Please "Like" and also " Share" to keep the conversation going. Coming up next Tuesday is 🚨"LIVE Shop Talk Tuesday.🎬 "at 10am Mountain Standard Time. We will dive deeper into this. More insights "As The Wheel Turns, So Do The Days Of Our Rides" playlist: ruclips.net/p/PLdfUXv0-z1u42bZpCLWmT2VtNW-7AIf2A Tools and Products Featured (Affiliate): 🛠 Shop Tools to Parts That I Use in the "Garage Shop": www.amazon.com/shop/iknowaguybicycles 🚿 15% Off Lithium Products that I used in this video: lithiumautocare.com/?ref=IKnowAGuyBicycles 👕 "The Guy's" T-Shirts: i-know-a-guy-bicycles.myspreadshop.com/
@@IKnowAGuyBicycles we should do some international talk show. I live in Italy and have been in the business since 1989. I can recall a few stories from the better years gone by.
Loved my 2 GT's I raced Xcountry on a USA made ZASKAR LE ball burnished frame IT WAS FANTASTIC, and I moved over to an LTS in alluminum. Unfortunately the same thing is what TREK did with Klein bikes. They just killed off a historic pioneering MTB Brand. SAD Big Corporations. They should be tossed in the trash can, see how they like it. LONG LIVE THE HIGH STREET FAMILY RUN STORE.
@@petejackson3687 I drive was too complex and meant the end of the line for GT. Whilst the ROCKER TUNED SUSPENSION was an enormous step forward for GT (Rishi Grewel days DH) that frame I absolutely loved. I still know where there is one today hung up doing nothing. I may just..... go and get it
Those early US-made GT MTB frames were made by Bill Bastian. He had made most of the early aluminium BMX frames, such as SE Racing's PK Ripper, Race Inc. and others. Bike industry is forked. Soon there will only be conglomerates.
Good, the consumer finally has woken up and said no more. I saw this crash coming back in 2019 2020. From 2015 to 2020, the industry adopted numerous standard changes and bikes quadrupled in price over this period. While virtual making any bike manufactured before 2015 obsolescencent. Every bike company was in lock step pushing the same overbiked pro level bikes. The industry went from entry to mid tear bikes to focusing on midtear and highend, virtually offering nothing in the entry department. The doller to performance value disappeared and was replaced by corporate GREED. Personally i am glad this is happening. These companies deserve this. I only feel sorry for non management employees and mom and pop bike shops. As for board members and management, they can suck it, but we all know they have their golden shuts as they sell off brands like GT for parts and tooling at pennies for the dollar.
But the consumer demanded all that tech. I've heard riders tease and belittle others for having rim brakes and 23mm tyres with inner tubes. The consumer fully supported all the silly tech and the industry simply addressed demand. High prices resulted and sales crashed. The primary concern of any good business is staying in business. Can you imagine any of the big brands holding back on tech or choice? They would have been criticised like hell as being behind the tech curve, their rivals would have taken advantage, sales would have slumped and they would have failed. Brands had no choice other than what they did. Riders are to blame. You wanted tech. You crashed your favourite brands.
2025 will be a break year for many brands; it won't be good for them. However, the mom-and-pop shops that leverage the used bike market and service may have a chance.
After 1996 is when i found myself walking away from GT as Cannondale was the next big thing. Its funny how Dorel acquired them both eventually and everything went to hell. Albeit Cannondale fd themselves with their motorcross ventures. Which their bikes sucked. Living locally in Bedford and Somerset counties they were everywhere and always broken down. I still have my 2000 super v and a backup frame, lol.
Well done video! Great roll back to their history and story. I think PON has more opportunities with Santa Cruz and Cannondale in the IBD sector. Trying to get a third brand to stock has not panned out. Unless a box store like Dicks or REI want to make them a main brand, I can’t see GT getting any traction again. Their BMX division could be great for someone else to own - like Craig, but that side of the business will never produce enough profit for PON to keep it rolling.
Very true. I would like to see the IBDs carry 3-4 brands again, like in the 90s, so they can focus on their cycling communities and niche vs. pushing one flavor of Kool-Aid. Thank you for sharing!
Like you, I'm sad about the news of GT. What I have heard (I'm am/was a GT dealer) is that there are a few bike coming in the spring, and they will sell them off and close or do whatever. The bigger story is that there are lots of issues happening right now, Bosch is set to lay off 10,000 employees, and "yes" you are reading that correctly.I'm not sure how this will impact the ebike world. Then there is the closing of the plant for Cervelo/Santa Cruz, and they are also under the Pon umbrella.. Sadly, lots of things happening, and I don't think that we are quite finished with all of this just yet.
