Trek and Lemond - a question from the diaspora

[benb]

Pro rider vs sponsor vs other pro rider drama is pretty far down my list when it comes to choosing a bike.

I've had 3 Trek road bikes and a MTB. Currently own 2. My wife and son both have a Trek as well, my son is on his 2nd Trek.

99% of the decision making is down to:
- Good dealers close by
- Living in the US Trek is a big US based brand which makes my life easier
- Generally well thought out bikes that have worked for me
- Generally they have had frames that fit me
- They took care of me really nicely when I broke one of their frames

I have a really good Trek/Specialized shop about 1 mile from my office. I break a part I can usually walk in there and they have the part in stock and I walk out with it. Zero hassle. That is worth a very large amount to me.

I was 9 years old when Lemond first won the Tour and 13 when he won his last Tour. I had heard his name by the end of it but in general I was just too young to have any real feelings about any of this. I think feelings about Lemond are very heavily tied to a certain age range. Younger Gen X and younger just doesn't really have Lemond on their radar. He is likely totally irrelevant to anyone in their 20s at this point. They are no more likely to factor Lemond into a decision than they would something that happened to Coppi or Merckx.

Frankly I'm not sure what Trek got out of any of their associations with Lemond, Armstrong, or even Gary Fisher, Klein, or Bontrager. I think some business analyst looking at the small brand acquisitions would say they were all dumb. Did they actually sell any extra bikes through all that? Did the bikes really provide much that was meaningfully different than the Trek bikes? If it actually did anything why did they end all those brand names?

I heard recently at the shop that this is the last year of the Bontrager name on stuff. I am honestly kind of surprised it took this long. Bontrager's main influence was so long ago. It's basically been a generic name they stuck on asian made parts & accessores for a long time now. We've gone through 2 generations of cyclists who would have no idea who Bontrager is without having to go look him up, and why on earth would his name ever be on a mini pump or an aero helmet or road shoes that he surely had 0 input on?

In terms of what actually disappoints me about Trek? They don't exactly go waving the US flag around anymore but it's disappointing IMO how they have caved in an ended so much of their US production. IIRC only the first Trek road bike I bought was made in the US.

The dumb thing is even if my current Trek was made by Giant I still like it better than Giant's similar model. I've had a bunch of Giant bikes too anyway. But as far as I can tell Giant just doesn't care as much about their dealers and customer service, etc..