I believe Ball purchased Orange because it was an opportunity for him to take control of his biggest customer and therefore secure business for Bairstows.

Isn’t it more like Bairstows was a Wade family business, Ash is in some way part of that family (son in-law or something?), and he ended up with Bairstows at some point and then Orange too?

Either way, really easy to blame one guy for it all going wrong if you ignore all of the other variables.

I thought this was going to happen, then that thing about seeking to sell the business came out from the administrators and it seemed like it wasn’t the case,.. but actually it is. Oh the drama. Publishing that the business is seeking a buyer is part of this sort of scheme?

I guess they actually wanted to keep this under wraps until it was done but forbes went and published the article and now you have multiple articles on pinkbike with the same highly original comments as usual.

I hope that the debtors list is mostly the big distributors so the effect on smaller suppliers is less but I have a feeling a bunch of people won’t be too chuffed with this. But I guess they probably weren’t going to get paid either way but it’s still got to sting and there will be bad blood.

I’ve always been a bit puzzled about that, as the trademark seems to be owned by the phone company.

Orange bikes would have a trademark for the word orange with their colour, style etc within the business of
selling bikes and Orange phones would have their own trademark but for the business of selling phones.

I don’t think anyone would buy the Orange brand and suddenly use it to market a phone company.. but you never know.

Does seem like they aren’t going to just sell off some stuff and get back on top of it.
Unless there is an employee buyout or something similar my guess is this is going to be dumping all of the existing stock to companies that specialise in liquidations to pay debts then selling the Orange name to the highest bidder.

I think there will be an “Orange” in the future but it won’t be anything related to the current Orange.

Really selfish but I sort of hope the remaining frame stock turns up for good prices on ebay or something so that owners (myself included) can pick up spares as the 5 year warranty isn’t good for much anymore.

There does seem to actually be much stock at start fitness. Add a bike to your cart and then try to add more, it’ll tell you that you have all 1 or 2 of them already.

Sunset cycles say questions should be answered this time next week and have some insane paint job Patriot posted on their facebook: https://fb.watch/px9d7MaDd4/.

Administration to clear up the debts and selling to a pre-arranged buyer?

They did at the end of April 2022, but they also had net current assets, had made more revenue than the year before, and had made a decent profit. Could have all gone tits up since then but they looked in pretty robust health at the time of their last accounts.

It doesn’t take much for the liquidity to suddenly go to shit and you have no cash to pay your bills or pay for supplies to make your stock into final product. The market for 50 quid dropper post levers and 4000 quid handbuilt frames probably has a lot of crossover..

Why are they going under then?

If they’re all this, all that, singing, dancing etc. but still they’re calling in the administrator

That’s a complex question that none of us can answer because we don’t have access to their accountant etc.

Nah, it’s because their bikes have that old fashion two wheels tech (I know right! TWO WHEELS! GET OUTTA HERE!) and not the latest and greatest child labour built whiz bang thing you read on pinkbike that makes the ride feel “stuck to the ground” and “plush” that’ll make your gopro videos of you riding around in the Tesco car park super epic innit.

then using a ‘local’ site for free is a bit rich. Support your local journo, eh?

But even “free” users are not using this site “for free”. I see the ads and reviews on the pages. I presume those are generating revenue or why the hell are they there? Are you saying that the singletrack site actually has that weird roadie fetish of wearing faceless corporate logos for free?

All the comments saying support Orange they’re a British brand, look after our home industry, forefront of the sport etc but cba’ed to stump up for a subscription here – hypocritical much?

Ah, so it’s all or nothing? You either buy something from every single company in the UK or you aren’t supporting the home crowd. It’s not like supporting a few companies in the UK market that pay for ads, provide review items etc to the press in the country might be a good thing even if you don’t directly pay into said press.

(If you’re having trouble working this out: If the local industry disappears the local press for that industry will also disappear. Pinkbike, some random American on youtube can review the latest SRAM or Shimano components just a well as anyone in the UK could).

The problem is, these ‘jokes’ are from customers who buy bikes

But are they? Are we sure that the people that spend time reading sites like this even ride bikes? 🙂
Do they even have time to do that between complaining about conflicting non-issues of plushness on kit that they’ll never own?

Look at companies like Hope, they get to charge ‘more’ because of customer service and looks…

I think there is some crossover between the people that buy Hope and Orange. Pretty sure there is a video of Hope staff bikes with a lot of Oranges. There are lots of people that would also say that Hope’s stuff is *ugly* too. I personally like the chunky/bling colours look of their stuff. Others might say the Hope colours look cheap to the unwashed masses and like the Chinese stuff “low income people” get off Amazon to bling out their tatty GT avalanche. Each to their own.

Anyhow Hope has ~5M quid in debt too: https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/02658410-hope-technology-ipco-limited

I bought a new MTB recently and “I should support 2 UK family businesses because they mean well” was not a factor in my decision making.

And that is up to you. No one should be morality policed into buying things they don’t want. But at the same time there is no reason to be a ghoulish asshole about it either. I’ve bought two bikes from Orange explicitly because I have enough cash and I’d prefer to buy from UK businesses and when it’s between my legs covered in mud I could give zero shits about it’s not looking like some carbon fiber thing made at the Gaint factory with some other brands sticker on it.

Here and other places people are suggesting this is due to Orange’s bikes not being the latest thing that looks like a bits of squeezed out toothpaste blown up 100x size, made into carbon fiber and wheels strapped on.

I don’t think this is the case. I think they probably got screwed over by not being able to get finishing kit for their frames at the same prices Canyon etc does and having way too much stock of that expensive stuff when the market has slowed right now and all of the new versions of said stuff is coming out. I suspect they have tons and tons of stock for their hardtails because they had to order a lot to get any over covid and now no one can shift it.

It’s also worth noting that the fabricators for their UK made frames (owned by the same guy, who is family of one of the founders of Orange, who himself was family of the founder of the fabricators) has filed intention to appoint an administrator too.  (https://caseboard.io/cases/d3500fc8-df37-4989-b1c7-405c29ab78d0)  I guess both businesses have struggled. The fabricators probably aren’t making much money on anything they are building including Orange’s frames due to the cost increase in materials etc, then hurting because Orange aren’t selling enough to keep their machines busy and then Orange itself is sitting on stock it can’t get rid of because the market has slowed down so much.

I see so many jokes about how the bikes are ugly and that’s why they are struggling etc etc but man. This is two UK family owned businesses that have supported this hobby for 30+ years and that have employees that have to feed their kids that could potentially not survive. I own two Orange’s so maybe I’m a bit bias but I think I’d rather have an *ugly* bike then have an ugly personality that revels in this like this is some faceless multinational going bust and a bunch of highly salaried millennials and gen-z’ers getting laid off.