We don’t make Stanton’s headsets. They asked once and we made a load of samples but they went back to taiwan probably because they were slightly cheaper

The reason headset bearings rust out is they generally have bad sealing. I spent a fortune on several revisions of moulds to get our lip sealing right so we don’t appear to have any issues in the decade of selling them. We also have had bearings instock for the last decade too for quick and cheap refreshment

another issue is trapped water in frames. Once it’s in there it makes your frame a rustfest due to 100% humidity which keeps condensing on the cold steel till it rusts it

stainless bearings are stupid. They are too soft especially with the tiny ones on thin section bike stuff

if you can get the size then it’s almost certainly our type 1/2. Most common size out there.

neil SuperstarComponents

TJ as usual you try and keep your trolling bland enough to have no substance. You literally bring nothing of value to the conversation.

this time you are factually wrong on multiple accounts but I can’t be bothered to correct every bit of misinformation on the internet. people keep making stuff up and reposting it until it becomes your warped troll truth.

for example the court case I apparently “lost”, firstly he sent me literal death threats and the police were involved. He bought a KS seatpost which was rejected for warranty because he had posted photos of him crashing his car rack into something low and bending it. JRA it bent apparently. When he didn’t like the modest quote for a new lower and service he took me to court where he LOST and had to pay compensation of more than the post was new as the judge clearly didn’t like him…

so literally nothing of the post was accurate, much like the guff you keep referring to in your sad little life mission

seriously you need to get a life, the speed you jump on anything I say shows you either spend all day on the internet or you have google notifications stalking me.

remember you got banned and I never have…. That says a lot. Oh and last time you shut up for a while is after I PMed you to say every time your trolling popped up my sales trebled, so thanks for all the income!

anyway I’ve got much more important things to do with my life

Neil SuperstarComponents

Well it’s been interesting watching the comments, life’s been a bit busy lately. Baby 3 came along and life’s got very complicated for many reasons. My priorities are with family.

server died unexpectedly, I thought it was part of the McD etc server implosion but it wasn’t. Was going to fix it but decided it makes more sense to spend the time finalising the new webshop and Fullfillment move which was almost done. Hopefully will sort it soon

ill be honest, I took the weekend off with the fam rather than rushing. I did want to wait and see what people would say. Thankyou to the well wishers and to the usual trolls literally making stuff up go get bent you miserable poisonous **** Xxx

I’m not surprised to see the usual people literally rewriting history completely wrong, several comments above they could be sued for being that legally factually incorrect, but I have better things to do. I don’t mind people discussing and even speculating, but I know who some of the people in the industry who don’t have the guts to tell you who they are publicly while making stuff up. I’ll stand by my personal opinions, but proper lame to have yet an anonymous dig above (as I know well from my youth).

on CRC, I made it clear they were my personal views and predictions of what would happen. Lo and behold I was 99.3% right back at the start…. Can’t beat reality.

life’s got complicated, the world has gone tits up with wars and economic chaos, I’ve been let down and been shafted by too many people lately. I’m rationalising my life and focusing on the things which matter.

Neil SuperstarComponents

Yup 20% more before the crazy discounting, so a lot more

i remember when xtr cranks went from £240 to £470 overnight a decade ago…..

reality hurts

neil SuperstarComponents

I can tell from the comments who does/doesn’t work in the industry….

from other threads where people think it’s just a simplistic case of supply and demand, plus over forecasting. Couldn’t be more wrong.

you can’t physically make things cheaper just because there aren’t customers wanting to buy it. There’s a base cost to manufacturing in volume so if it isn’t profitable it doesn’t get made. Volume manufacturers work on margins in single low percentages. I always used to say OEM prices are 1/6 of retail. I remember a SRAM OEM price list with elixir brakes for $8. Now I challenge you to make all those parts, assemble them and pack them on a pallet for that or even double.

