I think it is a one person business so probably juggling a lot of jobs at any given time, not an excuse but a reason anyway.

From what I see and hear the wheels have come off for the small manufacturers in the UK over the last year post Covid, Superstar recently going into liquidation one example.

Pembree haven’t had pedals in stock now for getting on to a full year aside from odd colours etc.

They were hinting at what I would assume is a more budget friendly model and there is a picture of it behind a shroud on the site which when you click onto it is a dead link.

They did medals for the Malverns recently so assume they are still about, so I imagine you would receive spares – why they haven’t re-stocked their best selling (and pretty good) product in almost a year is something only they can answer.

I don’t think anyone will be buying Superstar Nano’s again – https://www.cottandco.com/en/lots/auction/3343—matsuura-mam72-35v-brother-m140x1-fanuc-robodrill–haas-vf-2ss-machining-centres-aberlink-xtreme-500-cmm-tooling-compressors–finishing-equipment-previously-used-by-superstar-components

Website down and all of the machines now up for auction indicates Superstar being no longer.

It’s also unfortunate that Nukeproof have gone as on sale (lots of the time) the Horizons were great – so for £50.00 I would say its going to be a composite pedal, many of them are made by the same people so it will just be down to price and if you like the design.

I think being realistic now its around £90 upwards for a decent alloy pedal.

Agreed – does your car ever not do the regen braking thing though when the battery is at 100% charge? It’s supposedly to prevent overcharging but is rather scary when unexpected.

I saw the odd video of Neil on Banana’s instagram page with him talking about monkeys in French and wandered what was up.

As above, just old tat – from what I hear Superstar may be packing the whole gig in and selling up anyway, not just the bike stuff – the old Lincolnshire premises is up for sale now and the mega expensive matsuura machine went a second round at auction I believe going unsold again.

I wouldn’t describe making a bore that will have pretty wide tolerances to the correct size so a seal doesn’t spin inside ‘improved tolerances’ – Don’t we buy ‘UK Made’ because its meant to be better / made with more care than overseas stuff?

If the seal housing is that far out, it doesn’t bode well for the bore housing a bush that needs to be held to approx +-0.03mm tolerance.

I don’t think the design of the Unite pedal is any worse than any other – its pretty much the same as other top end pedals – Igus bush inboard, couple of bearings etc, no different to pedals like a Pembree or Burgtec for example which seem to last very well.

All three above pedals use the same kind of seal – a small industrial oil seal, so should work very well if applied correctly, if the seal spins in the pedal body and is fixed to the axle though then the tolerances are all to whack on the body and the seal wont really work at all – it should be pressed into the body and free to turn on the axle.

How long the bush lasts will be a relationship between the size of the bore in the pedal body and the OD of the axle, Igus supply required tolerances, if they aren’t right somewhere then it will result in them wearing quickly, again from what I gather then Pembree pedals that use the same kind of arrangement dont wear out, neither do Hope’s for example.

We use a lot of Igus bushes at work and go to the trouble of having matched pairs of shaft / housing to ensure correct fit as of course parts vary slightly in terms of size during the manufacturing process, I imagine doing this could help.

At the moment im pretty happy with my Nukeproof’s, picked up a second pair when CRC started to go under but they do generate play after some time – if I was going boutique and wanted something to last it would probably be Pembree etc.

Is the raw finish actually raw alloy or clear cerakote?

If it’s a clear coat it will be interesting to see how they hold up, clears over raw alloy are notoriously bad at holding up to scratches etc, if you break through the coating the aluminium quickly oxides and spreads underneath, maybe cerakote will be more durable but they have started to machine the faces off the pedals for a reason.

They do look nice in clear, but anodise is such a better choice.

That list is 6 months old though – It remains to be seen how much of this debt has been paid and to who, I imagine some suppliers collected stock unpaid too.

I imagine a larger guys giving out credit are insured if they do lose big, maybe not though – I agree that there will be a knock-on effect from this though, especially as I can imagine bike companies aren’t flush for cash right now.

“But I prefer to pay £25 when SS are doing a promo code”

I think that statement might go some way to explain this entire thread and the future viability of Superstar (and any other domestic manufacturer for that matter)

All the UK / European guys list 7075 aluminium, no reason not to trust them, maybe their design was shite and SS are better at dealing with wear.

Was going to say Burgtec – but a quick google shows lots of options – Works Components, Pilo, NSB, Garburak, Alugear,

Maybe the Burgtec wore quicker because of conditions? – All the good ones are made from the same stuff.

A bit OT – but lots of 28T Shimano rings out there, no need to wait years for one, unless you particularly like the SS ones of course (from trying a lot of different rings I feel they are all too similar to care in honesty)

Lots of everything out there right now really, which is obviously one of the issues with the industry and business involved, not sure I would have the motivation to expand a range of products like chainrings right now if I was a on-man shop.

@mrbadger – if its an old type of crank shimano don’t make anymore I imagine sales numbers wont be high enough to bother making a batch, far from making a killing I imagine you would struggle to turn a meaningful profit on them at all.

