Hyper Bicycles' Eric Carter has confirmed the brand is gearing up to begin selling high-end mountain bikes through Walmart.com in the USA and Canada in the near future.
Carter, the Brand Manager, has told Pinkbike that the spec of the bikes has been confirmed and that Walmart has committed to selling the bikes. He was unable to give an exact time scale for the bikes to go on sale due to the lead times being extended due to COVID, but expected it to be Spring 2021 at the earliest. It's worth noting that we've heard from Hyper that they are gearing up to sell these bikes on a number of occasions, but this is the first time we've been given such concrete signs that it is imminent.
The first bike will apparently be Hyper's AM 27.5 160mm travel bike that we saw Bas Van Steenbergen riding to 3 victories at the recent
Crankworx Summer Series. Carter also said that Hyper is also working on an affordable complete carbon hardtail project targeted at supporting the growth of the
NICA leagues to be sold through Walmart channels. We don't have any details, including the price of either bike, but we expect them to be released closer to the release date of the bike.
Hyper, a brand whose roots lie in BMX, has been sponsoring mountain bike athletes since 2012 when it announced Cam Zink in a shock move. Back then, Zink was riding a rebadged Corsair frame however since then we have seen Hyper sign more athletes who are riding original designs. Now, the brand sponsors both the
Van Steenbergen brothers, Jordy Scott and Eric Carter himself and we've seen them riding a downhill bike, an enduro bike and a dirt jump bike too.
You can currently buy the dirt jump frame, however this will be the first time a full suspension team bike has gone on sale from the brand.
So what has taken so long?The answer can be broken down into two parts, timing and patience.
Back in 2011, when the Hyper mountain bike project started, IBDs still ruled the roost and buying bikes direct was far less common than it is now, especially in the US where the big European brands such as YT and Canyon hadn't yet begun selling. Carter says, "We feel the market has curved towards our brand's position with the direct to consumer and online sales channels being acceptable avenues to offer and purchase products."
The other half of this is getting the bikes to the place they wanted them. Hyper offered mountain bikes at Walmart back in 2011, but they were missing the higher level bikes and the riders to add brand credibility. Eric, who was a Hyper sponsored rider from 1992 to 1995, came back on board and together with the owner formed an initial plan to buy off the shelf, catalogue frames, rebrand them and then push them out into shops. However, the quality fell below what the pair wanted. Eric says, "after review, the owner and I were not happy with what was available and wanted to have something that was a definitive Hyper bike. So we went down a few rabbit holes of working with a few designers, we ran into some last-minute patent issues on designs we were doing… we actually didn’t have issues as we probably would have won any court proceedings but we just didn’t want to spend the money and time defending drawings, at the time we had no inventory or tooling done."
The next step was to bring in the expertise Robert Stemen, a former GT engineer, who along with Eric and some input from Cam Zink, started to work on Hyper's own frames. Eric explains, "We identified some things we really wanted our bikes to do and spent a lot of time screen sharing over kinematics, shock placements and came up with some designs. After getting the tooling cost and manufacturing cost quotes our focus was to make these bikes and have them under top riders and hopefully start to build recognition and exposure for the brand and specific bikes and at the same time hope the market would shift a little to accept Hyper as a higher level brand offering."
It seems that time is now as Hyper begins gearing up to sell through Walmart. The past 9 years haven't been a waste for Hyper though as it has allowed them to position themself as a credible brand with race winning frames and, Eric says, the development process has trickled down to Hyper's more affordable range and brought better geometry and tubing to that price bracket.
We'll update you with more details of Hyper's production frames as and when we get it.
198 Comments
Just saw another Walmart bike with a backward fork out in the wild yesterday, tall guy pedalling duck foot to avoid the tire rubbing his toes.
A few years later my local Canadian Tire had a bike prominently displayed in a special stand above the bargain bins down the centre aisle as you came into the store. Again, fork installed backwards.
So basically the end user will only have to attach the handlebars and install the wheels. Pretty simple for anyone.
For example : You buy this brand new "Hyper Enduro bike" on Walmart.com. That order gets sent to Hyper Bikes. It is built there and Shipped from Hyper to your home. Walmart never touches the bike!!!! Its just the order hub.
And yes, even when LBS mechs go to the local walmart to build bikes up for christmas, they're bringing an impact driver and getting paid per piece...but at least the parts will probably be on there pointing the right way, and tightened down.
I've pulled major name brand bikes out of the box to assemble them and found the same front/back stickers on them. Its part and parcel in the industry now given how many hack job "bike mechanics" exist out there. Same with lawyer tabs on forks basically being everywhere now in the bike industry, not merely on bikes sold in the USA.
The middle man is where its at. Take the order, send the order to the manufacturer or distributor, and you make a little profit in the deal. You never have to warehouse anything and you never touch the product. All your effort and labor is in building a great website and website presence, attracting a customer base and building up a solid reputation, making deals with the manufacturers ( profit ), and ensuring that you have great customer service.
www.walmart.com/ip/Hyper-26-Shocker-Men-s-Dual-Suspension-Mountain-Bike-Black/54169167
Yeah, Zellers, Canadian Tire, Walmart... And you notice that their bikes only come in one size :goofy/small. I think they have 26" wheels but the whole bike always looks deceptively puny under the rider (who always has the saddle too low so that doesn't help).
I used to work in the film business ( high end TV commercials) and it was amazing how often the art department would throw really kooky setups in front of the lens. Especially when it came to outdoor or action sports.
Once in a while though they'd buy really high end stuff and then you could often buy it at a huge crew discount because they couldn't re-sell it due to liability etc.