sorry to disappoint but prices are going to go up and choice down. Inflation and other costs are going to make things 15-25% more expensive this year as the lack of competition willing to haemorrhage money disappears finally.

current discounts are survival and warehouse dumping

neil superstar components

So it played out exactly as I predicted in November when it all kicked off. Personally I don’t think anyone was ever interested in buying the business as a going concern as it was a huge money pit losing around £10s of millions a year it seems.

ive been hammered by emails from recruitment companies trying to find work for all the staff laid off

MA is just going to copy paste the evans website, the brand names are just traffic funnels to double his turnover with zero extra cost. I do expect all the brands to be butchered over the next few years

yes I’m sad for staff but they were working for a zombie waiting to die. I’m more upset for all the businesses killed off over the years trying to compete against CRC operating with negative margins paid for by loans they never needed to pay, see the £160 million they were “let off” by the head company.

consumers got their cheap stuff but I can assure you things are going to get a lot more expensive very soon. People were only really fans for the price IMHO. Nobody will fill the loss making void.

theres a lot of collateral damage in the background. I know several taiwan suppliers were bankrupted by it. I’m also suspecting several viable external brands to die in the process as they have sold naff all at a critical point in the year due to the fire sale of a years worth of stock in 8weeks we have just been through. So there’s a lot to digest, it’s not just crc disappearing but a lot lot more at stake.

neil SuperstarComponents

Knock out bearings and replace. 6902 on older ones or 17287 on newer ones where the 15mm endcaps go inside the bearings

nei SuperstarComponents

That’s a road hub not a mtb  completely different thing

its not a conspiracy

hi TJ, I knew you couldn’t resist

neil SuperstarComponents

Rear is switch ultra like it says…

882 hub

never did a lite rear. The front lite had smaller bearings so couldn’t be 20mm and was guess what… lighter!

its not a conspiracy, just read what it says on the thing 🤣

As for what spares, it was unclear when we actually worked with novatec. Now it’s over a decade ago so who knows, sorry

neil SuperstarComponents

Errr it was over a decade ago and we sold a handful of the ultralight ones.

im sure you know literally everything in your whole work career off the cuff perfectly on demand 🙄

neil SuperstarComponents

Switch ultra IS 881 novatec

i can only work with what I’m given…

if what you meant was you have a switch ultralite then it’s a 771 or whatever they are called

now the reason I ditched taiwan hubs and bought all them machines to make my own is the manufacturers all randomly change stuff without agreeing with me so there’s lots of sub variations and no way of knowing what you actually have….. makes customer support impossible so I gave up on working with them

what was even more annoying was all my competitors at the time literally sending their customers to us so we had to deal with all their complaints emails about spares. This then lead to us doubling the price of our spares as we were loosing money on them supporting/subsidising OUR customers before!

Now you can just buy the spares from the manufacturer but unfortunately you have to deal with their chaotic variants

neil SuperstarComponents

Yes.

don’t believe what the trolls make up. I’ve never been banned etc, infact a lot of what they say is literally made up. Clearly got too much time in their hands.

Neil SuperstarComponents

Oooh it appears the mods have retrospectively deleted my comments discussing the issues of bankruptcy, media corruption and IP lies.

all pretty relevant to the conversation….

sorry but you can’t believe anything written on this website now.

Neil SuperstarComponents

[MOD] That you posted AFTER we asked that the thread stay on topic, which is Orange, not Stanton.

Did they just think real world inflation is 12% so if we guess the same numbers of bikes are sold it makes a number. Publish, job done, off home

bosh. Made up statistics much like the U.K. government’s inflation figures….

Neil SuperstarComponents 

6903

And apparently a bankrupt bike frames brands whole stock which he is selling back to them in drops as they can afford it to relaunch like nothing happened. Like the bike industry crack dealer🤣

I didn’t know Brant bought Onza, interesting… 

Neil SuperstarComponents 

Oh it was so obvious. That banana industries shop thing with virtually no details of who they are… I thought it smells very Planet X. I did find the company details and went on companies house and BINGO  I’m straight on the money davie boy

My money is on Dave buying all the stuff CRC failed to pay the factory for as a highly likely guess.

made my day that.