Direct apologies for over-stepping the mark with my own speculation here & all the best, however things work out.

As I said earlier I think what you have achieved with SS is hugely impressive. Lots of business getting shafted right now it seems and it just goes down the chain, the smaller guys always get hit the hardest.

Maybe put a post up on social media – there’s a Reddit thread with a customer complaining about not receiving an order / no communication and a 2 min post would save a lot of future aggro, but im not suggesting anything you don’t already know.

So hmrc are going to investigate me because I breached the online sale limit and didn’t file a return, or if they do request a return I’ll just make sure no ‘profit’ is shown and you think I’ll ‘need luck’ getting away with that? I’m not an online seller importing from alibaba and need scaring to register into paying tax with a paper trail of stock purchase.

Remember they know only the value of what I have sold, not if there is a ‘profit’

I have self employed friends and know people who own Ltd companies who haven’t had inspections for over a decade and they will investigate me to see if I may or may not have made a profit on some crap on ebay? Laughable.

Dragging this OT anyway.

Ok I have been unfair with my wording there, in no way do I believe SS is upto anything of that nature  at all and as I say above genuinely think what he has achieved is hugely impressive and I hope they continue in business.

Ill keep it buttoned until the facts play out and buy a new chainring if the site comes back up for being a dick.

@finbar – munrobiker in the post above?

I will breach the ebay limit soon, I have absolutely zero plan to file a tax return or think twice about doing so and can almost guarantee the HMRC will not be sending me anything what so ever, I have made a ‘profit’.

If by chance they do, I will fill the return out in such a way that I have absolutely zero liability to pay any tax, even if I do and absolutely nobody will check or care.

This is all about catching people (of which there are many) essentially running full scale re-selling business without paying a penny of tax, as somebody said above, what on earth are they going to do with all the data, its a scare tactic, nothing more.

The reason the thread started is the sites down, someone then found the machine for sale, some people are owed money and nobody has heard from them and no announcement via social media or otherwise which would take a few seconds to remove all speculation.

As I say, Neil saw fit to do the same on the CRC thread did he not?

The whole ‘doing it alone’ thing (which seems impossible and more a marketing statement for the video imo) is recent – companies house show 5 employees at the last filing.

Superstar has a fairly long history, from importing rebranded parts to in house manufacture and more recently the public announcement that bike parts dont pay, which might explain the site being down.

What is true is that he is impressively self funded, and has a lot of bloody expensive machinery, one of which when up for auction  4 days ago, about when the site went offline.

I am certainly not in the SS hater camp, I think what he has done with the company is bloody impressive, none of the other UK lot have managed it.

Imagine how many posts there would be on a forum or how many conversations made if everything was absent of speculation?

I have nothing against Neil or SS but do know a few people who are in the machine-shop world and closely linked so that side is an interest to me.

Neil was also rather happy to speculate on the demise of CRC when facts weren’t available.

@DickBarton

Their website has been down since Friday, no holding page or announcement as to what is happening on social media and a post above shows their recently purchased, rather expensive machine is being auctioned off for sale.

It also looks like they have removed the promotional video from Facebook where the machine is being showed off and the machine has been removed from the http://www.superstarmanufacturing.com

Are they ‘going under’ – unlikely, are they suffering in the same way many business are right now – quite likely.

Lot of speculation which I am also guilty of here, I am sure reality will show up soon, the mutterings about hating superstar are the usual crowd who cant leave things in the past even though they happened over 10 years ago.

My first thoughts were that the website, which was awful had either failed or was being replaced.

Pair that with a 1 year old machine being auctioned (Finance companies / liquidators often use Cotts, not private sellers) and no explanation of the site going down on social media though and it does have a more serious look to it.

As I say, I believe a few of the other UK manufacturing guys are also sweating big time right now, they only do bike parts though.

That’s not a good sign, an almost brand new machine (looks immaculate, barely turned the spindle) and one of the new ones the video above was made to promote them buying being sold off at Cott – I believe they had two of these at the same time, a huge investment for a small company, they must be £500k+ each.

It could be that was a machine on finance and surplus to requirements if things have slowed hence the sale, or maybe more is to come. The loss on this thing will be eye watering.

Certainly doesn’t pair well with the website going down.

Exactly my thoughts – a loudish (standard ‘R8 as per the above example) doesn’t really ruin the peace, it’s another part of the usual drone of cars, the pop fart bang crap though is awful and can go as far as to scare the shit out of people / animals etc and it’s something the owner goes out of their way to create too.

Diane having the whip re-instated is a matter completely separate to how horrendously she has been treated and I don’t believe it should happen.

I really hope the lunatics on the far left of the party don’t make this labours problem, let the tories own this sleaze all the way to the election.

Saying she is an angry woman is as racist as me saying she is a car crash of an MP for the current Labour Party – not in the bloody slightest but she does need support to deal with the actual racism out there.

