I’d be surprised if Grant reads tarck. Also, sorry man.
As someone whose business failed out from under them, it can feel intensely personal and like it’s all your fault. But sometimes it’s just market forces. And your continued death grip on staying open is what success looks like. Closing Riv, selling it, or moving it to Asheville NC is not a mode of failure, it’s being a smart business owner.
My undestanding is that the bike industry is shrinking in terms of units sold and ibds currently operating, but that the overall revenues are roughly keeping up. This comes from my skimming BraIN articles when I should be working.
It’s possible that Rivendell is not keeping pace with that very big, very amorphous trend. They certainly aren’t getting the cheapest products to sell, and they aren’t really, for all the cornball branding, selling anything that wildly expensive. They maybe need to introduce a few $10k bikes that the Robb Report or whatever douchebag consumer magazine is currently publsihing will cover.
I’m with you on that. My Red 22 mechanical groups will be pried from my cold dead hands. But SRAM oe spec road bikes don’t really sell 
Grant needs to [have someone good at it] start making videos. Rivbike youtube has always been criminally underutilized and if he wants to bring in under-represented groups as well as increase the company’s reach that’s the way to go.
People want the content and pivoting it to a sales channel is obvious.
Less twine and embracing dick breaks on one or two frames and he’s squarely in the basket bike nerd-aventure market. Velo-Orange must take a good bite of Riv’s market, selling mostly the same style stuff and being more practical. Folks want options.
People now go through their ‘Riv-phase’ with other companies and at least have a bridge to other types and styles of riding.
Less units sold.
E-bikes driving the average ticket prices up.
Double whammy for Riv.
Clem with a Bosch would likely slay.
Coffee grinder with a grintech
Somebody better start making tarck videos first.
I agree with everything here. I’ve never exactly heaped praise on VO, but it’s clear that, along with some other big boutique makers like Compass, were hugely influenced by what Riv did, but didn’t need all of the preciousness (or bring their own preciousness) and MUSA cargo cult mentality.
And it doesn’t help that Grant’s primary revelation in the past 15 or so years is that old steel mountain bikes, the kind which sold by the hundreds of thousands two decades ago and then sat totally unused, made some of the most practical bikes. Selling the functional equivalent of a Trek 950 for $1200 is hard to justify when you can buy a complete one on Craigslist for $120.
I will say that I understand he has moved on to the same bike with 420” long chainstays or whatever.
Oh and the other major thing from the past 15 years was flat pedals. He was 100% about that and honestly it had definitely shaken up the industry in a positive way, but then he just told everyone to buy someone else’s pedal which you could buy from other dealers.
Thank goodness Grant realizes it’s enough of a problem to start sending out feelers to his customer base instead of increasingly frequent calls for interest free bailout loans while pretending that everything is okay.
Sorry Grant, but buying a Clem was what got me motivated to find a 26" deadender. The Clem was a fine bike, but it turns out an old mtn bike is much shorter and way easier to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Guess which one I still have.
Glad I didn’t wait on buying a Sam. The 58cm sizeway appears to be a thing of the past. Not sure what the reasoning is behind that, the 62cm frames/bikes always seem to be the last to go.
huh?
The “we’re not in trouble, but if you buy futures we can get over this temporary cash flow problem” solicitations a bunch of people here have been dragging Riv for.
idk man, but to me begging for money is the definition you know you’re in financial trouble
Yes, it is. And most people can see that, but almost always the person in trouble isn’t one of them.
Such a good balance sheet can’t even get a loan at a decent rate.
So what is he missing then? He says his sales are flat, his business expenses are too high, and he’s ruminating on exit strategies.
Tarck can buy riv. We have like $400.
Now he’s saying that, which is a good thing. That’s not what he was doing as recently as the solstice holidays.