Neil SuperstarComponents

Nothing more disappointing than a s£it floppy workbench.

nothing more expensive than a good one

if you actually are working on it it’s worth buying a really nice workbench like Bott, and using cheap drawers. The cheap drawers are annoying but still functional unlike a wobbly workbench

neil SuperstarComponents

Probably will look like our existing raceface ones in all those sizes but I copy paste a different spline in….

I’ll probably do 26-40 tooth options but 80% will be 32/34. Bigger than 34T is the next size plate up so 30% more material so costs more and takes longer to machine. 

I’ve got to finish moving the warehouse and making some Porsche cup race car gearbox casings before I’ll have time to do them.

working on titanium rings too. I want to make hundreds so there’s a lot of time involved in soaking the process in. If I said sub £200 would that interest people? Billet alone is £40!

neil SuperstarComponents 

Oh and I have bought loads of the cheap rings over the years and other stuff to compare designs and spec. Once I’m done with them I send them to the recycling company and get them to zap them with the niton gun. It’s a X-ray spectrometer which tells you exactly the alloy composition they are made from.

so far not one has been the 7075 they claimed they are made from. All just generic soft 6000 series

so as expected they look like a chainring but aren’t what they claim they are. But that fools enough people and normal punters don’t have access to check what they are getting.

Neil SuperstarComponents

The only way I can do the price is I make lots at once. Years back I was making 3-400 rings a day with one guy on 3 machines. I bought the metal 5000kg at a time direct from the mill. Fast machines and good tooling plus the big machine had a pallet changer so it never stopped for the whole shift. 

right now electric is crippling at nearly ten times what asia pays. Anodising is silly, I’m giving up on small parts when minimum per part went from 10p to 35p. Literally made it pointless to sell chainring bolts overnight even though I’ve got tens of thousands sat machined on the shelf. metal went silly but is getting back to normal. Availability is still rubbish. Rent rates waste etc all massive, packaging is bonkers. I bet people didn’t realise that the wheel boxes we used to use cost £4.50 each when I bought 1000 at a time filling a 7.5 ton lorry. Straight in the bin without a thought probably 

postage has skyrocketed same with everything else, yet my prices haven’t changed much. Couriers I think are going to rocket soon with wages and costs up.

I probably should put my prices up. Realistically once this blip of bankruptcy stock dumping is over I’m certain everyone will go back to 10% discounts max and RRPs will all go up 20-30% to reflect reality. Prepare to pay alot more soon!

neil SuperstarComponents 

Another misconception is lorries of QC rejects. Any Chinese factory is on such a small margin they can’t make any more than a fraction of reject parts. All the cheap junk is made as cheaply as possible specifically, it’s how they have stores full of stock.

why do they do this? One single reason, customers buy it and demand it.

oh and I’m in process of making shimano rings. So hopefully I can sort demand for than in spring.

neil SuperstarComponents

I find what is said above interesting, a lot of the “quality” decisions are made based on perception not reality. The way you change people’s perception is marketing (let’s be realistic pretty much all the bike media’s claims of journalism is in reality paid PR), pretty much all of it is bu£&@hit. Can you believe an article by a company who’s major revenue stream is paid for by said brand they are apparently critiquing?

