Frasers Group To Relaunch Wiggle and Chain Reaction Websites

<quote> footflaps
Full Member

Like the bike spares rack in most Decathlons is like going back in time 30 years with 6 and 7 speed cassettes on the racks… </quote>

Basically Decathlon’s parts section is designed to serve their own ranges, which use a lot of basic cheaper parts. They’ve added newer stuff basically as they added higher end bikes but mostly they sell a shitload of inexpensive, pretty decent bikes and so it makes total sense to sell mostly the parts for those too.

It also means they don’t get left sat on tons of newer parts when they go out of fashion. It’s a shame though as a punter as they are sometimes brilliant.

Thanks for the positive comments on Pinnacle. I think we did ok there, did the right things. I was thinking how it’s true FG/Evans now haven’t done a lot with the bikes since 2020/21. The Ramin 2020 was great, geometry was sorted, but Pinnacle wasn’t a name in MTB and Evans didn’t sell many. Frasers Group kept ordering Arkoses and will do as long as they keep selling, even without any updates since then they’re still relevant bikes I think, particularly for that market. But the fact they didn’t pile in the Pinnacle orders in 20/21 like everyone else and haven’t done much with own brand bikes since then .. some might say that was the smart thing to do given the state the industry is in now. They can just sell everyone else’s overstocks, hoovering up bargains. I’m not sure a lack of activity in recent years is much indication of what they might do as and when the market picks up.

Sold tons of Arkoses, Neons and all the kids bikes all great and well priced. The problem is if you don’t invest in brands then they slowly become obsolete. Was perusing the new websites and they seem to lack top end models of bikes, nothing over about 7k, that’s obviously not cheap but bit odd I thought.

What happens with all the tooling for manufacturing megas/gigas etc. Surely a lot of money was spent on manufacturing ability and they wouldn’t want to just scrap it.

Does that mean somewhere in Taiwan would would continue to churn out bikes since the kit to do so is already bought and paid for?

Are any budget in house brands producing bikes over 7k? Wouldn’t exactly seem like their target market.

None in Taiwan is going to make anything unless someone pays them to. If the kit is already bought and paid for, they’ll just move onto the next customer/ order, there’s no value in producing someone else’s old designs on the off chance someone will buy them.

the fact they didn’t pile in the Pinnacle orders in 20/21 like everyone else and haven’t done much with own brand bikes since then .. some might say that was the smart thing to do given the state the industry is in now.

I was going to say something similar, I suppose you just have to look at who’s buying who’s websites and brands now to see how a brief ‘boom’ that some exploited more than others has reshaped the bike industry. I doubt anyone would have predicted Fraser Group buying up more cycling assets back in ~2019.

I think I’ll probably still skim the wares on wiggle for time to time, I never visit the Evans in town, but if anything did take my fancy I assume I could order it to that store for pick-up(?).

Some interesting snobbery on display in this thread too, basic old 7 speed bikes and spare innertubes are probably still the backbone of the bicycle retail world despite 10k ego chariots existing they’re the exception not the rule.

anderzzFree Member
What happens with all the tooling for manufacturing megas/gigas etc. Surely a lot of money was spent on manufacturing ability and they wouldn’t want to just scrap it.

Does that mean somewhere in Taiwan would would continue to churn out bikes since the kit to do so is already bought and paid for?

The tooling should have been owned by Hotlines. This means that if there’s ever an issue with the supplier you can whip the tooling away and go elsewhere. If there are still bills to be paid at the frame builders, then I could imagine that they might try to take ownership of the tooling (although I’ll let someone else find if tooling is mention in the list of assets) and could start cranking out frames again under different branding.

Does the fall of the retail giants mirror the trend in cycling? There seems to be less people who dabble these days. As a student I worked at Evans for 5 years and we had a solid base of folk on basic but functional bikes (say 800 – 1k hardtails or basic tiagra ally roadbike)  but all were out regularly. I dont see that many of this type of rider these days. IMO The average rider at my local TS has a much better bike now than 15 years ago.

