Middleburn closes down

Sad news.

UK cycling brand Middleburn Components closes down

Boooooooooo 😥

Rubbish 🙁

Bugger.

I’ve been running Middleburn for years. Better buy some spare rings I guess.

Booo, I’ve always fancied a Middleburn chainset for my tandem

Not long ago I bought a Middleburn chainset for my SS and you’d have thought I was after unicorn teeth the trouble I had getting hold of it. They just didn’t seem remotely bothered about selling it to me. Their website also hadn’t changed much from their late 90’s heyday.

Shame cos they made some lovely kit.

Spooky. Was just thinking about an Incy crankset

have to side with crazy on this, maybe more to the story but product visability has been distinctly lacking for a while, and if you can’t see how can you sell.

This is extremely sad news. Middleburn made some very, very good stuff and I’ve been a happy customer in the past myself.

Has anyone ever worn out a hardcote chainring?

Ah, sad news. Bob, one of original owners, I think, came out on a ride with us around the South Downs back in the 90s..
Was featured in Mountain Bike World. Lovely fella. Rory from Pivot (then USE) was on the ride too. Happy times.

Not long ago I bought a Middleburn chainset for my SS and you’d have thought I was after unicorn teeth the trouble I had getting hold of it. They just didn’t seem remotely bothered about selling it to me. Their website also hadn’t changed much from their late 90’s heyday.
Shame cos they made some lovely kit.

Exactly the same for me and don’t even start me on trying to get replacement Uno chain rings! Shame all the same.

Shame but their reaction time to what was happening in the market was simply too slow, in my view.

Great kit that I’ve been using for years and years and….
They have always been really helpful when I’ve called them.

Shame they are going.

What a crock. I’ve never had a problem in getting anything from Middleburn, just pick up the phone, speak to Matt, identify the right bit, give card details and hey presto. Always been super friendly and super efficient. I was just about to order some bits for my new build – I’ve never used anything other than Middleburn stuff on any of my builds – now what.

PJM1974 – Member

Has anyone ever worn out a hardcote chainring?

No but there’s a lightly used slickshift one in my alu scrap bin, because the shifting was so poor.

TBH it’s not that much of a surprise, they’ve stood absolutely still for so long… the RS8s weigh more than XT and shift worse, and cost more than XTR, and other companies do the spider thing now. I guess they just decided to sell their old designs for as long as they could get away with it and that’s finally run out?

Oh no…..That’s a damn shame as i have run middleburn cranks/rings for well over 20 years on all my bikes, a shame for matt and his staff as they were always really helpful and nothing was too much trouble, even to the point of machining one off items to get a perfect fit. Genuine shame but I hope matt has something lined up or is retiring to his private Caribbean island 😉

I’ve known Middleburn as a company from before they started making bike parts, they were simply a local machine shop making components. Struck me that they never really kept pace with the market and didn’t develop or invest in products like Hope and USE.

that they never really kept pace with the market and didn’t develop or invest in products like Hope and USE.

and…

product visability [sic] has been distinctly lacking for a while, and if you can’t see how can you sell.

Haven’t seen any of their stuff in any bike shops for ages. Not one bit, unless you count some retro stuff hidden away. Who’s going to buy a product that they never see, never hear of? No matter how good it is, that’s not going to happen.

It’s almost like they were trying to be like Bristol Cars. Along the lines of, “The cognoscenti know us. They will come to us”. Not a good plan for a bike company.

Their website was hacked this week – I literally spoke to Matt on Tuesday and bought some new cranks on Wednesday! 😳

Surprised they were still going tbh. Used to perv over their cranks but they can’t have had much turnover in recent years.

That’s really sad. I had Middleburn rings on my last bike and would’ve bought them when the new one needs them replacing. I suppose the companies that have sprung up selling 1x stuff have done for them?

I always used their rings, but latterly just haven’t been able to find them…

I suppose the companies that have sprung up selling 1x stuff have done for them?

Ironic really since Middleburn basically made that product aaages (15yrs?) ago with the Uno.

My impression is they were a bit too slow to react to new standards and vogues within the industry (Who remembers the original fiasco with Middleburn ISIS cranks?). Plus they have been pretty invisible for the last few years.

I have a very nice Middleburn chainset on my singlespeed but I remember being a bit ticked off when I discovered the locking nut had to be bought separately and also needed a special tool.

Loved my rs7’s 🙁

It’s almost like they were trying to be like Bristol Cars. Along the lines of, “The cognoscenti know us. They will come to us”. Not a good plan for a bike company.

