Bikes, beer, cars

 Bikes, beer, cars. 

Our friends at BikeRaceInfo had a story about a big merger in the bike industry. Scroll down from this page to read it, but the basic story was:

Dorel Sports, the parent group of Cannondale, Schwinn and GT will join up with Pon Holdings, the parent of Cervelo, Santa Cruz, and Gazelle

So, just like beer, a few big companies own most of the brand names. It's no secret that most of these groups have their bicycles made in one or more of the big bike factories in China, just like most of the beer companies brew their beer brands in massive breweries. You wonder if it's not all the same stuff with only the bottles and labels changing?

Did the automotive industry pioneer this? The bike biz certainly took a lesson from them when it comes to the infamous "planned obsolescence" with model years and a constant churn of new this or that, quite often the same thing with a new color or logo, just like the old General Motors days when there was a Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac but not much difference other than the emblems stuck on 'em or maybe the dealer you bought yours from.

Meanwhile, Specialized is half-owned by Merida while Giant makes most of the bikes sold with Trek brand names on them and Grimaldi Industry AB owns Bianchi, Gitane and Peugeot so what are you getting with a famous brand name?

There's certainly nothing wrong with those bikes unless perhaps yours has been recalled . But Zio Lorenzo will throw in a plug here for bikes made by real people with their own hands, like Michele Favaloro. 

Just like craft or micro-brewed beer, you CAN find something different, probably better and quite likely at a competitive price since these smaller makers don't have to inflate their markups to buy expensive advertising via pro cycling teams or sponsoring NFL games on TV. 

Example: Dee (shown above) paid far less for the Favaloro bike in the photo than the Bianchi bike he'd been considering, not to mention having it made-to-measure vs a choice of too big, too small or close enough.

Meanwhile we're working on an announcement about Piedmont Cycling Resort 2022. Check back soon!