But these days shops tend to sell either high end bikes, or family hikes like decathlon / halfords etc. I don’t think you can keep everyone happy. People after am expensive bike want the experience from a high end place and want experienced staff who are passionate. People who want kids bikes and cheap hybrids on c2w are out off by the lack of choice. That’s kind of how it was before the big players tried to do everything isnt it.

Wiggle and crc catered for the experienced cyclist who knew what they wanted, and probably still can. You might not buy a bike anymore, but people will still pick up bargain conponants and clothing. And they’ll pivot vitus, NP, ragley etc brands to ensure that stores like evans ( which cater for the less experienced cyclist) walks in and can see a shop floor of choice, without knowing they’re all in house owned.

It feels like the industry couldn’t sustain a place to keep everyone happy. But it does worry me that mtb is possibly becoming a bit elitist and quite far from its roots.

 I never visit the Evans in town, but if anything did take my fancy I assume I could order it to that store for pick-up(?)

That’ll be £4.99, please sir…

But it does worry me that mtb is possibly becoming a bit elitist and quite far from its roots.

roots would be what? Depending on when and where you started biking that could be fireroad clunking; roughstuff backcountry exploration; one (rigid) bike to do it all; the downhill/freeride vs XC dicotomy; “all mountain”; rigid singlespeeds making easy trails hard again?

mountain bikes are better and cheaper than ever. £500 on a halfords voodoo hardtail is a bike I would take over anything pre ~2005ish for any mountain biking.

I know there’s 100 different niche pigeonholes these days but they are only a way of describing things, the bikes transcend categories better than anything in the past.

FWIW, I have Pinnacle shoes (flats) and they’re great.

Evans doing some odd stuff with workshop and pricing apparently, some very odd choices that don’t seem very customer friendly.

ABC.

Anything But cAshley.

I will literally go without before I knowingly give that tosser a single penny.

 

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mountain bikes are better and cheaper than ever. £500 on a halfords voodoo hardtail is a bike I would take over anything pre ~2005ish for any mountain biking.

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But now we hit perception verses reality

If you owned a simple bike in the 1990s and turned up at trail bread everyone’s bike looked like yours. If you now turn up on a £500 bike or even a £1000 bike you would have a great bike by historic standards. But looking at the bikes almost everyone else is riding you would realise that your kit is way behind what everyone else is riding.

Now you might say @why worry about what everyone else is riding” but people do. I’d say currently mountain biking looks really expensive. Whether it is expensive or not

If you owned a simple bike in the 1990s and turned up at trail bread everyone’s bike looked like yours

Rubbish! When I was racing DH a Marin Mount Vision there were also a lot of people riding Intense M1s which frame only cost was higher than I paid for the whole bike.

It depends when and in the 1990s and where. I certainly wasn’t imagining a downhill race

Riding at Woburn, in the lakes or peak there was a time when every bike pretty much looked the same.

I did some xc races where everyone was on a rigid rim braked bike. You could tell the ti one’s of course. Some cost a fortune. But they were functionally similar.

I was basically agreeing with this point

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As a student I worked at Evans for 5 years and we had a solid base of folk on basic but functional bikes (say 800 – 1k hardtails or basic tiagra ally roadbike) but all were out regularly. I dont see that many of this type of rider these days. IMO The average rider at my local TS has a much better bike now than 15 years ago.

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On my last trail centre trip even junior served to be on a FS e-bike. I saw one group on west I’d call basic bikes

As a student I worked at Evans for 5 years and we had a solid base of folk on basic but functional bikes (say 800 – 1k hardtails or basic tiagra ally roadbike) but all were out regularly. I dont see that many of this type of rider these days. IMO The average rider at my local TS has a much better bike now than 15 years ago.

Possibly better served  by Planet-X etc these days?

Or they’re shopping via Cycle 2 Work schemes so will either be online or via whichever shop their employer signs up with.

