With these cycling icons from the past it seems that once the production is offshored to a cheap labor country, whatever it was that was unique and special about the company and its products soon ceases to exist. Once the beancounters are calling the shots, whatever passion created the brand's initial excellence is forgotten and mediocrity seems almost inevitably to follow.
Kurt Sperry Bellingham, Washington USA
2009/10/25 Norris Lockley <nlockley73@googlemail.com>:
> Only having read about this material, I have very little knowledge of the
> products. However I have formed the impression that it is widely used by
> custom-framebuilders in the States ie KOF builders. A visit to Henry James'
> website shows that some very interesting series of tubes are available.
>
> On another site - the European one that reflects the state of the world's
> bicycle industry, I have read that the parent company of True Temper has
> recently filed for Section 11 bankruptcy, but that the company now thinks it
> has managed to arrange a refinancing of its burgeoning debt..
>
> Are the company's tubes widely used in the American bike industry..and would
> the company's demise be a great loss the KOF custom-builders?
>
> Another company in a rocky state is MAVIC..curently owned by the Finnish
> company Amer-Sports, that bought the iconic French manufacturer from Adidas
> not too long ago, who in turn bought it from the sporting goods manufacturer
> Salomon, not all that long ago either.
>
> MAVIC has just been put up for sale....Sales have been declining recently,
> probably due the fact that the Finnish owners knew nothing about cycle
> wheels..and to their decision to farm out some of the wheel manufacturing to
> Romania - hence quality problems - instead of letting the inhabitants of the
> small town of Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne, NE of Lyon, continue doing what they
> had been doing so successfully for decades.
>
> Offers around 100,000,000 euros on a post-card to Amer-Sport, Helsinki,
> Finland. To date only one company, a Taiwanese one, has shown interest.
>
> Norris Lockley...Settle UK