Not going to stick it to them by going modern and Volagi?

Modern yes, but I don't see a 29er Volagi frame, at least not on my Initial search? For the record not looking to stick it to them, I just have no interest in S anymore.,,,,BD

Whoops, didn't occur to me you wanted a mtb. My bad.

I purchased a Specialized Crosstrail from Two Wheel a couple months ago, and have been very pleased with it and the service I received. Most people I know of around these parts absolutely love Two Wheel Tango, and many are quite bitter to see what happened. If they open again, then I will look at purchasing a new road bike. But at this point, I'm not real sure if I want to buy another Specialized branded product. I have never seen a distributor do what Specialized did to this business. At this point, even a vintage Allez is out of the question, because I can't see myself supporting the company's business practices. Two Wheel sold a lot of bikes over the last few months, and I'm left with the impression that Specialized has been unfair to them.

I am constantly amazed at the comments made by people that do not work in the industry that think distributors/suppliers/brands have this heavy handed control over how they handle their business. It's all make believe without knowing the facts, doesn't stop folks from giving their uneducated opinions though. Specialized is not a charity by the way.

Does anyone actually know what's gone on, or is it all just conjecture? Did lines of credit get cut off for no reason? Fees get raised? Someone just didn't sell enough to cover fees/meet expectations?

There's a reason that there is a "boycott specialized" thread and not any other similar threads... repetition breeds skepticism. No, we don't really know the details of half of the crap Specialized has pulled in the last decade... but the sheer number of cases that we don't have all the details about is in of itself, telling.

I generally like to buy lesser known bikes for their uniqueness and the Mountain Cycle Stumptown CX bike was a purchase a few years back. Specialized bikes have a great history, however newer models don't really do it for me. After learning about the closure of MC, I'm inclined to never buy a Specialized product. But its a business where smaller companies rarely survive unless there's a bit of a cult following, these companies simply don't have the time much less resources to deal with the big guns. I'll continue to support the small manufacturers, and hope they're not picked on by the bullies.

In the mid to late 1970s Raleigh used to put unreasonable pressure on small bike shops. We picked up the Raleigh line in 1977 to have some mid range European marque bikes to sell. They tried to lean on us about selling other makes of bikes but they didn't have much to compete against mid range Motobecanes and the Japanese brands.

At the same time, we were an early Trek dealer back when they were selling bare frames. They were well made but the austere colors were no match for the flashy Italian frames on the US market.

When Trek started pushing complete bikes they came to us and tried to pressure us into "floor plan" schemes - their marketoids wanted us to buy X number of bikes during a given time period in order to remain a Trek dealer.

That didn't go over well with us... "AMF!" Oh, and BTW, don't let the door hit you in the a** on the way out! :notamused:

Back in the 70s, companies like Specialized, Trek, Cannondale and many others started off as exciting adventures run by cycling enthusiasts. Over time most of those ventures fell by the wayside. Now, the big survivors are faceless corporate entities!

verktyg

Chas.

Opportunity (and thus the likelihood) to commit evil increases with size of company. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Actually I disagree with Tom - larger companies have money to go after and are thusmore interesting to litigants and regulatory bodies. It's the smaller companies that really play fast and lose because they're not on the radar and not as likely to be targeted.

More than likely yes, yes and yes. It appears Specialized was their only line of bike otherwise they'd still be in business.

Back in my shop days we were fortunate in that we never needed a line of credit, everything was paid upon receiving the bill. It's a double edged sword, Trek and Cannondale both wanted us to sell their bikes but demanded we give them a majority of the floor space.

Rather than sell one brand we sold 5. If one went under (Peugeot then Miyata) or wanted out (Schwinn told us to stick it) we had 4 other lines to rely on.

And when the small companies do get targeted, everyone roots for them. ;)

IMO, The Canadian trademark office messed up when they didn't inform the bike shop of Specialized's ownership of that name(Roubaix). Specialized has to fight for that name, even against a small nobody, otherwise they will lose rights to that name and BikesDirect can then use it on their bikes. It's that whole slippery slope theory in action. If they let this guy slide, the next guy will push the envelope and use the existence of the first guy's use of the name to justify his use of the name.

Us regular folk who wear sneakers or the occasional python boot can see right through all this hooey but lawyers cannot. Remember, these are the same people that insisted on lawyer lips and that tiny print on car commercials saying "professional driver on closed course", even for Buicks being driven by grandma down the driveway.

Thiel, a small company making high end audiophile speakers in Kentucky, got sued by Bose who claimed they owned the rights to decimalized numbers. Thiel had a speaker named the 2.2. Rather than fight it out in court, Thiel simply removed the decimal point and the speaker was renamed the 2 2. :)

Bose has since lost their claim to decimalized numbers.

+1 - if you're only using one supplier, or if you're only selling to one customer, you become an extension of that business, subject to its policies and failures whilst having no input into those policies.

I'm not privy to what went on at TWT, and if I was, couldn't tell you, but...

They expanded a hugely in the last decade, to the point of building a new building out a ways from 'in town', also opened a store in a nearby 'burb. In the meantime, they had a high rent place on the outskirts of A2, an old building they'd been trying to sell for years. Their neighbors are/were a NAPA store and ethnic groceries and a bar.

It was coming. Word is he didn't pay his bills. Not the first bike shop to go under in A2.

I've seen it happen to tractor dealers, and car dealers. This was not Specialized's fault. The dealer was overdue. A lot, evidently. It costs the supplier a pretty penny to empty three stores simultaneously.

I would never buy a new Specialized, but this is not why.

:lol: Have you ever worked at a large, multi-national corporation? Sure, they're cautious about some things but not everything.

Yes but it's so much easier and satisfing to blame the big evil corporation. Specialized and Trek employ either directly or indirectly more U.S. citizens then all of the other bike companies put together. The major contributors to the U.S. cycling economy. They should be boycotted and banned. That will show em.

The thing that gets me the most about the Roubaix incident is that the media liked to emphasize that the store owner was a veteran. What the hell does that have to do with anything? It would of been okay if he was an ex banker, police officer or bus driver? Sheep mentality at it's best.

In short, this is largely fallacy. The US Patent and Trademark Office itself explicitly says that aggressive, bullying, over-litigious tactics are often the result of a mistaken impression by trademark owners that they if they don't do that, they lose it:

Thanks for the heads up.

What does him being a veteran have to do with anything?

After my experience with Specialized, I'll gladly join any boycott of them for any reason.

this thread is still going?

Still going, and today was the auction at the above mentioned shop, Two Wheel Tango

Items For Sale At Auction - Two Wheel Tango Auction-Bank Ordered in Ann Arbor, MI

I'm with you on this, having worked for Halliburton.

Yes. Similarly, when Europcar announced that next year will be their last year sponsoring a WorldTour professional cycling team, posters on various cycling forums virtuously declared that from now on they'd boycott Europcar and instead rent cars from their competitors. In other words, they were looking forward to punishing a company that spent millions of euros per year supporting cycling in Europe by giving money to their competitors, who'd never spent a euro for cycling. And people wonder why cycling teams have trouble finding sponsors.