With all the talk on here recently about Ti frames cracking, Commencal frames snapping (old news admittedly), Boardman Bikes grabbing Cycletowork by the horns, Kona being stuck in 2002... I started to think about which bike companies stock is currently on the rise or in a state of freefall (in both bike sales terms aswell as image).
Interested to hear STW'ers thoughts, I'll start:
Rise - Singular Cycles, Boardman bikes, Specialized (as much as it pains people, they're still pumping bikes out by the 1000's), Ghost, Cube, Santa Cruz (even though expensive & imagewise premium brand attempting to become more mainstream - might get flamed for suggesting that though!)
Plodding along - Orange, Giant (image wise, probably not bikes sales wise)
Fall - Commencal, Kona, RaceFace(financially)..., Marin
Very interested to see people add to the list. 🙂
Raleigh look to be on the up, which is nice.
Up...Cube,Ghost,Boardman,Canyon.
Down...Giant,Trek,Marin,Commencal,Kona
It's mostly the mainstream brands that are losing out to the 'value biased' new brands.It was that you'd get great kit but dodgy design and handling,now you can get great kit and great design/build quality for a lot less money.
For the same money you can get a trek ex with an ali frame and slx or a ghost with a carbon frame and xt that looks and handle for all intents and purposes (to most) the same.The mainstream brand can't justify the extra money anymore as they are'nt perceived as a 'premium' brand to most.
The boutique brands like Ibis,Santa Cruz,yeti etc carry a lot more cache so people are willing to pay a premium depite very little material benefits.
I think it depends on where you live and how affluent that area is.
Speaking to a bike shop bod yesterday and he reckoned Trek did not bring enough Remedys into the country this year.
Speaking to my lbs bod who had been discussing trade and the general feeling is that the Southern end of GB has seen sales of high end bikes being maintained unlike the Northern end.
2012 bikes will be appearing in the shops soon apperently, hence some good deals to be had already on some big brands if you can shop around.
To add to the list above
up - Lapierre (suddenly the most wanted)
down - Whyte (don't hear much of them these days)
I thought the Lapierre bubble had burst.Brands seem to have a pretty short lifespan these days (or is just consumers short attention span?).
Whyte is a u.k brand like Genesis,Saracen etc so are'nt exactly huge to begin with.