CBO has crazy crazy deep pockets and fly very much under the radar until recently. They are owned by the former owner of Chain Reaction UK that sold to Wiggle and did very very well from that transaction. I wouldn't be surprised to see them flex even more as time goes on during this bike industry reset. We will see some new players come out of this for sure. Sad to see the demise of GT, we brought them in to our store in hopes they would be able to put toothpaste back in the tube.
I'm an American now living in the Netherlands and word has been going through the grape vine that PON is not doing so great when it comes to their bicycle business, PON is a big player here in the Netherlands high end Automobiles such as Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini along being the importer of Volkswagen and so on, then they moved onto bicycles so I think their heart is not so much into bicycles, they will own nearly 100 different companies world wide, so I guess they are looking which are doing good and those who are not doing so well and it appears that they are doing some house cleaning and are starting to weed out the weak performers. Just my 2 cents.
Sorry to hear this about GT (not overly surprised though). I know back in thee 90's, I really liked some of those old GT mountain bikes. Hopefully the son can resurrect the brand someday as an independent line. I wonder what will be the next brand from Pon to see this same fate?
The industry is no longer in a realignment stage; it's more like a total overhaul. It will be interesting to see the outcome in the next 3-5 years. Thanks for sharing; keep warm, my friend!
@@IKnowAGuyBicycles Yeah it will be interesting to watch things as the continue to unfold. Just got in the house a few minutes ago. Was 27 degrees below zero when I went out. Nice sunny day :) Time for another coffee now.
Will the real Gary Turner please stand up! For those of us that remember GT as a BMX race bike company, I always found it odd the direction the company went after Gary sold. Luckily you can buy a USA made GT from Gary now and glad he is still in the mix making authentic GT BMX frames. Let's talk about who is around going strong vs the current climate of the bike industry!
Every time they went belly up the bikes got worse, so I agree this is it for GT bike, Rip triple triangle and damn my favorite biking legend Hans “no way” Rey!
These 90s hit (GT, Kona, Mongoose [sunk down to bigbox store brand]) bike brands lost their track 15 years ago. Somehow they wasn't innovative enough to keep up with times and looked like they are just living from the past.
gt bikes has been on a journey; sad if they go away once and for all. i can remember big charity group rides and stuff back in the day when almost all the novices and casual riders would be on treks and the experienced and more advanced riders would be on gt bikes. plus the occasional bridgestone and diamondback or kona--ask me how i know.
Maybe GT will take the road Ibis took. An investment group sunk them and the founders bought them back and made them great again. Gary or the son in law, or even Martin, He is getting older now and might want to think about quitting pro racing, could buy the co. back.
Oh no not GT use to ride BMX back in the 80s and had a Peformer and a couple of others and a Dyno 😢 interesting about his son.. hope you have a great Christmas dude if you don’t post another vid.. Pete 🚴🏻👍
This is sad. I've never owned a GT bike but I've always known they were a quality product. I remember the day driving back home from Snow summit and hearing about Richard Long dying in an accident riding his motorcycle on the way down the mountain. It was a sad day. I'm sure Richard Long is turning over in his grave at this moment.
It’s amazing to me how overpriced snob brands like pivot are still in business…maybe the whole industry needs to crash before these companies finally learn their lesson.
Please "Like" and also " Share" to keep the conversation going.
Coming up next Tuesday is 🚨"LIVE Shop Talk Tuesday.🎬 "at 10am Mountain Standard Time. We will dive deeper into this. More insights "As The Wheel Turns, So Do The Days Of Our Rides" playlist: ruclips.net/p/PLdfUXv0-z1u42bZpCLWmT2VtNW-7AIf2A
Tools and Products Featured (Affiliate):
🛠 Shop Tools to Parts That I Use in the "Garage Shop": www.amazon.com/shop/iknowaguybicycles
🚿 15% Off Lithium Products that I used in this video: lithiumautocare.com/?ref=IKnowAGuyBicycles
👕 "The Guy's" T-Shirts: i-know-a-guy-bicycles.myspreadshop.com/
@@IKnowAGuyBicycles we should do some international talk show. I live in Italy and have been in the business since 1989. I can recall a few stories from the better years gone by.
