told them to fix, they didn’t and if you work in TW enough, you’ll learn this is often the way: “We know you told us you want that but we think you need this”. If it was back home, I would have either not paid the bill or had them there until 1am until they got it right. But as we were in TW, I had to accept that they under quoted and then didn’t really give a shit.

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