I never made a poll before.

Here is the corrected poll where you can vote on the future of Burley...

If you think it will happen check it. You can check multiple outcomes.

yer chart don't do good math. 2 out of 5 is 40%, 3 out of 5 is 60%.

Dr ElREy

yer chart don't do good math. 2 out of 5 is 40%, 3 out of 5 is 60%.

Dr ElREy

It's using the number of different respondents as the denominator and 'wholepair' selected two different answers, hence...

- 2 of 4 folks (50%) who took the poll said Burley will move production off-shore
- 3 of 4 folks (75%) who took the pool said current and former Burley employees who had their withheld dividends converted to "stock" will eventually be made whole.

Your poll does not give enough choices.
Our prediction: Burley will not go bankrupt.
Their lower model, the Zydeco, is already made overseas for the past couple years.

So I know that Burley was transitioning form a co-operative to a corporate structure but I don't seem to have the details that most others have. Where can I read those details? is there a link somewhere?

Is Burley in financial trouble? From what I understand, they are overwhelmed with orders on their trailers & trailercycles. Or is that the problem, not getting production out? Is their tandems, recumbent, & road bike production down, affecting their bottom line?

is there a link somewhere?

Not really... and frankly, there's probably a lot more insider information floating around than there should be. However, there's also a lot of public domain information out there too. Everything from their history, to a very candid article that ran in the local Eugene, OR, newspaper -- the Register-Guard -- in April 2005, and of course customer and dealer comments in forums like this that speak to the symptoms of what appears to be a cash-strapped business.

Here is the Burley History off of their own Web site. Interestingly enough, it only covers inception to 1994:
http://www.burley.com/Images/PDF/burley%20history.pdf

World Prout Assembly seems to summarize the 1969-1984 history piece at the above link and adds the following "thin" paragraph that leaps to 2003 in their "case study" (http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/01/worker_cooperat.html):

1983 on, trailer sales increased dramatically. Membership rose from 15 in 1986 to 40 in 1989, at
which point, after much debate, they voted to transfer governance from the full membership to an eight-member board of directors. Meanwhile, they invested in research and development as well as international marketing. By 2003 they had grown to nearly 100 members, with $10 million annual sales. To this day, all member owners receive the same hourly wage.

Here is a link to a forum posting where someone captured the entire text of the aforementioned and very candid April 2005 article in the Register-Guard. Please note that it contains a wealth of information; however, Burley's current leadership may take issue with some of the content, its timeliness, and context so take it for what it's worth; an article in a local Eugene newspaper written about a local business:
http://www.cyclingforums.com/showpost.php?p=1839135&postcount=5

Beyond that, you'll find another thread here in the Tandem forums that includes several posts from folks who identify themselves as former coop members. As former coop members they would be expected to have have first hand knowledge of the more recent history and management actions and would have also received sensitive communiations from the company pertaining to the conversion of their withheld dividends to stock, clearly a source of some anxiety and angst for many members.

Beyond that, you'll find another thread here in the Tandem forums that includes several posts from folks who identify themselves as former coop members who obviously have first hand knowledge of the more recent history and management actions and who have received confidential communiations from the company pertaining to the conversion of their withheld dividends to stock, clearly a source of some anxiety for many members.

What makes you think the communications were meant to be confidential? Im sure most people would think the same, but usualy letters of that sort have a big stamp on them that says if they are. Your probably right, Im kinda dense when it comes to these sorts of things. If I had seen such a stamp I wouldn't have uploaded images to my Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreygarman/sets/72157594205865086/)and left them public.

What makes you think the communications were meant to be confidential?

Between the time you quoted my text and posted this note I had changed the word "confidential" to "sensitive" in my comments because, on reflection, I wasn't sure what Burley's by-laws and membership agreements state with regard to disclosure of internal correspondence.

Between the time you quoted my text and posted this note I had changed the word "confidential" to "sensitive" in my comments because, on reflection, I wasn't sure what Burley's by-laws and membership agreements state with regard to disclosure of internal correspondence.


Technically I'm no longer a member. I've been gone for about two years. I think I'm considered a shareholder. Im not sure either what the by-laws and the membership agreements state about these things nowadays. "Sensitive" is better.

I personally have no skin in the game with Burley and my sole interest in their health is tied to potential impacts on consumers who ask for advice on tandem or trailer purchases and for whom Burley is the logical choice. I can't exactly recall how many times I've either recommended, endorsed, or referred tandem and trailer buyers to Burley over the years, but it's a substantial number. The continued ability to do so with "eyes wide open" remains my motivation for pursuing facts surrounding what has now been a very long and apparently angst-filled transition from operating as a small cooperative to a conventional corporation as well as the financial health of their balance sheet.

As we saw in years past with Co-Motion and the bottle neck at their paint booth (which has since been resolved with the additional of a second paint booth), it helps ease the anxiety when you understand why products are delayed beyond promised delivery dates or normal lead-time spans.

It's also sometimes important to understand the basis of "rumors" regarding the health and long-term viability of a company when considering a relatively expensive puchase from that company under the pretense that current quality and service will be consistent with historical performance and, moreover, that they will always be there to resolve any future issues.

At the end of the day my ideal scenario for Burley would be that:
1. They remain a viable, stand alone corporation based in Eugene
2. They regain their status as an "employer of choice" in the Eugene Community
3. They continue to produce the vast majority of their tandems and trailers in the US
4. All former coop members who are now shareholders receive full value of their withheld dividend and any withheld interest payments related thereto
5. All shareholders who remain vested in Burley continue to see their share value increase as they burn-off the debt that was ostensibly taken on to support the development of their product lines.

Note: This is cross-posted to the "other" Burley thread in the Tandem forums.