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..

[Fat Cat]

LeMond fan that I am, I just don't see how that history has any impact on the current marketplace. It's certainly an unfortunate episode that has ultimately resolved in LeMond's favor but the market was likely never affected by it since the number of people who knew or cared was so limited.
FWIW I've had several of the Trek/LeMond bikes and may well have others in the future. But regular Treks have never been in the lineup and never will.

[nickl]

Originally Posted by EB

Trek is a large corporation and what they did at the time makes sense if you consider the threat LeMond’s public statements represented to the revenue streams that Lance’s personal brand supported. Remember at the time that no allegations were proven, so they made a bloodless risk management decision to protect their business.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

In this case Trek was a big part of the game since they more than likely had an insider’s knowledge of what was going on.

[kiwisimon]

Originally Posted by BdaGhisallo

Wasn't that Landis and not LA?

It was. I got my Trek "game" players mixed up.

[Mark McM]

As far as Trek buying up brands like Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein:

It is a common practice by companies who have already reached a certain level of saturation in their market with one brand to try to expand their market by selling products under a different brand. But it is expensive and time consuming to establish a new brand name, so two common strategies are to either: Buy an already existing brand name that already has some recognition; or to pay well known personalities to hawk your new brand, to quickly reach a wide audience. When Trek bought Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein, they were kind of killing 2 birds with one stone - they didn't just buy the brand names, they also contracted with the personalities behind the brands. Greg Lemond, Keith Bontrager, Gary Fisher and Gary Klein were on contract with Trek for many years to promote these brands.

Did the Trek strategy work? Well, consider that for many years prior, Trek sold bicycle components and accessories under the Matrix brand, but how many people remember that name, or associate them with high performance of high quality? We're still talking about Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein today, many years later, so clearly those names have some recognition and value, and had even more back then.

[Likes2ridefar]

I don’t own a trek and never have but wouldn’t rule it out. Like others I don’t pay attention to the inner workings or relationships with competitors and assume all companies behave in a similar manner.

[benb]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

As far as Trek buying up brands like Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein:

It is a common practice by companies who have already reached a certain level of saturation in their market with one brand to try to expand their market by selling products under a different brand. But it is expensive and time consuming to establish a new brand name, so two common strategies are to either: Buy an already existing brand name that already has some recognition; or to pay well known personalities to hawk your new brand, to quickly reach a wide audience. When Trek bought Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein, they were kind of killing 2 birds with one stone - they didn't just buy the brand names, they also contracted with the personalities behind the brands. Greg Lemond, Keith Bontrager, Gary Fisher and Gary Klein were on contract with Trek for many years to promote these brands.

Did the Trek strategy work? Well, consider that for many years prior, Trek sold bicycle components and accessories under the Matrix brand, but how many people remember that name, or associate them with high performance of high quality? We're still talking about Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein today, many years later, so clearly those names have some recognition and value, and had even more back then.

Maybe it's cause I'm in a field where there is a huge fear of acquisitions being very difficult to manage but I think you would have to see inside Trek's confidential financial documents to really have any idea if these acquisitions were actually worth it.

Did any of these figureheads actually do much to promote the brands after they were acquired by Trek? ISTR maybe seeing Gary Fisher do something, but not much. I would not recognize Fisher, Klein, or Bontrager if I ran into them. I have never seen a video or picture or anything in Trek marketing, never seen any of them on social media, never read anything where they promoted the products, etc..

I think they just sold the brand names and walked away. Surely a great deal for them but did it actually pay off for Trek? What if the money Trek put into those brands was used to further strengthen the Trek brand? (E.x. funding more Trek pro teams, etc.. ) I have suspicions that Trek knows it didn't pay off and that's why we've seen these brands go away and marketing spend disappear on all of them. It also seems like Trek was already so big by the time they bought them that none of those companies were really a threat to Trek.

Acquisitions are always great if you are the one acquired and get a payout. Less so if you are managing the acquiring company or are an employee carried over from the original company to the new one.

It strikes me almost no one likely got carried over from any of these companies since they seem like brand names that Trek just sent over to Taiwan to have applied to outsourced products.

I don't remember Matrix. My first Trek had "Icon" branded parts. I am curious what year they first started marketing Bontrager. When I first bought a Trek Fisher, Lemond, and Klein were all part of the company at that point IIRC.

I think the biggest risk to Trek and so many other American and European brands is their reliance on outsourcing. Let Giant or Merida or whoever build too many of your bikes and eventually you probably don't even know how to build the bikes yourself anymore. It seems like at some point all the big brains in bikes are in Taiwan. Maybe they're not as expert on fit or geometry or what the markets want but they likely already know more about engineering & designing the CF bikes than the brands do. Almost any business it seems like you eventually get bit if you hollow out like that.