There’s a thread on a car forum right now where they are moaning about all the ‘bell end’ cyclists…

I don’t mind a noisier then usual car exhaust,  it’s the pop pop bang that pierces the ‘normal’ drone of cars and the horrendous driving that I would rather be without.

I am an unusual car / motorbike loving cyclist though.

@Twonks – the video was released in November but SS moved units and got the Matsuura(s) this time last year.

Unite Components has a few videos up lately from machine suppliers but they had to move back to sharing a unit / reduce staff since – these promo videos aren’t anything more then adverts for the machine suppliers.

A friend who’s quite high up in a shop says they refuse the MTD videos, no real gain for the shop, just a scripted ‘this machine has made my business amazing’ video and a day lost to it.

Overall I agree though – likely the site issue will be resolved or they have had enough of bike tat.

I get the whole ‘he doesn’t give a shit about bike components anymore’ thing but it does seem like an odd position that while he was responding to the CRC thread in this way he was also posting pictures on FB of him making chainrings to sell at almost half the price of the competition / for very little profit.

If you don’t care about bike parts and have so much other more profitable work why make bike parts and sell them at not far off  alibaba prices, especially when you are running the shop solo and time must be rather short.

Interesting that most posting have purchased wheels from them previously too when that side of things was sold off.

From what I read on social media they sold the wheel building business a few years ago and have no intention to continue with brake pads etc concentrating only on in-house products.

They were pushing chainrings out with 30% off for less than £25 for a while, take VAT, transaction fees, postage, material etc off and you can’t have more than £8.00-£10.00 left, got to sell a lot of them for it to be worthwhile, maybe they have decided it isn’t anymore, or needed to get some cash in quick.

How can you tell the machines are spinning constantly? The odd Facebook flex doesn’t really say anything.

He does have some properly serious machinery though so must have / had a lot of work at some point (and probably still has) to justify their purchase.

The economy is in a strange place right now though, not just the bike world, so anything could happen – hopefully not.

Judging from the email about fulfilment centres its likely a new site is being put up – the current (or past) website is utterly horrible and probably didn’t have the functionality to deal with multiple fulfilment centres for order shipping.

Likely see a shopify type website pop up in the next few days, though it is a bit silly not announcing this on facebook / instagram or putting a holding page in place.

Would be a shame if SS did go, though I feel they no longer beat the rest of the market in the way they used to most – price.

Lots more competition now and their stuff does look a little ‘dated’ – pedals have gone up a huge amount in price.

As others say above though, I think Neil has enough to do and the bike biz he continues with is just a sideline now vs the other way around.

Less UK manufacturing is bad – more choice good.

Lets be honest though the current SS website is horrendous, like properly terrible so maybe its being taken down for re-design.

I wouldn’t personally pay one thought to filing a self assessment if I was selling over the threshold unless it was considerably over, like way over – Its £6k isnt it btw?

Nobody is going to visit or ask for accounts and how will anyone at HMRC be able to define profit vs turnover, new vs old goods etc from a snapshot? Only traders shifting a fairly serious amount of money will need to worry, and even then…..

STW really is full of bods, isnt it.

I find it a little odd that people are getting so upset about somebody heavily discounted bike parts from a company under administration and then taking the time to re-sell them on Ebay.

Its not ‘price gauging’ at all – its somebody trying to earn a bit of pocket change and using their own time and money to do so, better than all the cheap stuff sitting in all of the STWers garages gathering dust for the next 5 years, eh?

‘I hope the HMRC gets their cut from Ebay scalpers’.. – Oh do get a grip.

I agree with that – I would have thought that if nobody else took CRC / Wiggle a £10mill investment in a newly branded online store would be a better way to spend money. £10mil buys a lot of google ads / web development / logo designs etc.

It will be interesting to see exactly what happens here with the in-house brands, maybe a calculation has been made that they can re-sell those brands or that much of the value lies here.

“Not really, every internet retailer assumes a rate of return in its business model. Remember working on automation at the Freemans Catalogue shed in Peterboro’ pre-internet days (lols) and they assumed a 20% return rate”

A returned T-shirt or pair of trainers, chainring or a headset etc is a little different to a full bike I feel – I have returned plenty of small items before but wouldn’t order a bike unless I was 100% sure it was being kept / only returned due to damage or warranty.

When a full bike is returned though, surely these are un-opened bike boxes or do people have the gall to unbox a bike, build it, take a look at it and decide its not for them before cobbling it back in the box to be returned?

The amount of people returning bikes / frames because they have changed their mind on here is interesting – I imagine another reason it’s hard for a business like this to turn a profit.

chrismac – I don’t think CRC has been full of surplus stock for years has it?

There were a lot of staff at Wiggle etc – if over 450 have gone apparently, they have likely kept some warehouse / pick & pack staff on to facilitate stock clearance.

I doubt tech support and warranty is going to be very forthcoming from now on put it this way, I would also probably thing twice before parting with a decent amount of money for anything, could all go pop at any moment now.

Brant probably has the sense to stay with clothes and not go anywhere near Ragley