Also, I should find some pics of my old bikes if you like XL 26ers. Been riding XL bikes for 25 years and only the last two rigs have had bigger wheels.
Yeah but it's...walmart.
This is the same company that doesn't provide benefits to their employees but during employees first day they explain how to apply to state paid healthcare plans and food assistance. So you don't pay full price for your items but your taxes are higher so you help pay for their employees benefits.
I am not to go to shop at discount stores but socially...they are the worst.
Gucci dh gear? I hear you can get it at a discount price at Walmart.
Does this mean when I buy a high en bike with a Manitou fork at Walmart that the slider cross brace will be facing forward?
Very sneaky Walmart but I am holding out for Atherton Bikes to start selling at the Dollar Store.
Many local shop are already helping support NICA clubs.
Hooray?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8t0DOhoy5o
I know they ride Hyper DJs and BMX (they were all here in Bentonville for a Walmart/hyper deal at one of our pump tracks a year or so ago) but they may have a deal with Giant for MTB.
On the other hand, perhaps Walmart want to improve its image, but in doing so it would be ostracizing its core and loyal demographic. How many Pinkbikers shop Walmart for anything other than maybe groceries and household goods? Sounds like an opportunity for a new poll. Would you buy a quality bicycle from Walmart? Better yet in-store from Walmart? I suspect no, and even more no for the latter.
The current model for the bike part distributors is rubbish!
When did the lbs put other local small businesses out of business? I happen to the know the wages my lbs guys make and maybe your lbs pays much less but not the case in my community.
Lots of news about it...higher pay for e commerce pros...https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.al.com/news/2020/09/walmart-hiring-20000-seasonal-workers-at-up-to-2375-an-hour-how-to-apply.html%3foutputType=amp
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8t0DOhoy5o
There's this video of one being assembled in 2019...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8t0DOhoy5o
I used a dollar symbol instead of writing dollar.
My grammar and spelling are truly atrocious. I can only hope that by some sublime miracle you could comprehend my comment.
Please accept my sarcastic apology.
Gets me every time.
As far as Bolany; I'm not touching that mail order hell with a ten foot pole.
SORRY
that said it is a piece of crap with ski slope of a head angle.
71 Degree HA...lol
The dropouts are fine, lots of brands have not gone to thru-axles on every single one of their XC frame models. The frame is not straight steerer only either unless you choose to build it as such. Its 44mm zero stack headset cup standard top and bottom, you can put a tapered steerer fork in with the correct EC44 lower headset cup. Same as most major brands are doing for their frames. EVERY RSD for example is a 44mm zero stack cup head tube and they sell them with a cane creek 40 series ZS44/EC44 cup headset.
The full retail walmart Canada retail price for the Hyper Carbon X Sinister 27.5 in 2020 is $799... a comparable alloy 27.5 bike from Rocky Mountain at the same price is the Soul 10. Its also a straight steerer fork, with standard QR skewer dropouts front and back. Comparing the two in actual components... the rocky got a marginally better suspension fork but equal or lower spec everything else other than the brakes (being the bottom end shimano MT200 hydraulics) and rims (WTB ST i23 TCS Tubeless which is an OEM only model) vs cable discs and rims which would need to be gorilla taped to run tubeless on the hyper. Looking over at the Kona website, every single one of their mtb hardtails series from the Kahuna ($1599CDN) down is a standard 10x135 QR rear end except for the chromoly framed Unit and Unit X. But the Units are straight steerer frames (by your thinking) using the 44mm cup ZS head tube top and bottom with a straight 1 1/8 steer rigid fork and the Unit X in particular is $1900
As to Bolany... like rockshox they offer entry level garbage on up... their air spring forks are comparable to RS models like the XC32s, Judy Golds and Recon models. I simply used that brand as an example of a better choice to buy than a bottom end RS as you're not paying an artificial premium for the Rockshox labels. .
So only thing that seems to be nonsense around here is your thinking.
Bolany is still a fresh hell I want nothing to do with. We've had them by the shop, they do not compare to RS in any favourable way.
So in short; yeah it's still a shitbike I want nothing to do with. Thanks for clarifying I guess.
As to geometry.... well...the head angle for any frame depends on a particular length of fork. If you have a longer fork, you get a slacker angle. The Carbon 29er blueprints say 71 HA with a 490mm fork length. Now quickly checking some 29er forks I have, a Fox RL32 100mm is about 510mm, a Bolany 32 100mm is about 525, and a Rockshox Reba Race 120mm is about 535mm. 20mm difference in fork length is about a 1 degree change in head angle on a 42 inch wheelbase bike. A 490mm length is basically an 80mm travel 29er fork. The Kona Mahuna 2020 lists a 68 angle with a 506mm length fork and the spec is a Judy Silver TK Air 100mm. Now going to the RS dealer manuals, which show the fork length as actually being 510mm for that model. Now searching that manual for 506 we find the Reba 29er 100mm is that length in the 15x110 thru-axle version as is the SID but no other 29er model they offer is that length.
Well when you come off as a dickwad about a brand you know f*ck all about, you're going to get the condescending reply because clearly you're too much of a moron to do the research yourself.
This frame is a nothing burger except for the paint job the reason I almost bought the 26" version a few years ago and then the 27.5 all 3 models they have made look awesome but are adorned with shit. Not worth an upgrade to invest in an old country design that features a 135QR rear drop out and minimum tire clearance with a ski slope of a head tube even if it could handle a tapered fork why bother spending 700 on a new fork to be mounted on a loser design> I think the allure of carbon has gone to your brains I prefer aluminium at anything under 3K. I would not trust this low end carbon frame with my life.
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