How many brands has Trek bought and closed down/marginalised?

brant – I think Orange are bloody amazing. Their longevity in the business, the fact the two original founders are still involved heavily, the World Team they sponsored, with Minaar, Giove, sponsoring Peaty… Orange might make frames in a factory off Pellon Lane in Halifax, and they might be simple constructions, but respect due!

All very true but I still don’t see how they are better in relation to the original post.

Re my post on saracen. I apologise for the use of the swear word however it was on topic and I feel other brands such as muddyfox has more kudos in terms of brand resurection. Imaterial of how good the saracen full suss frame is to ride. Why not just create a new brand name? I would be interested to read what the designers etc have to say on this in the next stw. Oh and drac you are a hypocrite. Take that comment on the chin as a fair comment.

I see alot of this Fisher bikes will be destroyed by Trek, But who cares, Gary Fisher didn’t when he sold the company nearly 20 years ago to a chinese/taiwanese syndicate. He had owned it for less than a year himself. Trek Bought Fisher in 93 and Gary has only really ever been president.

Gary fisher also has a twin in the owner of blazing saddles in Hebden 😉

I think a fair few people forget that the bike business is a business….. Companys buy one another out all the time if a failing business finds a buyer who can do something with the IP staff and brand names they acquire then thats about the best they can hope for. Sentimentality will not pay keith bontragers bills will it.

Imaterial of how good the saracen full suss frame is to ride. Why not just create a new brand name?

Because the guys that did it knew that everyone would be talking about the resurrection of Saracen. If it was some new name then it probably would have been forgotten in a year and died an early death.

Those of us who remember the good old days of nice steel Saracen frames wonder whether the re-birth will bring the quality back, whereas those who associate the name with more recent horrible cheap halfords bikes will wonder whether they can pull something special out of the bag.

Agree phototim but new superbrands started and grew somewhere?

i disagree and think some microbrands do offer bikes that are cutting edge and revolutionary I don’t think you would have found many bikes like the Dialled Alpine, when it came out. Now bigger names probably do similar frames, but at the time no-one did. Same with the 456 and Prince Albert too…and the original Inbred SS. Maybe if FS then yes, but that’s left to Orange and Broklyn Machine Works,Canfeild, and Transition.Evoluation occurs with ht’s too 😀

But it’s not just bikes in which this happens – check out Swatch and the brands that it has bought. Of the surviving ones, Swatch, Tag and Omega are the biggies, with Oris another member of the stable. The thing is that there are economies to be had – in watches, it makes sense for Oris to use an off the shelf Swatch mechanism than develop its own. Similarly, Trek can cross-pollinate and use the expertise and techniques from one line in another. Whether they all roll up into a one-day all encompassing ‘Trek’ brand I don’t know – still with watches, I prefer an Omega to a Swatch, but would prefer it even more if it were an independent company.
Sadly it’s a fact of business, I guess – without the distribution network and economies that come from scale, many smaller bike brands are destined to stay that way; being bought and slowly subsumed into a much bigger brand is one of few ways to play with the big boys.

@supersessions: Not sure about Klein. They are still sold in Japan, but Gary Klein is working in telescope design, last I heard.

To me, Klein stood for fat tubed Al XC hartails with flash paint jobs. I’m not sure where the brand would fit in today. I don’t think the market for this kind of bike is that big these days when there are loads of mainstream manufacturers selling decent AL frames for far less.

Trek have always been into CF themselves so I don’t see a CF Klein range making sense for them.

On the other hand I would still love a Bonty Racelight with a disc mount and 1 1/8″ headtube……