Holy shit.
200 to 250 kms out of his 17 ah battery on a 1000 watt kit. Does that sound credible? I feel like I am close to the limit at 46 kms!
I forgot about the fire. It looks like it drove up the price of lower specced bikes too. Or maybe some other factors are at play there.
Writing on the wall?
Whoever said that they need to pick up and move to a lower cost city was bang-on. In fact, if Riv moved to a city like Chico, they might find some ways to vertically integrate with other sections of the MUSA bike industry niche with whom they professionally have so much overlap.
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But why aren’t people buying ???
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Can also be used to clear negative energy from physical space.
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Riv needs to incorporate crystals into their philosophy. Its basically the one thing missing.
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But for reals Riv needs to move the fuck out of the bay area.
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Somebody tell the Walton brats to buy them and move them to Arkansas.
And get rid of then goddamn toll free number. FFS!
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I was feeling something until he posted those pictures.
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That was hard to read. Rivendell is circling the drain and they don’t know how to stop it
Running a business is hard, but dude, get a grip
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Aside from any home ownership, Riv can be run out of a warehouse anywhere. I’m going to email grant and suggest GTFO the bay area for anywhere cheaper.
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I’ve watched Riv/B’stone for a long time. And I’m always amazed at how many things Grant got right, just 5-10 years too soon. This is long, but I write this as a Rivonomics observer, not a cheerleader. With the exception of a tandem frame, and a couple parts ~20 years ago, I haven’t bought anything from them. I was a Riv member a long time ago but didn’t renew when Grant went through his plaid phase.
I don’t see the situation as that dire. Their sales have been consistently under $3m and they were down about 10% from peak in a year the industry was down 10%. Their net was tiny but they were in the black. The number of shipped boxes was down but we don’t know the value of those boxes, but since the sales weren’t down by the same ratio we can conclude they’re either selling more goods per sale or higher ticket items.
We also don’t know what their assets are. We do know there must be a container or two of complete bikes that weren’t there previously. There’s also some intangible assets like the crank and shifter tooling whose value is debatable.
There’s also the positive news - selling 30 tandems in a week on their third run sounds pretty good. And if their sales are flat that at least indicates that they’re not a Instagram trend that is dying out.
We don’t know what was the source of the big cash crunch other than Grant said he screwed up. It’s been hinted that it had something to do with the complete bikes - he probably thought he had to pay for them before they shipped but it turned out he had to pay the frame factory first before they went to the assembly factory, and if he missed the scheduled window at the assembly factory then the bikes went to the end of the line or something. So that’s not an unexpected expense, it just was the timing of it.
They know they have a real estate problem, which is fixable. I’m going to guess the core Riv people own houses in the Bay and maybe don’t want to move. But were Riv to convert to an employee co-op the younger crew (Will et al.) would be happy to move.
They also have a labor problem, and they know that and have fixed it to some degree by cutting hours and wages. But we also know they’re shipping less packages and assembling less bikes so it doesn’t sound like they’re cutting labor they need to generate money. Having people around to package $8 of twine and beeswax isn’t a money generator.
We also don’t know what sort of debt they have, but it sounds like they have no institutional debt. We know they can acquire substantial negative-interest loans through gift card sales but don’t know how long that’s repeatable. We do know they have rabid fans.
So to me, they seem in an OK position. They’re barely profitable, but have made big capital investments that have hurt their profitability. That investment seems to have decreased their labor needs and increased the average size of a sale, which should point to better profitability in the future.
As bikes become increasing high-tech and expensive and impersonal the Riv philosophy could become even more popular. (Sorry, I can’t upgrade your bike because your shifter firmware is no longer supported). That appeal could also follow a general anti-tech trend as people ditch social media and smart home gadgetry and stuff like that.
The new generation of Riv employees are savvy to the technical trends while keeping the Riv funkiness. Plus we have Poppi on board now too. Were Riv to convert to an employee co-op, move to Reno or Grant’s Pass or something, and keep Grant as a spiritual advisor, I could see them last a long time.
Now, as for the POC thing in the last newsletter, it certainly seems bizarre. And I don’t want to present Grant as an Elon Musk character where every quirk and foible is a sign of genius. But as a company that is very much an outsider to the mainstream bike industry, it could find success in marketing to other outsider groups. That’s not saying his writing was successful marketing, there’s a definite step 2 missing ( Step 1: acknowledge marginalized groups, Step 2: ???, Step 3: Profit from bike sales to said groups ). But as a thought experiment (which may not actually be happening, idk), it’s an interesting way to think about expanding your customer base.
(Sorry Grant if you’re reading this.)
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And that’s a problem; their sale dollars have been flat over a period where inflation, at least according to the BLS, has been about 21% – not making $3.5 million last year is a sign of a slow decline.
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Yeah, that’s not great but not impossible to reverse. If it was -20% YOY that would bad.
I think the fire mostly affected higher end stuff. Currency x rates affect prices all the time too and it’s both yen and twd playing into it.
Shimano has lost a lot of ground in the MTB market by not delivering the higher end stuff on time. As a bike manufacturer you are relying on getting parts on time so you can assemble bikes and hit your launch dates. When shimano keeps letting you down you start looking for other options.
On the road side it’s kinda shitty because your customers don’t really want non-shimano bikes or bikes with substituted components so you’re just forced to accept constantly changing launch dates and pissed off distributors, reps and shops 
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Sram road is fucking bomb.com tho
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