I’ve made my feelings clear in the past on this. I can’t be bothered bribing companies to promote my stuff any more and stick to word of mouth. Sure I’ll sell less but I’ve got other stuff which I’m interested in. 

as for value proposition sure you can buy a chainring for £7 on AliExpress, good for you. But bear in mind their government subsidises the shipping so they pay less to fly it around the world for less than half what I pay to post it U.K. to U.K. then throw in it’s exporting our cash so no U.K. jobs and no U.K. tax. Electric run on majority coal, dubious worker and environmental protection. Make your choice, but don’t tell me your eco friendly etc

as for if Superstar rings are lower quality than brand xxx. Well you just got suckered in by marketing… but if it makes you happy go for it. I know money is tight so hopefully some people value the parts I make. Hopefully all the corporate destruction machines are getting their comeuppance finally and 2024 will be a good year for the little guys out there for once  

people have commented that I’m sometimes negative about selling bike parts. Well some days I think I should just Jack it in and just go get an easy better paid job at one of the F1 teams who are desperate for machinists. (I make parts for them already…) Then take every evening and weekend and spend it focusing on my family and not people bickering about something they don’t know about on the internet.

either accept there’s a lot more to your purchase than a cheap price or accept that you are choosing to be ignorant. 

Neil SuperstarComponents. 

For those of you saying they weren’t great value compared to the direct selling box shifters…. Yeah that’s the shop margin. If you buy on price like that you have thus killed the bike shops.

For those of you saying it’s three times the price of a company selling bikes at a loss as part of a corporate strategy to kill off everyone else in the industry…. Yeah you’re right there. Shame they went bankrupt after killing most of the industry already.

for those who said brexit was a great idea…. Yeah the reality is it annihilated the export market for most companies based here.

I’ve still got my missile. First bankruptcy company I’ve felt any real sadness for. Is there going to be any U.K. manufacturers left by the end of the year.

neil SuperstarComponents

Just so you know I 100% guarantee a Chinese carbon full sus frame costs less than fabricating an aluminium one in the U.K.

bear in mind I’ve been in several of the big carbon subcontractors in Xiamen China…

oh and moulds don’t cost £75k  nearer £10-15k for a full sus. I got a carbon road frame and fork for $200 which the European brand sells for £2000 retail at the time🤣

Neil Superstar components

I think the wording of the article needs to be careful about interpreting the very careful wording of an administrator. The retention of title questionaire spoken of is how you state what you own, it doesn’t give you it back. Resolved doesn’t mean paid. What it normally means is you agree sort of at gunpoint to getting whatever pence in the pound is left in the ashes rather than nothing. 

An administrator ringfences the stock so for a limited time you can’t get it. Guess what happens next…. They flog it all as fast as possible to pay their bills before you can get a court order to repossess it. Technically you have to sue the customer who bought it to get it back!

my guess how this ends up. It looks like all the stock has been sold now, they are tidying up ready to accept the highest offer for the IP such as brand names. Then the creditors will get 5% of what they are owed after several rounds of the administrator charging £750 per hour to do paperwork have gobbled up most of the money. 

I suspect Halfords or Ashley will buy the shop brands to make a mirror of their current shops. Maybe nukeproof will be bought to peddle some generic stuff for a while before dying a painful death. Neither is worth seven figures so won’t dent the pile of debts which I doubt any have been paid till it’s finally wound up  

if a good offer to buy as a going concern existed a month ago it would have gone ahead. We need to get out of repeating “huge buying power allows massive discounts”, it’s simply not true outside of grey market price shagging. The reality was it was cheap as it was sucking in tens of millions of loans from the parent company they didn’t have to pay back

let’s wait and see

Neil SuperstarComponents

Hello i can see there is a lot of anger up there? To answer the second question i don’t spend all day trawling the internet for random questions posted on 3rd party websites, im only talking on the CRC one as its open on the tab on my phone as im interested in the discussion. i probably look at single track forum front page once a month if you are lucky. I only managed to actually find this as someone tagged me and STW emailed me, otherwise im not quite psychic enough to know.

So you want to ask Superstar a question, i would try Facebook (although the app is chucking an immense amount of junk in the feed so i apologise if its been missed) or more normally for a web business you just email us…

Anyway the answer to your question is the hub has tesla lasered on it, so its a tesla. if you type tesla in the search on the webshop it shows all the tesla spares such as the endcaps. if we dont have the spares for a nearly decade old hub it is made by KT and is sold by loads of people such as nukeproof. I hope that covers it, it seems pretty logical to me.