[Mark McM]

On only a slight tangent:

Unfortunately, a lot of entities sponsor bicycle teams as a form of sports washing. And because of that, I often think twice having any dealings with other sponsors of those teams. So I'll think twice about buying a Colnago or a Merida due to their association with oppressive governments, or a Pinarello due to their association with a large corporate polluter.

[shinomaster]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

As far as Trek buying up brands like Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein:

It is a common practice by companies who have already reached a certain level of saturation in their market with one brand to try to expand their market by selling products under a different brand. But it is expensive and time consuming to establish a new brand name, so two common strategies are to either: Buy an already existing brand name that already has some recognition; or to pay well known personalities to hawk your new brand, to quickly reach a wide audience. When Trek bought Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein, they were kind of killing 2 birds with one stone - they didn't just buy the brand names, they also contracted with the personalities behind the brands. Greg Lemond, Keith Bontrager, Gary Fisher and Gary Klein were on contract with Trek for many years to promote these brands.

Did the Trek strategy work? Well, consider that for many years prior, Trek sold bicycle components and accessories under the Matrix brand, but how many people remember that name, or associate them with high performance of high quality? We're still talking about Lemond, Bontrager, Fisher and Klein today, many years later, so clearly those names have some recognition and value, and had even more back then.

What happened to all these brands? It seems like Bontrager is gone?

[benb]

There is an absolute ton of sports washing in the Pro Tour right now.

That would make an interesting topic for a separate thread.

A lot of it seems to go hand in hand with the same entities sports washing themselves in F1 at the moment.

In both cases it appears to be both races and team sponsorships.

[benb]

Originally Posted by shinomaster

What happened to all these brands? It seems like Bontrager is gone?

Bontrager is still there right now. This was just a rumor I think, but it came to me from a Trek dealer, they said because Keith Bontrager retired.

But Keith Bontrager did indeed retire at the end of 2023:

https://www.investors.com/news/manag...ions-of-bikes/

It's possible he actually designed/engineered a whole bunch of Trek's new features/innovations over the years.. if he did, Trek did a terrible job marketing that and/or intentionally wanted to downplay his role.

Actually you read that article and it sounds like Trek acquiring Bontrager was basically:

- Acqui-hire Bontrager cause he didn't want to be a business man
- Bontrager comes on and does good stuff at Trek
- Bontrager brand name is gravy on top

[giordana93]

put me in the love GL hate Trek category. That opinion was only reinforced/confirmed when they decided to open a corporate store next to the Whole Foods only a couple miles away from a dealer who had been selling Trek for decades. Guess who had stock and who didn't when times were tough a couple years ago? Guess who permanently closed their doors at the beginning of this year? There were other factors involved in that decision but it was just one more strike against a company I never had any love for.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by benb

Did any of these figureheads actually do much to promote the brands after they were acquired by Trek? ISTR maybe seeing Gary Fisher do something, but not much. I would not recognize Fisher, Klein, or Bontrager if I ran into them. I have never seen a video or picture or anything in Trek marketing, never seen any of them on social media, never read anything where they promoted the products, etc..

Remember that all these acquisitions happened in the 1990s, and their names and faces were more well known back then. All four definitely worked for Trek after the acquisitions, ostensibly as "design consultants", but also largely as promotors/brand ambassadors. Lemond departed Trek in 2008, Klein worked for Trek until 2012, Gary Fisher worked for Trek until 2022, and as far as I know, Bontrager still consults with Trek.

(Oops, I guess Bontrager retired from Trek at the end of last year.)

[mhespenheide]

Originally Posted by benb

Maybe it's cause I'm in a field where there is a huge fear of acquisitions being very difficult to manage but I think you would have to see inside Trek's confidential financial documents to really have any idea if these acquisitions were actually worth it.

I have no idea if those acquisitions were worth it it numbers that would clearly show up on a balance sheet. But, at the time, Trek was mostly known for selling carbon fiber racing bikes and secondarily for their history as a steel road/touring manufacturer. While I don't have any inside information, my sense was always that they bought Klein to have an aluminum road bike brand, LeMond to have a steel road bike brand, and Bontrager and Fisher to have mountain bike brands. They sold all of those things under their own brand, but the Trek versions of those genres weren't cool.

In at least one sense, it paid off, because (unless you're already opposed to Trek as a company) most riders today wouldn't hold back from buying an aluminum Trek road bike or a Trek mountain bike.

[mhespenheide]

Originally Posted by EB

Trek is a large corporation and what they did at the time makes sense if you consider the threat LeMond’s public statements represented to the revenue streams that Lance’s personal brand supported. Remember at the time that no allegations were proven, so they made a bloodless risk management decision to protect their business.

I would be floored if I found out that Trek had zero suspicion of drug use by LA.