Fall from grace

[CTK]

I really like the old Barracudas- Love the paint the long top tubes (and thinking about it the fact that the brand was so short lived and had a massive fall from grace...)

Harry Quinn sold his own name to Falcon bicycles and was so Peeved with the crap they turned out bought it back. Wouldn't it be great if WTB bought their brand back?!

 

[brocklanders023]

:shock: Never knew Barracuda did any decent bikes as the only ones I've seen have been the recent woeful lumps of tin. That's one major fall from grace!

 

[mikee]

yup they made some realy nice hardtails (as above)
in the mid 90's ,my lbs sold them for a year or so
i had a barrier reef ,stx equiped one

 

[J i m s t e r]

It's the way ALL manufacturing has gone. The profit margins are too good to ignore, 'spesh for a bloke who started out as a rider/builder and then found he was working 20 hour days and struggling to pay the bills.

I was told recently by the owner of an LBS that 99% of all manufacturers use frames that are made in the same few factories in Taiwan or China. In some cases, the only difference between brands being stickers or components. Saracens/Konas shared some frames IIRC.

It doesn't mean there are no good bikes to be had though. £1000 now gets you something that would have cost £5K back in the early 90s.

But what has saddened me is seeing a brand name sticker on a completely generic product and them wanting 50% more than the non-stickered one. e.g. I also have a few old-skool Kore stems, things of beauty with engraved logos etc. Wow, that engraving must have been expensive, because now they are cheap transfers on the same Kalloy\W.H.Y. stem that's otherwise £3.99 on the bay.

Pace should have kept to the square tubes. Stickers off, who would be able to identify their product now? At least GT have still got the the triple-triangle design.

 

[marin man]

I love that barracuda hard tail :shock: as previous post really If you look at the utter tripe that they turn out now it is shockingly crud :roll:

 

[tintin40]

Most certainly Trimble

 

[rolondo]

Mongoose? Schwinn?

 

[sancho]

*sigh* so many companies from BITD have "fallen from grace" in many ways.... but then I guess that's whats called "progress".

I honestly think we'd struggle to find any.

Only the established company's pre late 80's/early 90's bike boom are unchanged - Royce, Dave Yates, Chas Roberts etc. All companies that benefited from the boom but remained focused on their existing customers.

Although most of this discussion has focused on frame/bike companies, I think it's worth noting that there are a few aftermarket parts companies that are thriving in the current market and have never fallen from grace.
Chris King, Phil Wood, Paul Component Engineering and White Industries are a few that come to mind.

 

[brocklanders023]

Add my local boys Hope to that list.