Rocky Mountain Bicycles To Restructure In Effort To Avoid Bankruptcy

Rocky Mountain Bicycles is the second big bike name to hit the headlines for the wrong reasons this week, in an indication that the bike industry is s …

By stwhannah

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Rocky Mountain Bicycles To Restructure In Effort To Avoid Bankruptcy

Is anyone safe God dam it.

This is one brand I would hate to disappear. I still have my Blizzard frame from the early 90’s and a mate has a scandium Rocky of the same vintage.

Harking back to the previous thread…  £12.5k for a bike?!  I now realise my panic mid separation buy of a G1 was a shrewd move a couple of years ago.  Rocky Mountain bikes have always had a cache about them, but the pricing makes Pivot looking reasonable.

I hope the restructuring works and the staff have a future with the business as losing brands like RM will be a sad state of affairs…

Could we stop closing preexisting threads please? Annoying and not necessary.

Anyway, another brand I’ve been seeing less and less of. Actually never saw many on the trails to begin with. There’s a vintage 2002 Slayer in the back of my workshop. I don’t really do brand loyalty but Rocky Mountain is probably the one I would be saddest to see go. When I think of mountain biking I think of PNW/North Shore, when I think of there I think of Rocky Mountain. That said they’ve been going downhill since ditching the maple leaf paint jobs.

I feel like the industry needs to cut back on huge sponsorships. Customers have been treated like cash cows to prop this up for a long time. Except now prices are getting so silly bikes aren’t selling, combined with a general post covid over supply and lowering of demand. There needs to be a reset where the customer is paying for the product rather than sponsorship, freebies, marketing, distributor and dealer. Too many hands reaching for a slice of the pie. Somewhere along the line greed has become a factor as well.

If we close a thread could the previous thread comments be copied and pasted into the new one?

Maybe a note to say they are from another thread

I agree. As a Rocky Mountain owner I got a genuinely useful bit of information from the old thread. Shame that might not be seen by other owners who come to this new thread.

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/rocky-mountain-in-trouble/

Echoing the comments about closing threads. No need imo.

There needs to be a reset where the customer is paying for the product rather than sponsorship, freebies, marketing, distributor and dealer. Too many hands reaching for a slice of the pie. Somewhere along the line greed has become a factor as well.

There’s an interesting magazine article in there somewhere. I suspect it’s a marketing 101 situation where consumer awareness trumps all; but it would be very interesting to know different brands attitude to percentage of turnover spent on marketing/promotion/sponsorship and how it compares to other sports. And to other consumer products come to that. How much of the sponsorship of athletes/teams/events is actually tradition, or a passion project or maybe even a vanity project thing. How much some brands fundamentally believe that sales numbers would dive through the floor if they stopped the sponsorship. Also – in real terms is it more or less expensive to sponsor a team/rider/event than it used to be? Is there a greed/expectation for financial reward that the industry just fundamentally can afford to prop up.

Another brand that precious few actually ride, and even less in the last decade.

Totally agree about needing to seriously think down the takers in the chain.  Way too many mediocre riders thst I’ve never heard of  trying to dodge having a real job by having normal regular everyday hobby riders pay for their free riding.  Time to change.

 

I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anyone in the wild riding a Rocky Mountain for about 20 years and even then it was one of those weird things with the Turner-esque rear end but with a double linkage…

What is it that the “boring” big companies like Trek and Specialized have done so well vs the likes of GT and Rocky Mountain? Better ownership I guess being one but in terms of desirability I don’t view a Trek any different to a GT. So why when I go out are there loads of people on Specializeds and Treks but none on GTs when I could easily go and buy any one of them in a shop? Did that weird lull in the early/mid 00s when GT started chucking out crap I-Drives etc and then almost disappear kill their reputation?

@DaveyBoyWonder I personally have always made a deliberate choice when buying a bike . I don’t want the same as the next buyer in the shop hence why I don’t consider Spesh , Trek , Giant etc . That’s probably not the best move considering how good most big name brand bikes are but I guess I’m in the minority? Hence why these small companies are struggling?

What’s in my garage ? A Cove Hummer ( gone) 2 Konas ( definitely wobbly) a Curtis ( you definitely don’t see many of them out and about and a modern take on RMs Blizzard one I’d lusted after back in the day )Probably the biggest name is Orbea with my Rise but I guess they aren’t in the same big selling league?

Sorry about the thread thing, it happens when I publish a story and it automatically creates a new thread. There is a techno way to stop this happening and join it up with the original thread, but only Mark knows how to do it and he’s been too busy with other things today.

What is it that the “boring” big companies like Trek and Specialized have done so well vs the likes of GT and Rocky Mountain?

this is just a guess but I think that those boring big companies are churning out:

50 sub £500 hybrids that will never get ridden enough to even warrant a new chain to people who came to that brand because it was what is stocked by their most convenient shop;

10 nice road bikes that will be polished every ride and only go out in nice weather under someone who thinks 400 watts is a sprint;

for every 1 enthusiast level mountain bike where we can all moan they have specced a GX shifter on a XX1 bike before bringing a quarter of them back with snapped chainstays when we run out of talent.

There needs to be a reset where the customer is paying for the product rather than sponsorship, freebies, marketing, distributor and dealer. Too many hands reaching for a slice of the pie.

While in another thread somewhere brands who support racing and the scene in general are applauded.

