UPDATED | Orange Bikes Calls In Administrators

Here and other places people are suggesting this is due to Orange’s bikes not being the latest thing that looks like a bits of squeezed out toothpaste blown up 100x size, made into carbon fiber and wheels strapped on.

I don’t think this is the case. I think they probably got screwed over by not being able to get finishing kit for their frames at the same prices Canyon etc does and having way too much stock of that expensive stuff when the market has slowed right now and all of the new versions of said stuff is coming out. I suspect they have tons and tons of stock for their hardtails because they had to order a lot to get any over covid and now no one can shift it.

It’s also worth noting that the fabricators for their UK made frames (owned by the same guy, who is family of one of the founders of Orange, who himself was family of the founder of the fabricators) has filed intention to appoint an administrator too.  (https://caseboard.io/cases/d3500fc8-df37-4989-b1c7-405c29ab78d0)  I guess both businesses have struggled. The fabricators probably aren’t making much money on anything they are building including Orange’s frames due to the cost increase in materials etc, then hurting because Orange aren’t selling enough to keep their machines busy and then Orange itself is sitting on stock it can’t get rid of because the market has slowed down so much.

I see so many jokes about how the bikes are ugly and that’s why they are struggling etc etc but man. This is two UK family owned businesses that have supported this hobby for 30+ years and that have employees that have to feed their kids that could potentially not survive. I own two Orange’s so maybe I’m a bit bias but I think I’d rather have an *ugly* bike then have an ugly personality that revels in this like this is some faceless multinational going bust and a bunch of highly salaried millennials and gen-z’ers getting laid off.

Some of that goes back to the original point of having too many models.

Clockwork came in two 29″ versions (differing by 10mm travel) and two 27.5″ versions. That’s 4 different sets of suspension forks and 2 different lots of tyres/wheels to be buying and keeping in stock.

Plus what weeksy says ^^.
I bought a new MTB recently and “I should support 2 UK family businesses because they mean well” was not a factor in my decision making.

I think it’s worth chipping in here to say that the British bike market has all but collapsed. It limps on but is a fraction of what it was. People are spending on C2W still, but outside of that theres very little activity relatively speaking. What was a slump became freefall when CRC dumped £ms of stock on the market at below cost prices. Hell, I even bought a cubscout frame for Jnr; for £50! I could barely buy just the parts the frame comes with and ship the empty box around the world for that money.

That said, it’s a peculiarly British issue. Sales to the EU and US are strong and growing for us. They don’t seem to have fallen out of love with bikes like the Brits have. Yes they’re experiencing a major down turn for what the industry was like a few years ago, but not on the same scale. Bird made the ‘flip’ to being more internationally focussed around 8 months ago when it was clear the UK was in serious decline, and Im glad we did. If you didn’t or couldn’t or it just plain didn’t work, you’re going to be in serious hot water right now. What would I say were the reasons why the UK market is so bad compared to other markets that suffered the same Covid related issues?

1. The economy/cost of living. Ignore the ‘highest growth in the EU’ BS. It’s clear the EU, US and CAN customers are not holding onto their wallets like we are.
2. E Bikes. E bikes are not good for the long term bike market generally; Too expensive to make, too much depreciation, too much cost to run (where you could be spending it on blingy bits instead that helps keep your LBS’s head above water), too many bikes on longer term finance or high value C2W. Compounded by the likelihood Britain has converted to solely eBike riders more than any other market from what I see. Of course there is the flip-side of the maintenance value thats pouring into the LBS because of ebikes. I imagine thats what is keeping them afloat right now.
3. The Weather. Weve had the worst weather for the last however many months I can remember. The bike business is very weather dependent. 6 months of rain will mean 6 bad months for bike sales. We’ve had 6 months of bad weather.
4. Brexit, but thats only a compounding factor now. Yes its a PITA, yes it adds costs sending to the EU but by now the kinks are mostly worked out and a new way of doing this is established. Certainly for the bike industry it has had few (if any) real upsides. Even the new 0% tariff breaks announced a couple of years ago was basically a lie. I mean it wasn’t technically a lie, they did cut some import tariffs to 0% under the guise of helping us out, but when the cuts came out they were obscure and virtually meaningless. It was all bluster and very little substance.

Weirdly Brexit could have been ok/positive for Orange as one of the few larger UK bike companies able to ship into the EU tariff free – competitors shipping in far eastern bikes warehoused in the EU shipping to the UK now face tariffs they don’t, but the other way could have worked for them with judicious component choices. It also increased certain material costs but nothing like Covid’s effect, not even close.

