I dunno, our local J&B rep has to be the most beaten down individual to darken my door in quite some time. He's been practically begging us to buy from us. Feel sorta bad for him. Must be a market for his baubles somewhere, I think its the shops that dabble on the bitter low end part of the market. Losing shimano really hurt
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Here's another thought. The bike companies got stupid the last 20 years and now it's finally caught up with them.
Let's take Dura Ace for example. The 74xx series lasted 11 years. 7700 lasted 8. 7800 lasted 4. Colnago...The C40 was around for 10 years. Then replaced by the C50. Then the C55, C59, and C64. Mavic started the wave of disposable wheel systems with the Helium. Then everyone got into the habit putting out "New and improved" year after year. The bike industry moved towards a path of forced obsolescence with all of the ridiculous marketing claims driving people to buy buy buy. And they did...for awhile. I think it gets harder and harder to get people to do that when they just unloaded a few grand on a really sweet bike a couple of years ago. We see it in here all the time in the classifieds...prices are soft and people are always saying "if I wasn't already sitting on so much stuff". Plenty of people here are sitting on enough hardware that they won't wear out in their lifetimes. To either counterpoint or add to those who say it is due to people buying mail order and from overseas, I'd say it was the bike industry that cannibalized itself. Tai |
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I hope Chain Reaction stays in business; I get a lot of stuff from them. I wonder how Colorado Cyclist and Excel Sports Boulder is doing?
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Truth!
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New outfits like PowerMeterCity or CleverTraining that specialize in gadgetry and indoor training equipment seem to be an emerging market. Power meter's are getting cheaper and cheaper, and are MUCH more accessible than ever, as are Smart trainers/Smart bikes and things like Zwift/e-sports etc. that are still more closely aligned with the traditional road cyclist sensibility, vs Peloton, Soulcycle products etc. The pros are starting to race on Zwift now.
Scoff if you will the roads outside aren't getting any safer and I think these areas will continue to grow. |
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In a lot of places, they are straightening out all the nice roads and making them safer for drivers. So of course, the drivers just go faster to make it just as dangerous for themselves as it was before. This means that riding on those roads is far less pleasant than it was. I fully understand why people aren't riding on the road as much.
My favorite LBS is mostly groad and mtb with commuter thrown in. They have road bikes too, upstairs. I think the roadies and triathletes go to the spesh shop up the street. But we have awesome gravel and mtb, and the roads are overrun with people commuting long distances to get to their job at Penn State. Pretty much any place within an hour of Penn State is turning into a suburb. It's crazy. |
On a happier note, looks like niagaracycle.com is being reborn as thebikeshopstore.com
Thats been my go to spot for cheap stuff. |
Drifting this thread back to the original topic, the Performance website will go 404 tonight. We don't know if Amain will bring it back or just bought the customer database.
Today was the official last day at the Chapel Hill HQ. A few of us are sticking around to break down and clean out the business. Going through one desk today I found a binder containing the first few years of Performance catalogs. Really took me back to when I ordered from them. Even saw one that had the Serotta Performance steel road bikes. End of an era. |
I don’t think this is unique to the bike sales biz.
All the above mentioned businesses had a good run right? How many businesses in general stay alive and well through that many years? Look at Main Street in Anytown USA: probably looks pretty different than it did 15 years ago. We get nostalgic and like the places we know to always be there but times change; they always have and always will. |
I just stopped by my local Performance in Scottsdale tonight. Picked up a new helmet and tubes.
I'm sorry to see them go, in my experience with that store, they were always helpful, particularly when I was rebuilding C&V racing bikes and building campus bikes for my sons. I doubt we will see anything B&M to fill that niche. |
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