If you have any other questions please email!

Neil Superstar Components.

If you read their accounts the loans are non-interest non-capital so unlike you or I when you take out a mortgage you have to pay it back every month they don’t . So they can shake the magic money tree as much as they want without any downside. You want to spend millions on advertising your house brand to make it look better than it is? Shake shake shake 

their situation is pairent companies give loans to soak up their profits to avoid paying tax, then when the company makes big profits they can feed it back to the pairent company so they don’t pay tax also. The repayment normally is funnelled through various holding companies and ends up offshore 

obviously I don’t know the details in this case but there’s a reason for the web of companies. 

also signas strategy appears to be get the loss making retail group pay huge rents so you could revalue your buildings to be worth more. Then take out even bigger loans against the uplift in value

neil SuperstarComponents 

What is a brand worth? What someone will pay

as we have seen from the Moore large auction not very much. Onza sold for £4500!

if people only bought brand abcd because it was cheap (below manufacturing and distribution cost) and not because of the brand it is probably worthless. 

as you say anyone can buy anything from the factories who make stuff and very few brands actually “design” stuff. So if it’s not designed the brand design IP is worthless 

Just my opinion but we will see

neil SuperstarComponents

Absolutely not. For the status quo to continue they need to find a buyer who wants to invest tens of millions to then lose tens of millions a year indefinitely. Easy to be the cheapest when you lose money on every sale…

the magic money tree of the Signa Property empire which was funding the massive cash bonfire is gone for good. They look to have racked up losses in the tens of billions of euros from the news in a messy implosion

Neil SuperstarComponents

Interesting to see the administration details being published so we can understand what is happening in the workings rather than relying on press releases. Now bear in mind this is just my opinion from the figures they have published and decades of experience in reading these documents. Note accounts are “a view” of reality and can be tweaked quite a bit, especially stock valuations etc  also there’s a web of holding companies and intercompany loans to complicate things and hide losses and loans

this is just wiggle it seems and hotlines/CRC will report separately. Things it seems to say:

they have spent over £3 million on administrations fees.Averaging £650+ an hour which is punchy…

they owe £26.8 million to suppliers, not as much as I guessed but there’s lots in the hundreds of thousands range which is going to really hurt a lot of suppliers. I doubt many have credit insurance so this is going to kill businesses and jobs. stock on hand of £35 million but estimated to realise £7.5 million. Well that’s the fire sale, hence why things have slowed on discounts as they sell through 

I’m slightly perplexed by their “profitable trading”. Well it’s easy when you don’t have to pay all the people you owe money. So £17 million of sales yet £6 million of stock sold, that doesn’t add up because that’s twice the normal full margin when they were also selling in a fire sale. So in reality that stock value is the realisable value using their multiplier of 4.5x. So they have burned through £27 million cost of stock to generate £17 million in sales, then add on all the wages and other costs like shipping, that’s not good. That means they don’t have much left to sell and there’s going to be very little to pay the suppliers. 

Page 39 has all the loans and stuff. Looks like £142 million black hole in the background. This isn’t surprising as page 12 says they have lost approx £40 million for a couple of years, note they only made that £110 million “profit” as the pairent company “let them off” a £140 million loan. I wish I had that kind of lenders🤣

so what am I guessing will happen next? Personally I think they will aim to complete the brand name and building sales early in the new year and wind it all up. I suspect someone will buy the brand to just make a mirror of their current storefront for minimal money. Then all the silly loss making perma discounts will be gone forever.

im waiting for CRC numbers next. Let’s see what the new year brings but it’s pretty certain it will be a big increase in what you can buy stuff for  

interesting to see nobody in the media industry has reported on this….

