DJ Brandt Parts Ways with Nukeproof
DJ Brandt has announced on social media that he will no longer be riding for Nukeproof as the brand's parent company faces financial difficulties.
As the troubles facing Nukeproof's parent company Signa Sports United grows DJ Brandt has shared the tough news that his two-year deal has been cut short after signing with the brand at the start of 2023. DJ Brandt shared that he is "heartbroken" by the news and said "they made it feel like a family and not just a sponsorship so shout out to everyone who made this short experience as great as it was."
 | I wanted to make a post explaining why I won’t be riding for Nukeproof anymore so there wasn’t any rumors. I was on a 2 year deal until the end of 2024 but it got cut short due to nukeproofs parent company losing a massive investor. It’s not my fault, it’s no one I worked withs fault. Just the product of some bad business way above any of our heads. I’m heartbroken because I felt like I had landed in the best place working with so many great people, literally everyone I met was the shit, the bikes were great and I was so pumped on the whole deal. They made it feel like a family and not just a sponsorship so shout out to everyone who made this short experience as great as it was, I hope you all find a soft place to land. As for me I’m doing what I can to find a company that I can mesh well with, it’s not easy to do this late in the year but hoping for the best. Pretty damn sad about all this but that’s life and we gotta keep er rolling. |
We wish DJ Brandt all the best and hope he can be picked up by another brand.
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Member since Mar 16, 2017
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That said, I do feel the industry mainly has itself to blame. Yes, I know, the pandemic and the economic recess and all that, it certainly didn't help, but still.
Bikes have simply strayed too far from what people actually want.
E-bikes are rapidly becoming cars on 2 wheels; expensive, heavy, in need of regular attention and expensive maintenance, instead of just nice bikes with a little support.
Road bikes have more gears than anybody actually needs, and the precision that is necessary for that makes drivetrains and other parts overly expensive.
Mountain bikes have become crazy expensive and complicated, making them very capable, yes, but that also means it takes more and more extreme trails and riding to keep it fun. It also creates an unnecessary barrier to get into the sport.
And all of it is obsolete in just a few years.
Just give us bikes that are fun to ride, playful and light, that are affordable to buy and maintain, and don't need frequent (professional) attention. Selling stuff that we don't really need/want and asking idiotic prices for the favor is not sustainable.
Wiggle was great when they specialised in bikes. The ranges expanded to include more sports, coinciding with the most recent acquisition by Signa Sports United. SSU appears to be originally German but is listed in New York.
49% of SSU are owned by "Familie Benko Privatstiftung" which appears to be some sort of foundation
The rest is made up of private equity vehicles or banks specialising in the more iffy end of the spectrum (www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/SIGNA-SPORTS-UNITED-N-V-112877937/company)
CRC & Wiggle ending up as the some company was never going to work, they were effectively competing with themselves.
The ones I buy via the classifieds website to rebuild are all mostly in great shape. Give it some TLC, new cables and tires, and they are good to go.
My own bike is from 1994 and still going strong, as are those of my kids and some friends, from the same era.
I doubt many current mtb's will last 15 years.
I am also old and don't know what the heck you are talking about, because 90s bikes were spindly little things with thin-walled tubing and under-built parts that constantly broke. 90s mtb was like taking your gravel bike out for every mtb ride and hoping it would last (it wouldn't).
In fact I'm kinda into vintage bikes and many desirable 90s parts (like original NukeProof hubs) are rare because they all broke.
As far as the parts are concerned, I was talking about the (mainly) Shimano groups from that time. SLX, LX, XT, XTR, those groups from the nineties were no-nonsense, well functioning, and strong.
Talking about the frames and rigid forks from back then, they were generally strong and not too heavy. Square tapered cranksets and bb's, 8 of 9-speed cassettes and chains, it's solid and just works. Stumpjumpers and bikes like that are still alive and kicking. Only the early suspension forks were crap and those are now mostly useless.
