Hi, first post here. Usually riding not posting but gotta call bull when I see a good company and friend being dragged through the dirt.

I rode for Leader for years and I know a lot more than most of what went down and how people behaved. Sal is the owner of Leader and he did so much good work for all his team riders, and tried to help any rider who approached him for that matter. To hear otherwise made me laugh and then pissed me off. He gave everyone on the team every opportunity he could afford, and then more. He's one of the most generous guys I know, and if you know the bike industry you'll know there are a lot of stingy guys at the top of companies.

Yes Leader is gone bust. I'll tell you why. Heavy Pedal. Like many cheap/lazy bike companies they never designed their own frames, they just picked a mold off the wall in a Chinese factory. Sal has been designing Leader frames from day one and never went that route. The guys at Heavy Pedal decided to knowingly rip off the Renovatio mold from the factory (who is also partly to blame for letting it happen). Leader had to go to court to get Heavy Pedal to stop selling their Axiom frames (Which are Renovatios originally designed by Patrick Thames and Sal which HP threw a new paint job on). Turns out HP have some friends with extremely deep pockets and drawing out a legal battle just to be dirtbags is what they did. So that is the main reason Leader is bust, won the battle but lost the war. Now you have one less company designing original frames and one more company still stealing people's work and contributing nothing of value to our world.

To say throw ur Leader frame in the trash is stupid and sad. Obviously Dave Scrod and Sal are not friends and have some personal **** going on and I don't wanna get involved beyond saying that there is a lot of lies flying around. It's silly to sell HP stuff on ur store but say you should throw a Leader frame away when they're so nice HP had to steal the frames, repaint and sell them.

I've been to Sal's house, been to his work, met his family, seen his frames as sketched designs first hand, ridden his bikes, won tons of races on them. I know him a lot better than anyone posting one here. He's an extremely kind and generous guy. I've watched him suffer through cancer and beat it, still always be generous and caring about everyone around him, seen how people turned their backs on him as soon as the money dried up (eg. the now Endo Concept guys who are only in it to look cool, always take and never give back).
Instead of listening to one guy who has some personal beef he can't let go, go and ask a current team rider about the bikes they ride or the guy who made and supplied them. I'm talking about guys that train and race at a high level, not just people who talk more than they ride.

It takes a lot more work and costs a lot more money to design your own stuff, then still sell it a price point that is equal to others who do none of that hard work. We need more people in the bike world doing that so we don't end up with only generic, uninspired, crappy geo bikes. Sal has been doing that since 1999, and it pisses me off that a bunch of no ones are trying to talk dirt on him. What have they designed? What have they created? How many riders have they supported and given amazing opportunities to?
They're the ones screwing someone over, not the other way around.

Go ride ur bikes!