Originally Posted by
ThermionicScott
Color me puzzled as well. So many bicycle booms have busted since that brand went kaput, that there would be absolutely no brand recognition without their other sideline. Sure, they might have been innovative for 1896, but trying to do anything "innovative" with the brand now would mean a complete break with their history. And I'm skeptical of the rebranding exercise doing well. It would be cool if they built lugged, slack-angle, long-chainstay, cruiser-ish frames that could be built up as old-timey track bikes or path racers, but I'm not sure what the market for that would be. They'd be competing with Pashley at that point.
An American Pashley was more or less what I envisioned, with a lineup similar to the Briton, Guv'nor, and Countryman. Heck, the Guv'nor is basically what would happen if you took a period Wright and modernized it.
At least the brand would somewhat match the product with stuff like this. Right now, it has all the warmth and commonality to it's history as a 1960's sitcom revived as a made-for-TV movie in the 1990's.
-Kurt