Superstar have always just been another neutral parts supplier to me. Not excellent, not dreadful.
Ive got a Switch Ultra front hub that seems indestructible. I had a matching rear hub that was terrible (ratchet made of cheese with a pawl design that was begging to squirt out of its seat and carve a groove through the ratchet). Not to mention axles that snapped if you looked at them wrong.
In terms of consumables (brake pads, chainrings etc) I've had loads off thrm when the price has been right.
I don’t wish them ill.
From what I read on social media they sold the wheel building business a few years ago and have no intention to continue with brake pads etc concentrating only on in-house products.
They were pushing chainrings out with 30% off for less than £25 for a while, take VAT, transaction fees, postage, material etc off and you can’t have more than £8.00-£10.00 left, got to sell a lot of them for it to be worthwhile, maybe they have decided it isn’t anymore, or needed to get some cash in quick.
got to sell a lot of them for it to be worthwhile, maybe they have decided it isn’t anymore
Well Neil seemed to allude to that in the CRC thread. Gave the impression we just weren't worth his while.
FWIW I can see his point. They came into the market as a budget brand, by manufacturing in house they're going up against the likes of Hope and Rideworks and they just don't have the rep to be commanding that sort of money. If they can put their machines to more productive uses then more power to them.
Well Neil seemed to allude to that in the CRC thread. Gave the impression we just weren’t worth his while.
Yeah, regardless of what happened with Neil many years ago, the fact that he was actively posting on the CRC/Wiggle thread while simultaneously ignoring a couple of "paging" posts from folks looking for some support on stuff they'd bought from Superstar made me think he'd stopped giving a shit about selling bike components.
I like a lot that their hubs were made in the UK and half the price of Hope. But I did notice that the slots for the pawls in my SS hub have a lot less metal around them than the equivalent Hope which might explain why a bit of that metal cracked off. Making hubs is probably a lot harder than it sounds.
I get the whole ‘he doesn’t give a shit about bike components anymore’ thing but it does seem like an odd position that while he was responding to the CRC thread in this way he was also posting pictures on FB of him making chainrings to sell at almost half the price of the competition / for very little profit.
If you don’t care about bike parts and have so much other more profitable work why make bike parts and sell them at not far off alibaba prices, especially when you are running the shop solo and time must be rather short.
Interesting that most posting have purchased wheels from them previously too when that side of things was sold off.
Appreciate this is a bit of an advert, however, looks like a good business model and not entirely bike related any more - as said.
Only made in November 2023, so unless work has dried up massively and he can't afford to pay for the machines, I guess all is probably good.
Would be good to get Neil to come on, but he's probably busy programming.
I bought something from superstar about 15yrs ago, realised they had reduced they had reduced the ‘strong, light, cheap - pick two’ wisdom by one. Haven’t bought anything since and the owners postings on here have done nothing to improve my view.
There are nicer people to buy cheap tat from.
@Twonks - the video was released in November but SS moved units and got the Matsuura(s) this time last year.
Unite Components has a few videos up lately from machine suppliers but they had to move back to sharing a unit / reduce staff since - these promo videos aren’t anything more then adverts for the machine suppliers.
A friend who’s quite high up in a shop says they refuse the MTD videos, no real gain for the shop, just a scripted ‘this machine has made my business amazing’ video and a day lost to it.
Overall I agree though - likely the site issue will be resolved or they have had enough of bike tat.
It wouldn't be fair to engage in unfounded speculation or cast aspersions on the management of a company based on imperfect information about its operations and a poor understanding of accounting and corporate law.
Taking the video as literal then the answer is that a third party will now run the website and sales
twonks
Full Member
Appreciate this is a bit of an advert, however, looks like a good business model and not entirely bike related any more – as said.Only made in November 2023, so unless work has dried up massively and he can’t afford to pay for the machines, I guess all is probably good.
Would be good to get Neil to come on, but he’s probably busy programming
It's for sale. None of his other equipment is.
Not stalking but fell down a Matsuura/CNC rabbit hole as I have an interest in CAD/manufacturing.
Superstar have some nice gear, if that has all been funded on the back of early Chinese catalogue rebranding then fair play to him.
https://www.superstarmanufacturing.com/capabilities
That's not a good sign, an almost brand new machine (looks immaculate, barely turned the spindle) and one of the new ones the video above was made to promote them buying being sold off at Cott - I believe they had two of these at the same time, a huge investment for a small company, they must be £500k+ each.
It could be that was a machine on finance and surplus to requirements if things have slowed hence the sale, or maybe more is to come. The loss on this thing will be eye watering.