Fortunate for me, ordered 2 mountain bikes this morning for my nephew and I to start getting into the sport.
Hell yeah lol, congrats! You'll be sure to share great memories man!
Fantastic!
Loved my 2 GT's I raced Xcountry on a USA made ZASKAR LE ball burnished frame IT WAS FANTASTIC, and I moved over to an LTS in alluminum. Unfortunately the same thing is what TREK did with Klein bikes. They just killed off a historic pioneering MTB Brand. SAD Big Corporations. They should be tossed in the trash can, see how they like it. LONG LIVE THE HIGH STREET FAMILY RUN STORE.
Thanks for sharing!
Lts,rts, sts, I-drive ... NOOOOOOOO. 😳 🤟👀
@@petejackson3687 I drive was too complex and meant the end of the line for GT. Whilst the ROCKER TUNED SUSPENSION was an enormous step forward for GT (Rishi Grewel days DH) that frame I absolutely loved. I still know where there is one today hung up doing nothing. I may just..... go and get it
Those early US-made GT MTB frames were made by Bill Bastian. He had made most of the early aluminium BMX frames, such as SE Racing's PK Ripper, Race Inc. and others. Bike industry is forked. Soon there will only be conglomerates.
I guess my 1997 GT LTS 2000 that I bought new is a keeper.
Yep!
Good, the consumer finally has woken up and said no more.
I saw this crash coming back in 2019 2020. From 2015 to 2020, the industry adopted numerous standard changes and bikes quadrupled in price over this period. While virtual making any bike manufactured before 2015 obsolescencent.
Every bike company was in lock step pushing the same overbiked pro level bikes. The industry went from entry to mid tear bikes to focusing on midtear and highend, virtually offering nothing in the entry department. The doller to performance value disappeared and was replaced by corporate GREED.
Personally i am glad this is happening. These companies deserve this. I only feel sorry for non management employees and mom and pop bike shops. As for board members and management, they can suck it, but we all know they have their golden shuts as they sell off brands like GT for parts and tooling at pennies for the dollar.
But the consumer demanded all that tech. I've heard riders tease and belittle others for having rim brakes and 23mm tyres with inner tubes. The consumer fully supported all the silly tech and the industry simply addressed demand. High prices resulted and sales crashed. The primary concern of any good business is staying in business. Can you imagine any of the big brands holding back on tech or choice? They would have been criticised like hell as being behind the tech curve, their rivals would have taken advantage, sales would have slumped and they would have failed. Brands had no choice other than what they did. Riders are to blame. You wanted tech. You crashed your favourite brands.
2025 will be a break year for many brands; it won't be good for them. However, the mom-and-pop shops that leverage the used bike market and service may have a chance.
Like usual thank you for the easy easy explanation & history review 👊🏼💪🏼❤️
Much appreciated!
Still got my 95 ball burnished , XT equipped, handmade in the USA, Zaskar that I bought new in HB Cal.
Nice!
New sub! I grew up right by Cannondale in Pennsylvania and know this story all too well. Still rocking my 96 Backwoods GT MTB
After 1996 is when i found myself walking away from GT as Cannondale was the next big thing. Its funny how Dorel acquired them both eventually and everything went to hell. Albeit Cannondale fd themselves with their motorcross ventures. Which their bikes sucked. Living locally in Bedford and Somerset counties they were everywhere and always broken down. I still have my 2000 super v and a backup frame, lol.
GT has just been a marketing brand for many years, sold from conglomerate to conglomorate. It's no great loss.
Well done video! Great roll back to their history and story.
I think PON has more opportunities with Santa Cruz and Cannondale in the IBD sector. Trying to get a third brand to stock has not panned out. Unless a box store like Dicks or REI want to make them a main brand, I can’t see GT getting any traction again. Their BMX division could be great for someone else to own - like Craig, but that side of the business will never produce enough profit for PON to keep it rolling.
Very true. I would like to see the IBDs carry 3-4 brands again, like in the 90s, so they can focus on their cycling communities and niche vs. pushing one flavor of Kool-Aid. Thank you for sharing!
Like you, I'm sad about the news of GT. What I have heard (I'm am/was a GT dealer) is that there are a few bike coming in the spring, and they will sell them off and close or do whatever. The bigger story is that there are lots of issues happening right now, Bosch is set to lay off 10,000 employees, and "yes" you are reading that correctly.I'm not sure how this will impact the ebike world. Then there is the closing of the plant for Cervelo/Santa Cruz, and they are also under the Pon umbrella.. Sadly, lots of things happening, and I don't think that we are quite finished with all of this just yet.
