miked528

I know this is kind of old news, but can someone give me more details about this transaction. This sucks!! GT was a reputable bike and now is downgraded to junk. I hope Fuji doesn't suffer the same fate. I'm about to drop a nice dime on a Newest either 1.0 or 2.0. I'd hate to have my bike be subjected to Walmart.

nelson249

On the plus side your decent bike suddenly becomes 'junk' and no one wants to steal it any more.

shakeNbake

?

rodfrank

Huh**********?? According to whom?

Waldo

1. Search is your friend. There you will find accurate information. This has been discussed many times in the 5 years since Pacific bought Schwinn/GT.
2. Once you buy your bike, there's not much Wal-Mart can to do it...

Banzai

Whaaaaaaaaa?

Since when is Wal-Mart going to buy Fuji?

Sources?

This is quite upsetting to me, if true, since I happen to be rather fond of Fuji.

Siu Blue Wind

no no no no no no no.................

B.S.

I remember the same talk with mongoose or diamond back or even gary fisher..... people that know the value of your bike will know it, you can't really hide quality. Then again, you could always couch it like this... "this is a pre-satan GT..." ...

cs1

Pacific bought the above mentioned brand names. They sell throught mass marketers like Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart doesn't actually own GT. They just are it's biggest customer. Hope this helps.
Tim

miked528

Thanks, your the only one who really understood my question.

miked528

I never said Walmart was going to buy Fuji, I just meant I hope Fuji doesn't suffer the same fate of being sold at Walmart.

Waldo

To clarify, GT has never been sold in Wally World. They were dealing with big box sporting goods stores but just stopped that practice and returned to IBD distribution.
If memory serves, Fuji is partially owned by Ideal, which makes bikes for Trek, Schwinn, and many others. Therefore, they are in pretty good shape...

catatonic

OK, It's like Schwinn.

Wally-world sells cheap bikes using the name.

Shops sell higher end, nice bikes with the name.

All they are doing is market saturation using a well-known name.

Once again, LBS will stock the good stuff when a name shows up in both places.

larue

wait a minute, why is gary fisher being associated with mongoose and diamondback? gary fisher is owned by trek and still makes reputable and quality bikes.
take it back!

Siu Blue Wind

Yah, for real!! Dont' even put GF in the same sentence...........

Miked528, it sounded like you were telling us Walmart ALREADY DID buy GT. You had my heart going for a minute!

Banzai

I think for a while in the 80's Fuji had an unfortunate period of being carried in big box stores. They were the last of the Japanese makers to start outsourcing frames to Taiwan (or Formosa) and got off to a rocky start with their new manufacturer. Thus, the quality suffered, and they started selling at other than LBS's. After a few years they managed to right the ship on production, and resolve to go back to a "bike shop only" type sales model. However, some of the damage to their reputation had been done...which is why it is often possible to get a Fuji spec'd the same as an equivalent Trek or Specialized, but for up to 25% less.

B.S.

sorry for the correlation...

Trek does make quality bikes... I guess I was just brainwashed by my LBS... at the time of purchase, and to this day, the owner of my LBS had serious issues with Trek. She felt the purchase of GF by Trek would de-value the GF line which she did carry. Eventually she stopped carrying GF and went for less popular boutique bikes...

I've got a pre-pacific GT....and i'm holding on to it as long as i can.

Ask me to buy a Post-Ford Volvo, or Jaguar, and for equal money...I'd probably find something else. I'm sure quality hasn't gone downhill since the purchase. I'm just morally opposed to big corporations....

You see the same type of talk on Knife forums about Walmart's sale of Spyderco knives... As it turns out... many people are happy to buy these knives offered by walmart... they're higher quality steel at a lower cost because walmart buys in such bulk... I say, let walmart buy all the GT's they want... Heck... let them buy all the treks and and specialized bikes they want too... The more people out there on the road, the better... if walmart customers rode walmart bikes TO walmart, there'd be bike lanes everywhere!

Falkon 

Pacific would be hard pressed to buy Fuji. Fuji is the second largest company under the Ideal name with Giant being the largest.

BTW Pacific makes Litespeed.

Waxbytes

It needs to be remembered that Pacific bought Schwinn and GT in a bankruptcy sale. The 'old' companies were already under and gone when Pacific aquired the brand names. It's not like Schwinn and GT were thriving companes eaten up and destroyed in a corporate takeover.

well biked

The problem with that thinking is that the Gary Fisher brand had already been bought out before Trek bought it (Fisher was either bankrupt or close to it before the initial buyout). There was a year or two in the early nineties that the quality of Fisher's went way down as a result of this initial buyout. I don't remember who it was that bought Fisher originally, but they made the bikes overseas and they were Fishers only in name. It was when Trek bought the brand that new hope for quality Fishers returned, in my opinion. Trek not only bought the brand, but they hired Gary Fisher as well. I've always thought it was a good match, as Gary Fisher has always been an innovator and a very good "idea man," he just sometimes had problems producing the actual bikes. With Trek's production capability, along with the huge growth in mountain biking through the '90's, it's worked out pretty well-

B.S.

Thanks for the correction... I remember quality of the GF bikes going down... just always seemed to attribute it to Trek. That in and of itself was the reason I had issues with TREK. It seems my suspicions were unfounded.

Anywho, to the OP... the Fuji Newest Rox. The '07 is very nice with its silver and white paint, If fuji spec'd it with the new Tiagra Crank and Shifters it's would be a beauty... good luck with your purchase either way. I'll post pics of mine (w/ new wheels) as soon as I can find a camera... hope you do the same.

larue

Ummm, no they don't. Pacific owns Schwinn, GT and Mongoose as well as DYNO, Murray, Roadmaster, Powerlite and Eddie Bauer bikes.
Litespeed, along with Merlin and Quintana Roo, on the other hand are owned by American Bicycle Group who only produces top notch high end bikes. American also owns Real Design.
Don't ever taint the Litespeed name by associating it with Pacific again.

well biked

[QUOTE=B.S.]Thanks for the correction... I remember quality of the GF bikes going down... just always seemed to attribute it to Trek. That in and of itself was the reason I had issues with TREK. It seems my suspicions were unfounded.

QUOTE]

No problem. And it was a long time ago that all of that happened, easy to get things turned around. The only reason I responded was that although I've been sickened somewhat by certain buyouts in the bicycle industry over the years, one that I think has turned out pretty well is the Trek buyout of the Fisher brand. They've made some darned nice bikes with this arrangement, and I think a key is that Gary Fisher himself is involved with the brand and continues to innovate and be an influence-

Siu Blue Wind

Is Litespeed related to Trekisher somehow?

larue

Not in any way. Why do you ask?