Last whatever it was I lauded Canyon Bicycles GmbH for its ambitious financial goals, and I’m pleased to report they’re getting even closer to attaining them by firing a few hundred people:
They don’t want to do it, but they have no choice:
“Canyon is a close-knit community, united by a passion for cycling. It is therefore particularly painful that we have to part ways with valued colleagues. That makes it all the more important to me to navigate this process as responsibly as possible,” Arnold said.
This statement evokes Homer Simpson eating his beloved pet lobster:
This is unfortunate. But really, what can Canyon do? After all, sales are down 7%. SEVEN PERCENT! And you can’t say it’s because Canyon bikes aren’t awesome, because they are–maybe even the awesomest bikes in all of cycledom!
No, the problem is because of “industry oversupply and discounting:”
The most recent financial statement from Canyon’s ownership group, GBL, said sales were down 7% over the first nine months of the year because of industry oversupply and discounting.
So who is responsible for all this heedless oversupplying and discounting? Certainly not Canyon, whose website features 37 different bikes in the road bike category alone, many of which are being sold at a discount:
Then there are the Grizls.
So many Grizls…
And how can you call yourself a bike company if you don’t offer (12) separate categories of mountain bike?
Lots of people read the news and have heart palpitations over what’s going on with Greenland or whatever. Not me. What causes me to lose sleep is thinking about HOW MANY GODDAMN BIKES THERE ARE in the world, and how we keep on making more and more and more of them. Presumably this is how cat rescue people feel about strays, and why they run around neutering them and shaming people for buying cats from breeders instead of adopting them from shelters. Why pay lots of money for a weird inbred cat with deformed ears when you can get a normal cat that’s about to be euthanized for free?
Similarly, why pay thousands for a new plastic Fred sled with lots of proprietary parts from Canyon when there are bikes like this in need of rescue?
And before you answer, don’t bother, I already know. It’s the same reason why, if you ask me how many bikes I have, I’m unable to answer without counting in my head for several minutes first. As a 21st century American I’m among the most rapacious consumers ever to have walked the earth, and as a cyclist I’m a member of an elite strike force within that group–sort of a SEAL Team Six of acquiring things we don’t need.
So believe me, I get it, and by no means do I think I’m somehow different or special because I have a few vintage bikes among the [intern, go count the bikes] total I store on three separate floors of my New York City apartment building. But I still fret about it. How does any bicycle anywhere have any value at all at this point? You’d think they’d be like the Papiermark during the Weimar Republic.
But I suppose we’ve seen it all before. For example, Cannondale was able to ride the aluminum trend and the mountain bike trend and the road bike trend for several decades:
Those were heady days indeed:
He wore jeans and sweatpants; favored conversations over emails; and opened offices in Europe and Japan but kept his manufacturing base in Bedford, Pa., which he visited twice weekly on flights aboard a corporate jet that he piloted.
Though of course they eventually flew too close to the sun with the whole motorcycle thing, Montgomery moved on to the glamorous world of medical billing, and Cannondale became just another set of decals from Pon Holdings:
The company is now owned by Pon Holdings, a Dutch conglomerate. Mr. Montgomery later founded a software company to handle billing and medical records.
SO MANY BIKES. Cannondale’s website says that the Synapse is the “only mate you need:”
But if so then why are there like 70 different Cannondale road bikes?
And then there’s all the other companies that sell bicycles in all the familiar mainstream shapes (Specialized, Trek, Giant, Bianchi, Pinarello…), plus all those new Chinese brands:
They made the bike industry’s lunch for them, and now they’re eating it:
Many of the Chinese challenger brands started off as contract manufacturers for Western brands, so even if they’re still relatively unknown in the West, they have plenty of experience in the industry. They usually own their factories too, so they are vertically integrated, with their R&D, quality assurance and fabrication carried out in-house.
At this point the only thing all those familiar American and European bike companies have over the Chinese ones is that they’re better at branding stuff for the Western consumer. But in the digital age nothing seems “weird” anymore. Sure, a middle-aged Fred might still pay a premium because he’d rather his bike say “Colnago” on it than “Elves,” but someone who grew up watching TikTok videos from all over the world certainly won’t:
I thought maybe the name “Elves” was one of those weird cross-cultural coincidences, but no, according to a popular search engine’s AI feature the bikes really are named after elves:
The name “Elves” for the Chinese carbon bike company comes from its goal to embody the qualities of elves: light, mysterious, powerful, and beautiful, using high-end carbon fiber. The brand draws inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish language for product names (like Vanyar, meaning fair/light) and aims for lightweight, strong, and aesthetically pleasing bikes, reflecting an ideal blend of nature and technology in their design philosophy.
Ironic that the two most Tolkienesque companies in cycling are Rivendell and Elves.