rebel1916

My wife has one of those steel Schwinn Letours. It is a nice bike at a nice price. I would think those bikes would be right up your alley. Who knows, it might even be a collectible some day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jimi77

Dorel is competing and supplying tons of good products.

LesterOfPuppets

Who knows, could be mostly graphics in no time at all. GT Karakoram still has the triple triangle going on and they've had a hold of the GT name for a while now, so we're still good there.

I couldn't guess the costs to submit a new frame design to Asian frame shops every year. Of course a vast majority of Cannondale frames have been produced over there for years. Same with Schwinn (to an even greater extent), etc.

I'm not sure how separated the design departments of the daughter brands are in the Dorel organization.

LesterOfPuppets

GT's got a sweet steel touring rig:

hybridbkrdr

Yeah, that's a sweet touring bike alright. I don't see the eyelets to put a backrack and there's no chainguard like you have on other touring/trekking bikes.

I just wish I would have done 10 times more research than I did before making a decision to build two touring bikes. I mean two because I kept changing my mind every minute about what I wanted. Now, I have almost enough parts to complete two bicycles. And then I have some extra I can sell on eBay. With all that, I have the impression I might have been satisfied by buying the Diadora Treviso with Alivio rear derailleur and rapidfire shifters for $400 at Sports Experts in Canada. It would probably be on sale by now and it's even available with a 17 inch frame.

LesterOfPuppets

Seems like the fender would be better in the upper holes down by the dropouts then put the rack in the lower set. Dunno how they intend for you to attach the upper rack stays. Seatclamp bolt perhaps? I've done a few bikes that way.

I've only had two tourers and neither had a chainguard.

bradtx

This maybe the reason that Cannondale, whose first bike was a tourer, ceased touring bike production at the end of 2010.

Brad

cyccommute 

You are making too much of what is, and has been, common practice for decades.

Look at innovation first. There's no lack of innovation from companies when it comes to mountain bikes. A very large part of the reason that I've owned 32 bikes over the past 30+ years is due to the innovations that are constantly being made to mountain bikes (18 of the 32). Each mountain bike was radically different from the other mountain bikes. The components are mostly the same but the frames and suspension are vastly different.

The road bikes (11 of the 32) were basically the same bike as the Sears 10 speed I bought in 1973. The innovations made to road bikes are in components rather than in the frame. Even the high end locally produced frame that I own still looks a lot like the Sears and I could probably mount the components on it from the old Sears bike. With the advent of carbon, there's a bit more innovation with road bikes but not like you see with mountain bikes.

And the fact that you can only purchase components from a very few manufacturers (Shimano and Sram) hasn't stopped innovation with regards to parts.

But this is the way in which bicycles have been made since the '70s. Miyata made frames for nearly everyone - Univega, Panasonic, Bridgestone, etc. Then Giant started making frames for everyone under the sun. Even lots of mountain bikes with their radical changes were made by Giant. Probably still are.

The fact that the bikes are made by a few factories in the Far East hasn't stopped innovation and refinement of mountain bikes nor the development of carbon fiber nor the development of improved components.

It's not where the bike is built that drives the innovation but where the bike is designed. That work is still being done by the companies that own the brands. Being a large company hasn't hurt Specialized or Trek (/Fisher/Bontrager/etc.) or Quality Bicycle Products (Surly and Salsa). In the case of QBP, Salsa has actually expanded their production and innovation over the days when they were a small enterprise.

In a word, no.

HokuLoa

First off Slim, I'm sorry for barking at you. It was not my place. I do get really frustrated by clicking into cycling threads only to encounter you trying to yet again push your political economic viewpoint. I don't come to BF to discuss that stuff and you have to me an annoying tendency of trying to support your own contentions about the cycling industry with your own ideological outlook rather than with actual facts. But again, its your decision to post and believe these things and I just need to be more careful to look at who is posting and whether I want to read the thread. That said, I'll respond to your post and wish you the best....

Assumptions but no factual support. Companies gobble up competitors all the time but that does not necessarily mean that they absorb and homogenize. Many continue to operate the separate brands independently and distinctly as they know each has its own valuable niche. You are in theory correct but you are trying WAY too hard to say that theory is an inescapable reality in the industry now and that just isn't so. So yes, competition is a good thing but you are assuming incorrectly that competition ceases to exist when a sole corporation owns several brands. Oh, and BTW this these concepts do not need to be made anymore "lucid" to me. Again your assumptions are off. Part of my educational background is in political economy and I guarantee you that you have little to "educate" me about that I don't already know....

