If they keep the line up small and focused (HT, Trail, Enduro maybe Gravel) and bin the mass market stuff at the bottom of their catalogue, they could really make a comeback.
I would have thought they’d need the “Halfords” market to keep the lights on. It’s got to be easier to make money selling tens of thousands of £500-£600 bikes that you design once and then have shipped straight from the factory to chain stores. Than it is to sell a few hundred Enduro bikes that takes months of R&D.
As someone else said, bring back the Process 111 (give it 120mm though) – and also a 140mm/150mm all-mountain Process and 160-170mm enduro Process.
I’m sure their current bikes ride well enough. But they need to work on the aesthetics of the FS frames a bit IMO
I don’t know, I’m sure they can make a good FS bike, but in a crowded market who’d buy it? Performance bike sales are going to be driven by being the best and can they really compete with Spesh, Trek and other big brands etc on that basis? They were literally having to sell them BOGOF a few months back.
If they try and be the “best” at something a bit more niche they could have more success. e.g. a lot of people would buy a quality steel road bike that weighted 1lb more than the aluminum version with some luggage/guard mounts. I’m not sure they could make a successful carbon race bike though (they’ve tried before) because very few people would buy a bike 95% as good as a mainstream brand just because it says Kona on the downtube.
They’re big enough to do what they like but not be hampered by VC ROI. Plenty of staples with room to say **** it and make a Humu or Bikehotrod.
+1
Make enough bred and butter bikes to keep the lights on.
And make enough wierd / nice stuff to keep the “brand” from becoming stale.
A Humu & a hotrod are cool, but how many would they actually sell?
To an extent I doubt they need to. It’s like £10k road bikes, they don’t make them to sell huge numbers, they make them so people will walk into their shops and buy the £500 bike and a bit of the premium brand feeling rubs off on it.
I’ve never seen a Hot Rod in the real world, and only ever seen one Humuhumunukunukuapa’a but they’re still pretty iconic and a bit part of their brand identity it seems. In the same way “Lance Armstrong rides a Trek” probably still sells more commuter bikes to people who don’t even know he was stripped of his Yellow Jerseys than it ever did Madones.