Massive consolidation will happen in reaction to market contraction. Many brand names will disappear.
That is just crazy! Thanks for sharing.
you did not mention the frame innovations that made GT bikes interesting and unique.
They did and way more. At some point I’ll do a full feature about the brand.
CBO has crazy crazy deep pockets and fly very much under the radar until recently. They are owned by the former owner of Chain Reaction UK that sold to Wiggle and did very very well from that transaction. I wouldn't be surprised to see them flex even more as time goes on during this bike industry reset. We will see some new players come out of this for sure.
Sad to see the demise of GT, we brought them in to our store in hopes they would be able to put toothpaste back in the tube.
It will be interesting to see who will survive, and what ownership changes will be. Thanks for sharing.
I'm an American now living in the Netherlands and word has been going through the grape vine that PON is not doing so great when it comes to their bicycle business, PON is a big player here in the Netherlands high end Automobiles such as Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini along being the importer of Volkswagen and so on, then they moved onto bicycles so I think their heart is not so much into bicycles, they will own nearly 100 different companies world wide, so I guess they are looking which are doing good and those who are not doing so well and it appears that they are doing some house cleaning and are starting to weed out the weak performers. Just my 2 cents.
Great points, thanks for sharing!
Sorry to hear this about GT (not overly surprised though). I know back in thee 90's, I really liked some of those old GT mountain bikes. Hopefully the son can resurrect the brand someday as an independent line. I wonder what will be the next brand from Pon to see this same fate?
The industry is no longer in a realignment stage; it's more like a total overhaul. It will be interesting to see the outcome in the next 3-5 years. Thanks for sharing; keep warm, my friend!
@@IKnowAGuyBicycles Yeah it will be interesting to watch things as the continue to unfold. Just got in the house a few minutes ago. Was 27 degrees below zero when I went out. Nice sunny day :)
Time for another coffee now.
Will the real Gary Turner please stand up! For those of us that remember GT as a BMX race bike company, I always found it odd the direction the company went after Gary sold.
Luckily you can buy a USA made GT from Gary now and glad he is still in the mix making authentic GT BMX frames.
Let's talk about who is around going strong vs the current climate of the bike industry!
GT Nation needs to build up Gavel/Adventure bikes. That would be cool for me.
Every time they went belly up the bikes got worse, so I agree this is it for GT bike, Rip triple triangle and damn my favorite biking legend Hans “no way” Rey!
They had their chance (PON), but they did not give it time to work out.
These 90s hit (GT, Kona, Mongoose [sunk down to bigbox store brand]) bike brands lost their track 15 years ago. Somehow they wasn't innovative enough to keep up with times and looked like they are just living from the past.
The original owners just repurchased KONA, but the others, yes. Thanks for watching.
1996 LTS-1 was probably best race bike in its class at the time.
Let’s face it. The I -Drive killed the brand.
gt bikes has been on a journey; sad if they go away once and for all. i can remember big charity group rides and stuff back in the day when almost all the novices and casual riders would be on treks and the experienced and more advanced riders would be on gt bikes. plus the occasional bridgestone and diamondback or kona--ask me how i know.
That puts me back!
Maybe GT will take the road Ibis took. An investment group sunk them and the founders bought them back and made them great again. Gary or the son in law, or even Martin, He is getting older now and might want to think about quitting pro racing, could buy the co. back.
Oh no not GT use to ride BMX back in the 80s and had a Peformer and a couple of others and a Dyno 😢 interesting about his son.. hope you have a great Christmas dude if you don’t post another vid.. Pete 🚴🏻👍
You too! Thanks for watching!
Bain Capital ->> Mitt Romney founder, ha.
This is sad. I've never owned a GT bike but I've always known they were a quality product. I remember the day driving back home from Snow summit and hearing about Richard Long dying in an accident riding his motorcycle on the way down the mountain. It was a sad day. I'm sure Richard Long is turning over in his grave at this moment.
Gary Turner is still alive.
@RBK855 My bad it was Richard.
You scared me, but he is still kicking. There have been a recent post with Gary Turner in it on GT Nation FB Page.
It’s amazing to me how overpriced snob brands like pivot are still in business…maybe the whole industry needs to crash before these companies finally learn their lesson.
There is a lesson to be learned, but will they?