Clearly you think we should all be concerned. You keep flogging that point. My problem is that you say you are discussing cycling but when others call you on the baseless assertions you default to your "industrialist profiteers" point of view. You are clearly more concerned with putting out and warning others of your political economy beliefs than you are about actually discussing cycling reality. So if discussing or enlightening others about your own political economy ideology is your goal don't you think that maybe belongs in the political forum instead??

Again, pure supposition based own your own ideological bias rather than on fact. There are lots of reasons to group brands and to consolidate production. This DOES NOT mean there is a homogeneity of product offerings. Diversity of product can be and often is maintained so for you to claim they are the "exact same" or that the companies are being "disingenuous" is a complete crock of uninformed nonsense. It would be one thing if you were trying to discuss this as a theoretical possibility but you are not. You are trying to push your own political theory as an on the ground fact when it just isn't.


Potentially yes. But just like the aluminum discussion, unless there is factual support to your argument it is just unsubstantiated opinion and not worthy of real concern. There are far better and far more "real" windmills to tilt at Slim. Why spend so much time tilting at imaginary ones??

I don't take offense. It just irritates me that you yammer on about this stuff with your ideologically informed "rationale" and completely ignore the facts and reality. There are LOTS of quality products out there and LOTS of variety. Not to mention LOTS of innovations. Yes, a lot is assembly line product but that is not to say it is of a lesser quality. So yes you are on a quest but what exactly is the "unfair" truth you are trying to pump? Is it that there is a widespread variety of quality cycling products available at a variety of price points to serve the widest variety of end user needs????

Bottom line Slim, the sky isn't falling and your doom-filled opinions are simply not an accurate reflection of what is happening in and to the cycling industry.

LesterOfPuppets

Hmmm, could be. Dorel heads might have had enough of trying to sell aluminum to retrogrouch turistas. They might have looked at LHT and 520 sales figures and did what they thought they had to do.

SlimRider

Alright Cyccommute!

Let's just see if my business insight is any good or not....

Thus far, what I've been stating, are statements that have been derived from past observations and a good sense of human nature.

I'll just agree with you for now.

However, I predict that we will soon be seeing manifestations of my fears realized and maginified to the point that even HokuLoa will be able to see it!

- Slim

LesterOfPuppets

GT and Schwinn have been "associated" since 1998.

SlimRider

Hey there Lester!

This morning I went to the GT website and pulled the contact number for GT. I asked for "customer service". I was told to hold...I held for about 4-5 minutes and finally someone answered, ..."Cannondale!...May I help you?"...

Case closed!

- Slim

LesterOfPuppets

At least you could understand the CSR! I'm not sure how that closes a case or which case it's closing either. I'm not really surprised that low-tier CSRs cover more than one of Dorel's bike brands.

I'm curious to hear about more of the call. What was the nature of it?

SlimRider

Ok Lester,

It's like this..My entire point is that Dorel Industries fully intends to simplify production, in order to cut costs. They also don't intend to have so many designers and engineers for GT, so many for Cannondale, so many for Schwinn, etc..

They know that they can just as well hire a slew of talented designers and engineers, then widdle them down to the exact number that will work in unison designing and engineering all of the bikes.

Nobody is going to be competing inside the Dorel Corporation against one another. It's going to be like.."All for one and one for all".

I think when you call GT and the receptionist answers, "Cannondale...May I help you?"
That pretty much closes the case!

- Slim

PS.

The nature of the call was to ask just what the structure of all those companies were under the Dorel label.

Of course, I got nowhere with that!

LesterOfPuppets

Things are rough all over. Hopefully all those out of work C'dale designers will go entrepreneurial and start building bikes that you'll never buy because of their frame material

I'm not sure why you get so worked up about such matters. You realize there are tons of small bicycle manufacturers still out there, some of which may mature into something akin to Cannondale or perhaps stay a little smaller and not go completely crazy and start dabbling in really kooky concept bicycles and stuff like motorcycles and ATVs.

Not surprising in the least. It would take quite a few forwards from the bike division CSR farm to get that info. Try approaching from the Dorel investor relations angle perhaps. With the proper questions on that end you could quite possibly glean the info that you're after.

