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A representation of the uk scene?
WTF have I just read?
Hand back your patch, captain. Insufficient stoke generated.
WTF have I just read?
Steeze.
Ok, someone else is caught in the crossfire then…
http://sickbikes.co.uk
A motorbike company I think..
Jesus ****ing Christ, the last tiny bit of respect or sympathy has gone for sick bikes.
Your not the hell's angels, but you stand a good chance (deservedly) of getting a kicking from one if you wear one of their "cuts" in public.
From the first line of the PinkBike article:
Professional agitators? Revolutionaries? The meteoric growth of Sick Cycles...
Isn't a meteor something that flies at high speed from outer space into the atmosphere and either burns up or then hits the earth very hard?
😉
WTF have I just read?
The most ludicrous piece of writing on the internet since How To Commit Seppuku With a Frisbee.
Isn’t a meteor something that flies at high speed from outer space into the atmosphere and either burns up or then hits the earth very hard?
My first thought was more that "professional agitators" might be a euphemism.
Meteors burnt up. Meteorites hit the ground.
My first thought was more that “professional agitators” might be a euphemism.
🙂
Jordan: Not anymore. Was. [As of May 9, 2019, the website still is accepting pre-orders]
Even PB obviously don’t like being made look silly
They haven't corrected the obvious lie about PayPal refunds, though
From the fp,
one happy Sick Bicycles customer: “I ordered a Deathwish around May last year [2018]. When I ordered the frame, it said 30 days for delivery. This wasnt the case, the frame arriving I think August or September. The delay was annoying at first but when the crew at Sick reached out explaining why, I decided fair enough...The bike arrived with the wrong dropout so I had to get some delivered from Peru and there was a small spacing issue with the cranks hitting the frame.
So, a happy customer had a massively delayed delivery, wrong dropouts, and the cranks hitting the frame? I wouldn't have been happy with that, would you?
From the PB comments - not sure whether anyone's pointed this out on this thread...
😁
But, Pierre, from the PB article...
It's incredibly scary going over to Asia and committing to this number of frames
Hands up if you believe they went to Asia!
Anyone?
Anyone?
Hands up if you believe they went to Asia!
Anyone?
Anyone?
I reckon the closest they got to Asia was the New Asia takeaway, 136 Montague St, Worthing...
Well done to STW on the article.
Pinkbikes is just copy paste a press release pretty much.
Whilst it did seem to be true that a lot of people seemed to want Sick to fail from the start, they really didn't need any help failing.
Some people seem to think that the impact PB and STW have on Sick will be nothing, but this is a niche within a niche within a niche. Sick come over badly in both articles, and the constant astroturfing on what's left of their social media is highly transparent.
If they'd just stuck the making cool t-shirts they'd be laughing.
Hope everyone all owed money/frames gets them, but I reckon it's 2 minutes to midnight for Sick.
I’m curious to know how they feel the articles are coming off...
I feel a bit awkward saying this but...
Our revenue from advertising is shrinking as it is for every other media brand - even though we get over 1.5 million people here every month. With numbers like that you'd think the money would pour in but it's actually getting harder to find. Journalism like Hannah's piece here is very expensive to produce. Hannah has been working for two months on this and has clocked up time we can measure in weeks to produce it.
Work like this is now increasingly reliant on direct reader revenues through our memberships. So I appeal to you that if you think work like this is worthwhile then consider backing us up and signing up. £1.99 for a month is all it takes. Or buy one of our t-shirts - or do both. We promise to deliver your t-shirt promptly, our customer service is excellent and nothing we sell is on a slow boat from Peru.
Support us if you can afford it. If you can't that's cool. As you were.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand.
Work like this is now increasingly reliant on direct reader revenues through our memberships. So I appeal to you that if you think work like this is worthwhile then consider backing us up and signing up. £1.99 for a month is all it takes. Or buy one of our t-shirts – or do both. We promise to deliver your t-shirt promptly, our customer service is excellent and nothing we sell is on a slow boat from Peru.
couldn't work out if the link to the STW hoodie and Tees under the article was meant to be a joke or not... 🙂
Hannah and STW team thanks for the article, you have restored my faith In STW! FWIW I’m glad sick didn’t respond and embrace their right to reply. I think that would’ve ruined the article as it would’ve been soured with lies and bullshit. The PB article proves this.
Fair play Mark. This place deserves to keep going. I’m piss poor and still manage to find money for a sub. It’s worth it just to support the forum. The actual content is just a nice bonus 😉
Cough up ya tight bastards 😀
Thanks Mark, that's an excellent point. Journalism like that doesn't come free and people deserve to be paid for their work. At only £20 for a year, this is well worth it. I've just subscribed. I feel a bit guilty that I hadn't done it sooner.
(I was a paper mag subscriber yonks ago for a few years but realised I was being drawn towards the dark side... I'm now riding muddy stuff for fun again!)