Certainly doesn't pair well with the website going down.
I love UK Manufacturing.
I absolutely hate UK companies proclaomkng their Britishness when they are pedalling (no pun intended) shite from China (other oppressive regimes also available). It's just deceitful Bullshit. And all too common these days.
Ever seen shiiite brake pads fall apart on a ride. **** dangerous!
Superstar have always made it really clear what is uk made.
Might be telling that we've had no word on here from Neil yet. I'd have expected him to squash this if not true by now.
They don't seem to have been actively marketing for a long time, or adding much in the way of new products.
Maybe the web service came up for renewal and he just thought "**** it, I CBA anymore".
As I've said on other threads, their chainrings are my favourite (I find them more durable than most) and their Slackeriser headset is a fab, reasonably priced product. I'd miss those.
My first thoughts were that the website, which was awful had either failed or was being replaced.
Pair that with a 1 year old machine being auctioned (Finance companies / liquidators often use Cotts, not private sellers) and no explanation of the site going down on social media though and it does have a more serious look to it.
As I say, I believe a few of the other UK manufacturing guys are also sweating big time right now, they only do bike parts though.
I'm not really following this thread - in the sense, it seems to be bigging up SSC bits or really not liking SSC products...and it now seems to be suggesting that they are going under?
I certainly hope that isn't the case, never good that a company closes...
Their website has been down since Friday, no holding page or announcement as to what is happening on social media and a post above shows their recently purchased, rather expensive machine is being auctioned off for sale.
It also looks like they have removed the promotional video from Facebook where the machine is being showed off and the machine has been removed from the www.superstarmanufacturing.com
Are they 'going under' - unlikely, are they suffering in the same way many business are right now - quite likely.
Lot of speculation which I am also guilty of here, I am sure reality will show up soon, the mutterings about hating superstar are the usual crowd who cant leave things in the past even though they happened over 10 years ago.
Imagine how many posts there would be on a forum or how many conversations made if everything was absent of speculation?
I have nothing against Neil or SS but do know a few people who are in the machine-shop world and closely linked so that side is an interest to me.
Neil was also rather happy to speculate on the demise of CRC when facts weren't available.
So he's probably up the swanny? I can give up all hope of getting the hundred odd quid he owes me back? (If it helps frankconway, it's a fact that he has £100 of mine)
Hopefully this is just because of the expected changes to their order fulfilment process, but a bit surprised the site is down.
Bought my first part off them a month or two ago, they weren't on my radar until I read about them on here, so had some catching up to do on the historical negativity and animosity. The guy does seem to occasionally jump in guns blazing, but I get the impression he's done pretty much everything single handedly. So from product design to taking on the huge loans to purchase those very expensive machines to market research , sales and marketing to answering customer service issues, to working 12+ hour shifts 7 days a week. Not to excuse the occasional abrasiveness that doesn't help the brand image, but if that was me I'd be cranky AF. Running your own business can be terrifying.
Parts quality and design seems to have improved over the years, while prices are keen with the direct to consumer model, though he recently stated prices may be going up soon. Hope the guy's doing ok and it's back to business as usual
The whole ‘doing it alone’ thing (which seems impossible and more a marketing statement for the video imo) is recent - companies house show 5 employees at the last filing.
Superstar has a fairly long history, from importing rebranded parts to in house manufacture and more recently the public announcement that bike parts dont pay, which might explain the site being down.
What is true is that he is impressively self funded, and has a lot of bloody expensive machinery, one of which when up for auction 4 days ago, about when the site went offline.
I am certainly not in the SS hater camp, I think what he has done with the company is bloody impressive, none of the other UK lot have managed it.
Imagine how many posts there would be on a forum or how many conversations made if everything was absent of speculation?
Sure but there is speculation ("I reckon BYD will sell an e-bike soon" or "De Bruyner will move to Saudi") and speculation that can affect real people's livelihoods. There's a hundred different reasons why some machine could get sold and yet people are treating it as proof that someone's business is kaput.
The reason the thread started is the sites down, someone then found the machine for sale, some people are owed money and nobody has heard from them and no announcement via social media or otherwise which would take a few seconds to remove all speculation.
As I say, Neil saw fit to do the same on the CRC thread did he not?
Hope it all works out nicely - I know Neil moved the business from Lincoln to Brackley to be better placed for motorsport subcontract work (makes sense) so hopefully that flow of money is safe, even if there's been a change of fortunes in the bike industry.
As others have said, I too have had plenty of SS parts over the years and been impressed - the only issue I ever had was a rear hub dying after a very hard season of riding & racing, and SS built an upgraded hub into the wheel for me at no cost, so I was well pleased.