It's going to take some careful wording for you not to get dismissed as someone that's wasting their time, but...

https://www.dorel.com/investor_contacts.htm

Mobile 155

To be practical if Schwinn was still under its own name we wouldn't have Waterford or Gunnar. That would be a loss. Varsity and the like were not.

SlimRider

Not too many people remember, but believe it or not, there once was a time when the name SCHWINN in bicycles was synonymous with QUALITY....

- Slim

Mobile 155

Yes, but here you had an independant company that refused to, how did you say it, Innovate? They refused to make lighter bikes and they thought MTBs were a fad. Is it possible Doral can do any worse? What came out of it however is worthwhile and would not have been born of the old Schwinn. I had two, no make that three Schwinns. I don't miss them, how about you?

SlimRider

I remember when people used to bicycle shop by walking into the bike shop (usually the patriarch), look up and down the row of bikes. He would then limit his selection between two or three bikes ( just from visual inspection). The next and final step, would be to pick the bike up!

If the bike felt heavy or "solid" as they used to say, it was a better choice than the lighter (more cheaply made) bicycle. Most people back in the day, considered lighter metals like chromoly as an inferior type of metal. They were a stubborn, ignorant, and suspicious group, highly resistant to change. Schwinn merely mirrored society. That's what caused its demise.

- Slim

bradtx

IMHO this is what killed Cannondale, as it formerly was.

Brad

bradtx

Seems to have worked for Harley Davidson... oh wait, they have a clothing line with motorcycles as accessories.

Brad

cyccommute 

I don't think it's quite that simple with respect to Schwinn. Schwinn did innovate and did embrace mountain bikes. Perhaps they embraced them too late but they did embrace them. The Homegrown series is legendary and those bikes are still highly sought after. The Paramount was even more legendary and is even more highly prized by collectors as is the original Stingray. Even the Schwinn Moab series was a quality mountain bike.

Part of Schwinn's problem...at least for me...was their own success. They made good high quality bikes. Because of the quality, they were expensive. As a kid, my parents would never part with the cash for a Schwinn when they could go down to the Western Auto and buy "exactly the same bike" for a whole lot less. Of course that Western Auto bike is long gone and would be of zero value right now but that's the way most people thought.

That thinking carried over when I started becoming an enthusiast. Oh, I would have loved to own a Schwinn Paramount but that's just too much money. How about a Japanese Miyata instead? Cheaper and just as nice So there are no Schwinns in my bicycle history.

You got it back to front. Lighter bikes have never been cheaper. That's the reason Schwinn had such problems. When you can buy a bike at your local hardware store (eons ago) or big box store next to the toilet paper for only a little more than the pallet of toilet paper costs, people who don't know much about bikes will always purchase the cheaper one. The fact that the 'cheap' bike will likely see only 2 miles of lifetime riding and, thus, cost much more than the quality expensive bike matters little to them. They got it for cheap. That's the important bit.

If you are willing to buy crap (thus the location next to the toilet paper) because you want to save a few pennies, getting a bike that weighs less for more money probably doesn't make much sense to you. Thus the quality bicycle companies suffer.

Going off and trying to make motorcycles doesn't help either.

kingsting

You're spot on here. Cannondale was a company that would release innovative products as early as they could and let the dealers work the bugs out for them later. Unfortunately, in the world of motorcycles and ATV's those dealers would have no part of fixing Cannondale's problems for them.

HokuLoa

Brother, if you spent more time supporting your contentions with fact and less time trying to magnify your own unrealized fears as "truth" then perhaps I'd be right there with you. Your quote speaks volumes about your approach to this and other topics. You take an untenable position (based on its own merits) and vehemently and unwaveringly argue it based on your own ideological bias and fears. MY eyes ARE wide open and I am intellectually flexible enough to new accept new information and change my position in an informed manner. However, I am also a rational observer who doesn't let my fears dictate my perception of reality. I'm not about to characterize the motivations and end results of corporate restructuring in such a dire manner without substantive proof. Fact is, there is ample evidence to the contrary (diversity of offerings, diversity of price points, wide availability) which you seem unwilling to accept or address. I can only assume that you ignore these facts because it doesn't suit your own fearful ideological take on "what could be." You can be as dismissive as you want, but the fact remains that you are arguing a position based on your own fears and not on facts.

All that aside, you are voicing your opinion. So good on you, and don't let me discourage you. Even if I may be a grouchy responder at times I do respect your right to float your fears, opinions and facts even if I in large part disagree. Carry on Don Q' <--- this is me teasing BTW