Unhappy Sick Bicycles Customers. BEWARE!

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)

And is that the same Pierre that had the duct tape and rattle can death trap singlespeed from mid 2000s SSUK at Mach?….

Thou shall have a gnarpoon on a little dishy when…..

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. **** 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.

Frames ready 2 months ago, awaiting payment to ship to the UK.

Suggests much larger problems than logistics. If these are preorder, they’re already paid for, but Sick can’t/ won’t pay the supplier to ship them to the UK.

So, again – where did the money go? And are the payments for new orders being used to cover delivery of previous orders (which is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme)?

Ponzi scheme

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again after reading this…

Frames ready 2 months ago, awaiting payment to ship to the UK.

The plot sickens.

And are the payments for new orders being used to cover delivery of previous orders (which is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme)?

I would say that was extremely likely.

The other problem with being a ‘bit of a Jack the Lad, might play a bit fast and loose with other people’s money, but has a heart of gold’ thing is that eventually they end up defrauding someone who has the experience, means and motivation to sort out their own debt collection arrangements.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but that’s the risk you run….

Can’t we buy those frames direct from manufacturer? 😂

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/new-design-titanium-carbon-mtb-suspension_60688266270.html?spm=a2700.details.maylikehoz.5.2d6456e5XchZ6C

Another sick on alibaba

Ponzi scheme

This is Sick we’re talking about, they’re super cool.
It’s obviously a Fonzi scheme.

It’s inconceivable that no-one has gone to Trading Standards about these chancers. Surely they’ve met the fraud threshold by now?

Do you have to have skin in the game to go to TS? Or can anyone do it?

I can see those Marino frames being in an on one price blow out at some point In the not too distant future.

BTW not saying that would be a bad thing.

I think anyone can report suspected fraud.

skin in the game

Delete your account.

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tomhoward

Subscriber
Do you have to have skin in the game to go to TS? Or can anyone do it?

Anyone can do it, same as if you walked into a shop that you believed was dodgy

Looks like it’s more than one batch

https://m.pinkbike.com/forum/listcomments/?threadid=213188&pagenum=1#commentid6730182