I think the biggest long term issue Brexit will cause is that very little of the EU’s investment programs seem to have been replaced. Some generous capital allowances have come out, but that only helps if you have the cash to spend up front or want to place it on finance. E.G. its helpful for the big guys. The grants/funds that helped the little guy are drying up fast.

Just my tuppence worth.

I think the first bike was developed in German about 1817, whereas tar sealing of “macadam” surfaces didn’t start until the 1820s. But stone paved roads have been around a lot longer, back to Roman times at least, so gravel riding did not necessarily originate from the birth of the bicycle.

Ok I’ve learnt something. I had googled the invention of tarmac which is 20th century. However on further reading I think my point still stands. Although roads may have been paved before this they would have been far from smooth. Tar sealing of roads was rare in the 19th century, see the quote below. In the 1890s cycling boom, when the safety bike was widely available, the cycling would have been something like what we now call gravel.

Tar-grouted macadam was in use well before 1900 and involved scarifying the surface of an existing macadam pavement, spreading tar and re-compacting. Although the use of tar in road construction was known in the 19th century, it was little used and was not introduced on a large scale until the motorcar arrived on the scene in the early 20th century.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarmacadam#:~:text=Tarmacadam%20is%20a%20road%20surfacing,Edgar%20Purnell%20Hooley%20in%201902.

Glad to hear Bird are (presumably) in a relatively secure position Ben.

I was gonna ask when you replied on one of these threads before, but it’s a delicate matter obvs.

(If you’re having trouble working this out: If the local industry disappears the local press for that industry will also disappear…)

Depends on what ‘local’ means to you; Mountain biking exists outside of Yorkshire, as does the journalism covering it. Might be a stretch for some, but it migrated there from further South. But having a pop about buying local and then using a ‘local’ site for free is a bit rich. Support your local journo, eh?
Perhaps, as I’ve mentioned several times in this thread, there are other companies to support who manufacturer genuine UK handbuilt bikes. Alternatively, support other UK based bike companies if you don’t have deep enough pockets for a UK made bike but want to help the economy – locally and nationally. Or just buy any bike from a shop and continue to use them.
Whichever way, the jingoism around certain brands is effing tiresome after 35 years of it.

very little to ship to the UK

Any thoughts on concepts like removing/reducing VAT on bicycles, as with the EU? (I think Portugal are down to 6% VAT for the bike industry)?

I think one of the biggest issues, well, I feel personally, is just how utterly terrible our economy is and how bad the cost of living actually is in the UK at the moment.

I last bought a bike in 2016, brand new. It cost me £2500. At the time I was 25 and working in an entry level job for 15k a year, I had to commute to work 40 miles a day 5 days a week in a petrol guzzling 2004 Civic Type R that I’d bought the year prior for £4500 which used to cost about £40 to fill for a week, I hadn’t long moved back in with my parents for numerous reasons and I was saving up for a house. I bought that bike on a 0% credit card to get my credit score up for said mortgage and within 12 months had it paid off.

Fast forward to now I’m earning 234% more, and without going into all the intricate details of my finances, there is mortgage, bills, loans etc. I feel I’ve less spending power now than I did even say 5 years ago when I was on 40% less. I’m not sure how those who aren’t in a position like me and the mrs actually manage to survive, every year I do a financial spreadsheet and looking at my one from 5 years ago we were spending £65 avg weekly food shop, now its £150, electric was £34 now its £98, fuel to fill up one of the cars every week was £62 now its £95, water was £11, now its £27 similiar with the gas. Not even taking into account interest rates at the moment, I’ve got a long term loan due to be paid off next year, interest rate on that was 7.4%, looked at a loan the other week of £8000 out of curiosity to get the bathrooms done this year instead of next year and the interest rate on that was anywhere from a whopping 13.9% to 21%!!!

So to put short, I feel people just have massively less spending power to buy new bikes in the UK, wages are poorer, bills are high, neccessities are high, costs are high, interest is high, wallets are lighter. I mean take a look at our American counterparts, the average salaries are much higher, most have health insurance through their jobs so you can’t even argue the paying for healthcare issues that most that would be in the market for bikes will have, fuel is cheaper, food is cheaper and prices are cheaper. Take for example a Specialized Stumpjumper Evo Alloy, £3200 on UK specialized website or $3499 on US specialized website, after doing the conversion £3200 is $4,081.