Neil SuperstarComponents

I’m starting to think eBay will be flooded with regret purchases next year🤣

I have machined lots of their spare hangers over the years but I’m not getting involved till they are gone  

Neil SuperstarComponents

This looks pretty bad to be honest. the main group higher up is now imploding. Talk of €5 billion plus in debts. https://www.ft.com/content/31884c4d-2da7-4b43-917e-3180e9eafa3d

looks like massive overvaluation to get more loans and investors is coming back to bite them. Even SoftBank and Saudi wealth fund billions appear to have limits to pouring money in a hole. 

about 4 weeks till the CRC administration have to provide their report and we will actually know what is happening.

if there are any buyers I’m suspecting they are all hanging back to see how little they can get away with bidding for the IP and brand names. There’s gonna be no stock value left very soon. 

Neil SuperstarComponents

We are discontinuing our range. There’s a 40% off code on front page while they last. Hope rings also

just never sold in big enough volumes to bother stocking, so once they are gone they are gone. 

neil SuperstarComponents 

They have already said they aren’t accepting any more goods or paying suppliers. The administrator is as expected quite aggressively liquidating the stock for cash to settle up some of the debts. It is no longer a shop but a liquidation  

if the brand is sold it is going to be very different to what it has been. Nobody is going to pay money to lose millions in good times and worse in the market we are in now. It will just be a brand name, I’m just being realistic here. 

looking at the accounts it appears the millions in loans drawn down to keep them solvent over the years are nothing like what mere mortals like us are used to. They have no payments of capital or interest until the parent company decides to call in the loan to reduce profits/tax. So unlike normal business they can just keep spending without any hit to their monthly outgoings. This has all happened because the parent company has decided to stop pouring money in the hole. 

I think it’s going to be a while till the administrator issues their report. Only then will the public see what really is happening. I’ve been told by people all over the world the actual staff in the U.K. had literally no idea what was happening. 

I’ll say again it took me by surprise too. 

neil SuperstarComponents  

A quality Comte and a vacherain mont d’or if we are going further afield. 

im partial to an ancient crottin of Parmesan type hardness which sort of burns when you eat it. Seem to only be available from rolly fag smoking farmers in French markets 

I feel young cheeses get overlooked mainly because shops won’t sell them due to shelf life. Truely special if you can find a good example. Like a young manchego for example. 

let’s not forget jody scheckters superb buffalo mozzarella either. Excellent for something widely available from supermarkets. I could murder a burrata right now

Neil SuperstarComponents 

A great U.K. triplet in my opinion is:

Lincolnshire poacher – better than cheddar, it’s make with continental cultures

Cornish yarg – creamy but tasty

rollright – a U.K. reblochon style. Quite variable but delicious

a nice glass of 2009 Yquem if your feeling flush.

Neil SuperstarComponents

Solarider. That exactly is my point. I hope people listen to you. 

Neil SuperstarComponents 

I’m posting as Neil SuperstarComponents because people trolled me when I posted without saying that over a decade ago. It’s got nothing to do with increasing Superstar sales, like I’ve said the bike industry is so borked I’m mostly doing other stuff. While everyone was riding the Covid boom I was making high end components for Covid testing machines.

there is a huge difference in models. Superstar manufacturing product to sell at a very competitive price is a profitable and viable business. I’ve spent very little time and effort of new products in the last few years while this corporate deathmatch played out.

a corporate buying £100 RRP pedals from Asia for a landed price of £35 and selling them for £35 with free postage isn’t viable. It was just a sign of desperation for cash flow or similar.

the statement of negative 40% margin they made says it all.

Neil SuperstarComponents

Ok so it’s basically price, with a tiny bit of the rest. So if prices go up they won’t get your business.

quite a bit of owner hate going on it seems. Seems a bit ironic that if you don’t know you don’t care?

if all above is true I don’t really see a future for them. Lots of other choices out there. I’ll see what happens, once the administration report comes out we can all see the reality on the inside.

Neil SuperstarComponents