On my last trail center trip even junior served to be on a FS e-bike. I saw one group on west I’d call basic bikes

I dunno, I think the cheaper end of the market seems to actually be doing really well.

Then in the cheap-middling (£1500-£2000)  there’s loads of decent choice. My bike falls into that bracket and I don’t think Z2’s and Deore 12s are really a compromise compared to higher tier components anymore.  The big difference around that price seems to be that as things have settled down with geometry and wheel sizes, teens are more likely to be riding a  2nd hand Carbon Enduro than a new lower-spec bike.  When I was that age 2nd hand meant missing out on disk brakes or having 80mm suspension rather than 125mm.  I think maybe that fuels the perception that bikes have gotten more expensive, because more of them look like £3000+ bikes at RRP but probably were bought for 1/3 that.

Higher end, there’s always been a few in every group that had XTR.  XTR (and SRAM) seems to have gone up even faster than inflation though.  FS bikes do seem to have gotten more gaudy/bling though.  Maybe neon Santa Cruz’s just stick out more than “boutique” frames used to (30 years ago it would have been a rigid Ti bike and blended in).

E-bikes, it’s a different sport/demographic. I know barely a handful of people who’ve bought them as an ‘upgrade’, and 90% of the other users I see in groups of E-bikes fit a stereotype, their demographic seems to be people who would otherwise have bought an XR400 and gone green-laning. But a lack of green-lanes and an abundance of trail centers has changed that.

 The big difference around that price seems to be that as things have settled down with geometry and wheel sizes, teens are more likely to be riding a  2nd hand Carbon Enduro than a new lower-spec bike.

theres a nice alloy spesh in the classifieds right now (not related to me in any way). £700 and even that may be high as its been there for a week with no comments.

Good if not top spec. 5ish years old. 1x drivetrain, dropper, non-obsolete brakes.

“where everyone was on a rigid rim braked bike. You could tell the ti one’s of course. Some cost a fortune. But they were functionally similar.”

If you found xc bikes from the rigid and rim brake era to be indistiguishable from each other:

Then you probably wouldn’t find a functional difference between this and the latest s-works costing 15 times as much.

Thats not intended as a dig by the way, in a blind test and on bikes correctly set up for us, most of us would struggle to differentiate between them I’d wager.

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If you found xc bikes from the rigid and rim brake era to be indistiguishable from each other:

My not Very important point wasn’t that they were all the same to ride. My point was that if you were new and turned up on a cheap one it looked like everyone else’s.

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Then in the cheap-middling (£1500-£2000) there’s loads of decent choice. My bike falls into that bracket and I don’t think Z2’s and Deore 12s are really a compromise compared to higher tier components anymore.

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I couldn’t agree more. My fs bike is gx and a rhythm fork and I’m pleased to be able to ride such nice stuff. But these bikes are around £2500 now for full fs. You will of course find better deals at the moment but I think those days will be in the rear view mirror soon

Well ok there’s a fairly obvious visual distinction between hardtail and full suss

If you want a full suss to fit in at the trail centre, here’s a £1.1k 4 bar full suss with black stanchioned rockshox, one-by, a dropper, and a pair of minions.

https://www.halfords.com/bikes/mountain-bikes/boardman-mtr-8.8-mens-mountain-bike-2021—s-m-l-xl-frames-371014.html

I’m sure there will be some boardman snobs but for feeling like you’ve got similar to everyone else that seems to fit the bill.

I think possibly my mistake hear is not fully allowing for inflation over 34 years

In that time a teacher starting salary had roughly trebled in that time. So my £700 kona would give you more than £2k which would but a good fs bike. It might be a bit more but than that? it really is a different world to a rigid rim brake bike.

I think my wife’s Fire Mountain was say £350. It looked like mine but was genuinely horrific and had to be moved on. I’d forgotten this gem. On a week tour round Crete her brakes were so bad I went back up the trail to find her biting her wrists. I asked her why she was doing this an and she said she was trying to distract her mind from the pain in her fingers. To be fair I might have noticed earlier that the brakes needed a reach adjustments