Mark, I’m happy to support STW further. But like I said a million times before I would need some commitment to the forum and the website from you guys. I value this website and it’s content but with things like the attitude towards the change in classifieds I’m not sure why I should. I already subscribe after all. But would happily pay a more for a usable website and classifieds back to how it was!
Anyway back to sick...
This deserves more attention. Bravo honourablegeorge
Indeed, well done honourablegeorge (and the other 2)!
Well they seem to have no issue speaking to people who won't give them shit....
Customer service makes or breaks a brand.
Ask Apple... average products superb service
Chipps / Hannah / Mark
Do you think this might subtly change the way you report press releases from other start-ups?
Don't get me wrong - I love reading about new and weird bike stuff (please don't stop reporting it) but a bit more background and balance would be great so we can judge for ourselves if they're really bringing something new or just enthusiastic and inexperienced with a couple of prototypes being tested on the buying public.
It would also be fairer on the likes of Stanton / Curtis / Shand / Cotic etc who are all trying to do it for real with actual UK content. BTW, good job in recent coverage of those folks.
When those of you who placed an order eventually get your refund then just order direct from alibaba (link on last page)
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
And is that the same Pierre that had the duct tape and rattle can death trap singlespeed from mid 2000s SSUK at Mach?....
So I thankfully didn't order a sick bike when it came out.
but based on that article I have just subscribed to the mag as a group that will write something that balanced does deserve support.
cheers stw
And is that the same Pierre that had the duct tape and rattle can death trap singlespeed from mid 2000s SSUK at Mach?….
Yes - hi! That death trap is no longer, I've got a couple of nicer bikes now. 😉
Hands up if you believe they went to Asia!
Anyone?
Anyone?
Could it be a typo and they actually went to Asda?
From funkrodent’s comment on the article:
Interesting, been following from afar. My two penn’orth is that they went into this all brazen and big b*ll*cks, with no real clue regarding the multiple complexities of running a manufacturing/sales/fulfilment business of this type (as alluded to by Hannah). And now they are way out of their depth.
As to why they’re still taking orders? Cashflow. They need money coming in to deal with the backlog of shite that they have. Robbing Peter to pay Paul and hoping to god that they can get it sorted before the whole house comes crashing down. Not exactly a Ponzi, but not too far removed..
This is pretty much what my take on this sorry episode is.
Add into the mix a bunch of millennials who had started to believe their own bullshit whilst in actual fact not knowing their arse from their elbow and you get this. ‘Likes’ on the internet do not equate to cash in the bank.
Doubling down on the ‘attitude’ when it all starts to unravel just means more aggro for them.
However, after the initial “Oh shit, dude, we’ve like actually got to pay for the stock now” moment should have come a “We’re in big-ish trouble here, but we could make this a whole lot worse if we carry on regardless, so let’s grow up a bit and hold our hands up” moment.
Carrying on taking orders on new stuff to have the cash to satisfy the existing orders or refunds is wrongful trading and company directors (I know, soooooo uncool to have them) can end up in prison for that ‘one last sale and we’ll be able to pay the rent and have another three months to turn this around’ temptation.
In summary. Bunch of muppets got out of their depth. Kept doubling down but losing. Could have been a few hundred quid out of pocket, most likely will end up in quite a bit of trouble. I’d recommend ‘Rogue Trader’ (the Nick Leeson story) as a bit of required viewing for the Sick Lads. His basic mistake was to be a strutting wise boy who couldn’t admit to a relatively small mistake and kept rolling the dice in the hope of salvaging the situation.
bunch of millennials
Are they? Everything I've ever read from them screams mid forties man child.
Frames ready 2 months ago, awaiting payment to ship to the UK.
Might be waiting a while.
Frames were ready 2 months ago. I am waiting for payment to send them to the UK
So, not even in transit yet.
just leaving this here:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Custom-titanium-full-suspension-bicycle-frame_60750072359.html
I wonder if it'd be quicker to order from alibaba
would it be unethical to buy a load and start trading as SICK bicycles, what with the lack of protection on the name...
People should get their CC refunds, and then get in touch with the frame builder to buy a single frame.
Cuts out the useless middlemen.
That or buy it from alibaba, but I feel sorry for the guys in, was it Peru? Who've got a whole bunch of frames they've spent the manhours building, but haven't been paid for.
Carrying on taking orders on new stuff to have the cash to satisfy the existing orders or refunds is wrongful trading and company directors (I know, soooooo uncool to have them) can end up in prison for that ‘one last sale and we’ll be able to pay the rent and have another three months to turn this around’ temptation.
I imagine their image would go down well amongst the other prisoners, if it came to that.
Take payment for goods. Don't pay supplier. Don't deliver goods. ****s the money gone?
I read the PB article and my thoughts after 4 lines were - deceitful man children who need to grow the **** up; that didn't change the further I got.