To build from a badge/brand/import business into UK manufacturing and subcontracting for others is quite the achievement.
Hopefully it all shakes out and a new website is up soon, I reckon maybe using Amazon FBA for logistics as that'd alleviate a lot of the pain many D2C companies currently face in many industries.
Looking at the images on their website there's zero chance you could fund the payments on those machines with just one employee. I think even x5 employees would be stretching things.
Ok I have been unfair with my wording there, in no way do I believe SS is upto anything of that nature at all and as I say above genuinely think what he has achieved is hugely impressive and I hope they continue in business.
Ill keep it buttoned until the facts play out and buy a new chainring if the site comes back up for being a dick.
I always thought the Made in UK stuff needed new branding as the old Superstar "buy in bulk from China and sell cheap" business model cheapened the product significantly. I have bought a good few things from them but mainly brake pads and tools. Nothing with a logo on show. Call me a snob but that's me.
A shame for me the site is down, for whatever reason, as I was just about to buy a couple of sets of hub bearings in the 75% off SKF sale but had been waiting to strip the hubs down to check numbers. Snooze you lose.
If this is the end then RIP Super* and best of luck to Neil for the future.
If they’re getting out of the bike industry then I wish them well in the future. Nearly everything I’ve had from them has been decent (apart from a bunch of dodgy brake pads one year).
If they’re still
Making biking stuff then I’ll continue to buy from them.
I think it’s a bit harsh to slag a company off because they started out rebranding Chinese catalogue stuff when you consider how many companies started off doing that before going on to do their own stuff. There have been a lot of bike companies over the years who’s new bike has looked very familiar to the one in the Astro or Genio catalogue, but have gone on to do their own thing later.
And they have always been pretty upfront about what was and wasn’t UK made.
There’s enough doom and gloom in the bike industry (and world) without jumping to conclusions about which companies are going under and which aren’t. Maybe we should all wait for the facts before gloating (as it seems a few are doing on here), these are people’s livelihoods were gossiping about.
I think it’s a bit harsh to slag a company off because they started out rebranding Chinese catalogue stuff
Neil is guilty of that, now he’s stopped
There’s enough doom and gloom in the bike industry (and world) without jumping to conclusions about which companies are going under and which aren’t.
and that.
Well it’s been interesting watching the comments, life’s been a bit busy lately. Baby 3 came along and life’s got very complicated for many reasons. My priorities are with family.
server died unexpectedly, I thought it was part of the McD etc server implosion but it wasn’t. Was going to fix it but decided it makes more sense to spend the time finalising the new webshop and Fullfillment move which was almost done. Hopefully will sort it soon
ill be honest, I took the weekend off with the fam rather than rushing. I did want to wait and see what people would say. Thankyou to the well wishers and to the usual trolls literally making stuff up go get bent you miserable poisonous **** Xxx
I’m not surprised to see the usual people literally rewriting history completely wrong, several comments above they could be sued for being that legally factually incorrect, but I have better things to do. I don’t mind people discussing and even speculating, but I know who some of the people in the industry who don’t have the guts to tell you who they are publicly while making stuff up. I’ll stand by my personal opinions, but proper lame to have yet an anonymous dig above (as I know well from my youth).
on CRC, I made it clear they were my personal views and predictions of what would happen. Lo and behold I was 99.3% right back at the start…. Can’t beat reality.
life’s got complicated, the world has gone tits up with wars and economic chaos, I’ve been let down and been shafted by too many people lately. I’m rationalising my life and focusing on the things which matter.
Neil SuperstarComponents
Congrats on the new arrival!
Good luck Neil, family comes first, look after yourself too.
Congratulations on baby #3 Neil!
And yeah, get all the systems in place, then push "launch" at a time that's right for you and the business.
Direct apologies for over-stepping the mark with my own speculation here & all the best, however things work out.
As I said earlier I think what you have achieved with SS is hugely impressive. Lots of business getting shafted right now it seems and it just goes down the chain, the smaller guys always get hit the hardest.
Maybe put a post up on social media - there's a Reddit thread with a customer complaining about not receiving an order / no communication and a 2 min post would save a lot of future aggro, but im not suggesting anything you don't already know.
Well it’s been interesting watching the comments, life’s been a bit busy lately. Baby 3 came along and life’s got very complicated for many reasons. My priorities are with family.
As it should do Neil. We have some stuff going on that focuses the mind on the important stuff and as long as my family pull through the rest is just chaff. Good health to you and yours.
Congrats!
