Gangrel

I saw a cadillac branded bike today.. that was kinda shocking

(it was incredibly ugly)

HaagenDas

I'd be wondering how much money can be made in the industry when Daimler-Benz cracks the luxury bike market.... bugger orf Tweek

Tweek

UmneyDurak

You read my mind. Actually what will be better is seeing some one pushing that thing up a hill, because some fancy toy broke, or someone brining it to a crit.

khuon

Car companies have been branding bikes for a while now. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Porsche, Jeep, Hummer, ... all market bikes under their brand. Some companies such as Ferrari actually put some input into the design and construction and others just slap their moniker onto an OEM frame but in general, most will agree that they are fairly overpriced for what you get. What's more important to me is that some car companies sponser cycling teams and/or races/events.

khuon

M-B used to rebadge bikes from AMP Research. They retailed for around $3500 I believe.

iamlucky13

More likely they're pimping out their name to one of the motocycle companies. I've got a gut feeling that's the case with the JD mowers at Home Depot, as well, but I haven't found any confirmation.

BTW, everyone take notice in the Mercedes article that NO ONE is actually riding their bike. They're all just posing with them. I would argue that says quite a bit about their target customer.

bandaidman

but the cost of bringing it in to the bike shop for a tune up will be at least $500 ...

HaagenDas

I wonder if the Aussie bikes made by car manufacturers will come stock standard with cracks

Raiyn

Here I thought people buying Cannondales were paying for a name. This takes the cake

mekki

I just stumbled onto https://www.smover.com/ , Shimano's "Bike of the Future" site; looks like Mercedes (wonder who actually makes the bikes?) is Smoving.

I still have one of these Mercedes (produced by Sachs) Electric bikes in the box:

2manybikes

The electronic transmission is by Shimano, I don't think it was sold in the USA. It's not new. The electronic control fork is not new either. It's just a dampening control. I can't remember the name of it.
Raiyn, you know the name of that one(s) ?
I can't imagine any part of that bike is made by Mercedes. But the ad copy is pretty convincing for Mercedes owners and buyers.

I'm surprised it doesn't have three spoke wheels to match the three point hood ornament on the cars.

Who knows, maybe they will sell one some day?

Schumius

good point, mercedes guys surely give us a hint as to who would buy their bike and for what.

khuon

I'm wondering if the fork is a revitalised K2 SmartFork. They first came out in 1998. I have K2 SmartShocks on my MTB fork. the difference between the SmartFork and the SmartShocks was mainly in the construction. The electronics and logics were the same. The SmartForks were telescopic forks with the electronic damper located on the left side. The SmartShocks were shocks and when paired with the CrossLink parallelogram forks served as the suspension unit for that fork. My bike has two SmartShocks. One governs the front and the other governs the rear. The SmartShock technology was originally developed to handle damping of landing gear struts on carrier-borne fighter planes and uses shaft speed and position sensors to electronically control a set of piezoelectric valves in the shock chamber. the general feeling amongst the K2 riders is that the SmartShock equipped CrossLink forks performed wonderfully even if they did have limited travel (not much more than 3"). They tracked very well... almost too well... leading to a sometimes twitchy feel and the SmartShock performed pretty much as advertised. The opinion on the SmartForks were not so favourable as the quality of the telescoping design were never really up to par with other telescopic forks and the damper didn't work so well being only on one side. the seals on the SmartForks were also not very good and because of the packaging of the electronics, often led to them shorting out when things got wet.

K2 SmartShocks



Scan of K2 SmartFork from the 1999 K2 Bike Catalogue

BlazingPedals

What??? There's a shock in those pics? All I can see is the carbon! I know, it's a trick picture, like the ones where you're supposed to see a car next to the bikini models, right?

wannaride

Let's give some credit to a cage manufacturer who at least has the guts to try something different. If the bike gets one SUV driver out of his monstrosity and onto two wheels then MB had done something very right.

james Haury

I have actually seen a vintage Kia Musclebike ( while riding the chicago lakefront path last summer) but no Hyundai's, No Hyundai's.

james Haury

I believe that during the 20's there was actually a cadillac bike ( I saw it on a bike shop site on a vintage poster . I alerted the forums to this site .In 1900 pierce arrow made bicycles ,some with shaft drive and full suspension. . Pierce arrow later made luxury cars . Harley davidson also made Bicycles in the 20's and Schwinn manufactured motorcycles at one time as well as bicycles.Henry ford started out working with bicycles.And lest we forget Orville and Wilbur Wright made bicycles in Dayton Ohio ( Thier Highest priced model was the Van Cleve)before they accomplished what they are most famous for. Please do not ask what that is. There is nothing new under the sun.

DieselDan

Kia started as a bicycle manufactuer that later went into building trucks and buses, then cars. Oddly enough, Hyundai started as a shipbuilder.

Al1943

Just when you thought this thread had died, the Porshe bicycle:

https://www.kinisibikes.com/porsche/porsche2004.htm

khuon

Nothing new. This kind of marketting has been going on since the mid-90s and there were probably older instances of it in history. Porsche branded bikes have been around since 1997. I even remember seeing a Popular Science article on them once. BMW branded bikes have been around since 1996. Montague, makers of folding bikes who also produces the bikes that were designed in conjunction with the DoD for the US Marines has partnered up with several auto manufacturers both currently and in the past. They produced bikes for BMW (sold through BMW dealerships), Mitsubishi (back in 2001, you got a Montague folding MTB with the purchase of a Montero Sport) and Hummer. The BMW-specific bikes were actually interesting in that some of the full-suspension designs utilised BMW's own leading-link technology much like that found on the Whyte MTBs. As mentioned before, AMP Research produced bikes for Mercedes-Benz. I seem to recall Volkswagon packaging Trek bikes and a bike rack with their special edition Jetta. Lots of companies OEM bikes through the automakers.