So they pay more in jobs, pay less for goods so have heavier wallets to buy things, we which in the UK appear not to have, depressing state of affairs.

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I don’t disagree with most of that ^ but food isn’t always cheaper in the US, in fact some staples when we’ve been on holiday over there are surprisingly high – bread for example averages $2.50 for a loaf.

However, you need to shop around for your loan – I just put in £8K for First Direct and got a quote for 6.9% representative, and MSE have from 5.9%

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/cheap-personal-loans/#7.5k

Of course your situation may be different, in which case i apologise.

you have to move with the times

That’s the thing isn’t it, it’s got to be evolving constantly. This is where Orange IMO went wrong and they stuck with what they thought ‘worked’ be that shape/design or be that pricing and single pivot. That was basically where they went wrong, they stopped moving with the times.

I’m assuming you’re moving more and more into the Eeb market Ben ?

Ignoring all their updated and new models, not least all their (very good) ebikes.

But they’re not…. they’re a basis on a theme from 15 years ago. Far too divisive a basis at that. Look at a Trek, Specialized, Santa Cruz from 10 years ago, they’re totally ‘different’ with even things like suspension kinematics, geometry, chainstay length, cable routing etc… It just feels to me when i see an Orange it’s the same as an Orange 5 was… They’re not bringing ‘new’ to the market even if they think they are.

Look at the companies like Bird/Privateer/Whyte who are their ‘rivals’ or Atherton bikes… Smallish, niche bikes that do a job, they’ve carved out their own little niche and are now what Orange were 15 years ago.

I can understand why people get hung up on single pivot but how many truly ground breaking pivot designs have been developed recently? I could be completely wrong but most current full suss bikes seem to be a variation on a couple of systems that have been around ages? They give them fancy names but all seem to work in a similar way. Since front mechs disappeared Orange have significantly changed pivot points etc, their geometry is up to date and I’m not sure what modern cable routing is meant to look like?

Orange’s biggest problem imo is that people want carbon if spending big bucks, regardless whether it’s actually any better.

All the comments saying support Orange they’re a British brand, look after our home industry, forefront of the sport etc but cba’ed to stump up for a subscription here – hypocritical much?

The moment STW have an option to subscribe to the forum, I’ll be there.

( and fix the “threads wot I’ve posted on” bug)
🙂

they’re a basis on a theme from 15 years ago

In favour of how Orange do things it’s a theme that just works, always has done and is arguably more relevant when applied to e-bikes, the way the market’s going.

Consistency and credibility are under-rated, moving with the times aka following the herd or mass market is how we have 90% of carbon road bikes looking almost the same in silhouette and sooner or later a % of buyers just want something a bit less samey. It’s good to stand out and divide opinion, it’s a stronger position to take than trying to please everyone and a smaller brand doesn’t need to or shouldn’t try to be too mainstream.

Why are they going under then?

If they’re all this, all that, singing, dancing etc. but still they’re calling in the administrator

 I presume those are generating revenue or why the hell are they there?

Not if you don’t click on them.

Why are they going under then?

Perhaps in part because you’re right, MTB is a fast-moving fashion market and the market for a simple, durable Al FS MTB at those prices is smaller now and the weight of MTB marketing in general goes against what they’re doing. I expect it’s tricky to sell simple and effective to a market that’s into tech details whether that detail actually makes much difference or not.

I mean, if I went back to owning a FS myself I’d love a Stage based on it looking great, not being carbon and having a single pivot, but I don’t buy bikes for the reasons 90% of MTBers buy bikes. Maybe that’s the issue. I don’t want to be speculating on the reasons for the admin process there, I just don’t know enough about it, I’m just wondering what the size of the market is Vs the market they needed to support the business as it was (hardly high-level business thinking I know). I do believe they have a strong market position and identity plus a product class that’s identifiable as theirs, so the base for the brand is strong.

To weeksy – because there’s only a certain number of expensive bikes you can sell into a small, struggling UK market with a lot of cost competition, and with a ton of money tied up in hard to sell stock life is difficult and short.

I’d also bear in mind they have a decent number of employees, facilities etc.  They’re not comparable to very small shops/builders as they have to pay all these people and things, and they can’t just magically shrink to making specific runs of a few bikes without parting company with all these.

LOL i’ve never once said they’re shit.

Admittedly the one i tried (i think it was a Five) i really didn’t like. But i’ve not mentioned that previously either in this thread or anywhere else.