Would be very sad to see RM gone. An iconic, OG MTB brand. I had a steel Blizzard with bomber Z2s and RaceFace kit around 2005, loved it.

What is it that the “boring” big companies like Trek and Specialized have done so well

Momentum and ongoing R+D and marketing (to contradict the request that brands don’t do sponsorship and marketing)

Way too many mediocre riders thst I’ve never heard of  trying to dodge having a real job by having normal regular everyday hobby riders pay for their free riding.  Time to change.

“get a job, hippy” : )

A Cove Hummer

What a great bike they were. I still miss mine

This is one brand I would hate to disappear. I still have my Blizzard frame from the early 90’s and a mate has a scandium Rocky of the same vintage.

Yeah the problem is that if you love them so much you need to buy their bikes. One every 30 years won’t keep their lights on.

Yeah the problem is that if you love them so much you need to buy their bikes.

I would have bought another one but for two reasons:

1. The new Slayer design is meh.

2. It’s bloody silly money.

Sorry about the thread thing, it happens when I publish a story and it automatically creates a new thread. There is a techno way to stop this happening and join it up with the original thread, but only Mark knows how to do it and he’s been too busy with other things today.

But this is becoming a bit of a throw away response whenever this complaint is raised (it’s been going on for months). Perhaps it’s a skill that could be learnt before letting folk loose on the forums.

Merge threads has been a fairly standard tool for as long as there have been forums.

Anyway I always lusted after an 853 Blizzard (the red & white maple leaf paintjob was lovely) but at twice the price of comparable frames because it was welded in Canada rather put it out of reach.

While in another thread somewhere brands who support racing and the scene in general are applauded.

Must have missed that thread? But certainly that’s a good thing. I didn’t suggest it wasn’t. But it looks to me like certain brands are pricing their bikes beyond the point of being saleable, attempting to prop up race teams and sponsorships they can’t afford. That or just being greedy. Of course with almost all of these brands being north america or europe based the money leaves here and any riding community investment usually doesn’t come back our way.

Momentum and ongoing R+D and marketing (to contradict the request that brands don’t do sponsorship and marketing)

I did not suggest brands stop doing that completely, which would be silly. I actually wrote as much in my reply to the original thread which got closed between typing and posting, then forgot about it here second time round. But we’ve got to a point now where bikes are getting more and more expensive, yet only a small part of any given retail price covers the product itself. I don’t really see that being sustainable, but I’m frequently wrong about things. The rise in production costs in recent years hasn’t been anything like as extreme as bike increases.

Rocky Mountain might have had deeper issues as well. Read somewhere they were really struggling to get inventory for a while after covid. Lot of models missing from the website for ages. Battery bikes being one of the only growing segments at the moment I can’t imagine many riders want to take a risk on a lesser known system either.

Just been for a look at Pauls. First bike that pops up is a Slayer that supposedly retailed for £11,499. WTF, all the parts at retail plus their own frame (which is apparently £4749) don’t come near that. The frame is more than a Yeti! Disappointed to see there aren’t any of the latest Elements at 60% off yet…

I know of a number of previously sponsored athletes that do nothing for their ex brand now, yet receive free bikes long after, sometimes seemingly for life, almost like some kind of final salary pension scheme. I’m not pointing a finger at Rocky Mountain here, just an example unnecessary costs that will end up factored into prices.

Looks like something of a perfect storm. Also noted today that (on a smaller scale), UK manufacturer Spoon/Windy Milla have called it a day, citing supply and cash flow issues among their reasons. Yes the product needs to be relevant and the brand kept appealing, but for all this is a hobby for us, there is a cold hard business at the heart of our passion that needs to work well, and it isn’t easy. Balancing supply is difficult when the factories that used to be your mainstay can no longer produce what you want at the same price and under the same terms. Coupled with softening of the top line, it is really difficult.

Fundamentally this is about supply and demand in an industry that has peaked and is now resizing. It does feel a little lame to be still talking about Covid in this context but an unsustainable and unsuppliable (is that even a word?!) boom followed by a sharp bust is still difficult for even the best brands with the best product, business model and governance.

Nostalgia for the likes of GT and RM will sadly not keep the lights on at these companies. Part of the boom of Covid was the attractiveness of these businesses to be bought out for growth and profit. Many of the owners saw an out having built the brands from scratch and the businesses that bought them cared only about the market appeal of cycling and their ability to turn a profit. There are sadly fewer and fewer niche enthusiast-led brands out there.

For all of the nostalgia, sadly the likes of GT and RM just haven’t kept up with the times. I don’t say that with any morbid glee as at the heart of this story are employees, bike shops, owners and other people throughout the supply chain that will be impacted. But nostalgia for Maple Leaf paint jobs and GT Lobos just highlights how once iconic bike brands have not managed to remain iconic.

As an old fart who owned a Blizzard back in the day, and remembers when Raceface was an in-house RM brand, it does make we somewhat nostalgic, but at the same time, I haven’t considered one of their products since.

It is worth reflecting that for every struggling brand, there are emerging brands innovating and growing (just as RM and GT did in their heyday). It’s just the changing of the guard. Young, agile innovators replace old, ageing once-great brands that have lost their way. I don’t think it is easy for anybody, but does anybody still miss Woolworths when their Amazon box arrives on their doorstep?

It is worth reflecting that for every struggling brand, there are emerging brands innovating and growing

Very much this.