Companies house says this https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-prod/docs/HwtR484s2YIkKBj8hQynRPFYYwkm2qi5FYcee9JrGss/application-pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIAJCHJGORBKVMJE74Q&Expires=1472162222&Signature=ukmJhhlCQpCGut5IqJL%2BNZLhgis%3D&x-amz-security-token=FQoDYXdzEKz%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaDO9CSNfSH0Ng%2BxYK0CKcA%2BPMrET%2FDmYtRzq25eNVBhbyj7JA0eCvCr7O0LE3xpMLem8%2BYWXSEaVD8j%2FGcuQFM9ou1v4AqRA9bGBKoG1frkpRPW1zigOiGDgfWRp6sFDDyNQ%2FnYLo%2BwC0yBBuL3gPUDI6wuhEfG9FsblkLx1Wl64Sp86rn%2FY7aGpSJ0qFgeibMyID9AU368CdQOu3oJAoPmdrGWuAzMFc6duMz20DBis0qg%2BQVO662o8y7c%2B3LXeQXQXUDbqADv27LHT6eC18QFFjikJ8nSu2lusLVT7l1OYpS1%2F2%2Fsu7gqi1BpK3lc2%2BMg%2FyxTBwS3jw3ZUNHqbMALcmqydQ%2FEJfuLSx04ye19YpFM2QUY2hI%2FQ64wiVCOUfk3MV%2Byf27%2BIj08b69YF3wJ7Sx8pG284l9%2ByPk3w76xs%2BSBXtrMd6XVrOMRTWpyMyPvXuGZcs3t6hLKZxTXcs9xAQTn6twFVPlsH2bMk2rt0QHIpIF4GTDDmq7VjBbZpKb1sriwvP1wMQdaAXpIgVDX1h%2F1OVsrK6LbmascoZjwvrMs6tLy7eShDP%2B10ogv%2F8vQU%3D

but there’s another side to that company that makes much more complicated parts than bike bits, no? maybe that makes more money? Or at 75 the director has had enough.

Damn. The problem is their stuff is so good, it doesn’t wear out so it gets moved from bike to bike.

It’s my choice of crank on 3 bikes.

TBH it’s not that much of a surprise, they’ve stood absolutely still for so long… the RS8s weigh more than XT and shift worse, and cost more than XTR

I’d still have the though, Shimano always seem to make ugly cranks, then manage to out ugly them 4 years later!

My RS7s are lovely, but they haven’t been fitted to a bike since my flirtation with singlespeeding came to an end. I think that I have a 32t slickshift/hardcote chainring lying round which is probably now consigned to the “9spd stuff” box of doom.

‘Not keeping pace’ is what I like about middleburn. Plenty of options for std cranks, very few with ring and spider options to do other things with. Will be missed. One of the only truly attractive crank options left for many bikes.

Quite a bit of stock at SJS cycles if people are looking for a last batch.

Their website went down last week and there was a thread here about it. People were worried it could be part of the company winding down but Middleburn said it was because they were hacked.

The problem is their stuff is so good, it doesn’t wear out so it gets moved from bike to bike.

Apart from their Duo rings. They were terrible at shifting. I put a Duo setup on my wife’s bike and had to take if off after a month it was so bad.

Shame. But i know what you mean about their website. I though the craze for N/W rings could have been a money spinner, but they wend down the route of just doing spiders for other peoples rings.

It is a shame – I used to lust after the RS7 cranks when I first started riding. Their chainrings were ace too.

They don’t seem to have moved with the times but given the number of new ‘standards’ for axles, BB’s and BCD’s it must be hard for a small company to keep up.

Would selling the company to another cycling/engineering company like Royce or BETD/Goldtec make sense? Neither have a crank product and it would allow them to increase capacity an in Royce’s case reach markets in which they don’t currently have any offerings.

Saw this on Matt’s facebook yesterday, end of an era.

I have fond memories of my days back there, albeit quite some years ago now.

Cheers, Rich

Would selling the company to another cycling/engineering company like Royce or BETD/Goldtec make sense?

If there’s a company that’s even more stealth than Middleburn, it’s Royce.

Maybe Superstar should pick it up.

Maybe if more people had bought their stuff when it was clearly better than Shimano then they would have been able to keep up better.

It’s a bit like british hifi, back when we had loads of really good hifi companies people would still go and buy substandard Japanese stuff instead.

We have had Middleburn and Royce at bespoked, lovely guys. You are correct about Royce Ben! I’m always ribbing them about their ancient homemade display. All that pales when you handle the goods, but the components business at small shop level must be tough.