8 and 9 speeds chains are objectively weaker than modern 11/12sp, and anecdotally I have not broken any chains since the 11sp era, and I remember have to change square taper bb yearly so they surely aren’t that great.
I know them from Instagram, through message boards, from YT, and from real life of course.
I have, over the years, heard of maybe 3 frames that actually were broken. There's a gazillion Stumpumpers, Rockhoppers and Hardrocks riding around still, just like similar models from other brands. Steel frames, aluminium ones (even those pushing the boundaries of weight savings, like Klein's are still around).
I've seen zero derailleurs broken in half. None. Also, 9 out of 10 times when I buy a nineties mtb, I leave the bb and the crankset as they are, because they still spin perfectly and play free. I don't even have to overhaul them, let alone replace them.
We must live in a parallel universe.
Just out of curiosity, how many of you people reading this have cracked their mtb frame in the nineties?
And how many of you have snapped their derailleurs?
And who of you have never had such problems?
Is it possible that this is a case of survivorship bias, where the frames that had bad welds, shitty components, etc. all failed soon after purchase, and only the ones that happened to be defect free and built up with solid parts survived to be ridden by your retro MTB hipster micro-cult?
It is certainly not true from my experience, and from all the mtb magazines I read in all those years (MBAction, MountainbikingUK, BIKE Magazine from Germany and many others) I never got that impression either. If it really was such a widespread problem, surely that would have gotten attention?
Bad welds and faulty parts can and will always exist, then and now too, but that's something different entirely than all those bikes cracking and derailleurs breaking.
Out of curiosity, did you ride in the nineties and if so, did you experience such widespread problems back then?
Also, if enjoying a wealth of well built, affordable, easy to maintain, very diverse and colorful, simple but versatile older bikes, updated to be exactly what you want it to be, with more character than any modern day generic, dull carbon bike could ever dream of means you are in a cult, so be it.
I personally think slavishly buying the latest and greatest, hugely expensive bikes just because the industry pushes that on you, and doing it all over again every few few years is actually more cult-like.
The cult thing was a joke, my only MTB is a (modern) steel hardtail so you’re preaching to the choir.
Of course our riding back then wasn't as taxing on the material as modern trail/enduro/bike park riding. The terrain we rode was indeed mostly less gnarly, or, when we tackled gnarly terrain, it was more in a 'let me see if I can ride down here without putting a foot on the ground' instead of plowing down with plus tires, a dropper, bigger wheels and 10 inches of suspension.
My point still stands though; I never heard of, or experienced a widespread failure of frames or parts. On the contrary.
otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/sports_direct1/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=723&newsid=1726128
Hope Sam finds a way to manage all that and that this doen't mean an end to his career
Nobody else is Sam Hill
There's skate brands (your favorite culture to jock) who have been around for several decades and they barely scratch a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, yet they manage to stay in business and pay their teams a fair wage.
I don't feel sorry for millionaires that lose money. I feel bad for the people they screw on their way out.
The problem is that the people how got us here will cash their severances and move on while a lot of rider owned brands, shops and smaller distributors might go out of business due to this.
great bike, i even bought the official rear rack for it so i can lug gear about too
Seriously some on going managerial cock ups, or taking too much out of the company!?
The wiggle merger destroyed CRC way before brexshit or covid
assuming he didnt know earlier, why would informing him prior to Rampage been better/different?
I feel like supporting those riders through Rampage was the best possible situation, dont you?
That's pretty standard for many of their customers isn't it - frame cracks and it's onto a new bike..
Other than a 3 month window last year when it was higher, the dollar is stronger right now than it has been since 2002.
One way: the strength of the dollar relative to other currencies
Other way: purchasing power of the dollar (subject to inflation, which has been happening in all major economies, IIRC).
So maybe the dollar is performing better than previously compared to the Euro, Yen, etc. But also inflation plays a role.