He would later convince the Italian to make him the sole US importer of the brand. Sinyard officially founded Specialized in , and two years later the brand released its first product, the Specialized Touring Tyre.
Since then, the company has developed beyond all recognition, growing to the point where it not only follows trends in the cycling market but often dictates them. Its catalogue boasts a huge and diverse range of products, sponsors world-class athletes in every cycling discipline and has even launched a charity that now runs independently of the bike brand. Yet Cote says its core tenets remain the same as when it began.
Our depth and connection to the market is the secret sauce that has led the company to be as successful as it has been. Image 2 of Not that it has been plain sailing for Specialized throughout the 45 years it has been in business. On occasions, costly investments would prove to be non-starters, and according to Sinyard himself the brand came within a few hundred dollars of bankruptcy in the mids. After that we started to realise the potential this concept had so we worked on some shoes too, but came to the conclusion that the features we designed into any Body Geometry product would only really matter if you fit on your bike properly.
It would take three to four weeks for the next iteration to come back. That was probably true up until the Tarmac SL3. It's definitely frozen so far. That's been really tough. I think the Tour will happen and there will be spectators out in the countryside, but at the conclusion of the day, around the podium, there won't be any spectators. Personally, I believe once this racing gets going people will be excited to watch.
Families have been cocooned together right now, with no sports to watch, so it could be good for racing. Specialized gets relatively little product from China with Taiwan companies as your main suppliers.
Has that helped with supply chain issues? First, I would say the only thing that's an issue for suppliers is to move very quickly. We have. There's always a bit of a time lag, a gap. We've always been very Taiwan-based and don't do much in China. A few equipment items, but not much, and that's been our program for some time.
But a lot of people talk about on-shoring, and it's an interesting topic. But when we ask ourselves where can we make the best product, it usually doesn't end up being the USA. I think there could be some more assembly that could be done here, but there's just not that much infrastructure here to support it.
Download the Industry Directory. Read the Sales Training Guide. All rights reserved. Skip to main content. You are here Home » Industry News. Pandemic Check-in: Specialized's founder, Mike Sinyard. Published April 28, Jump to Comments. Sign up for our newsletter. Posted in Announcements 1 day 12 hours ago. Another record-breaking earnings report for Leatt in Q3. Posted in Industry News 1 day 12 hours ago. Yamaha expanding into hub-drive market with Hero Motors collaboration. Posted in Industry News 1 day 13 hours ago.
Burley expands Dash FM child bike seat line to fit more bikes. Many of Specialized's competitors had begun selling low-end mountain bikes in sporting goods chain stores. Specialized saw the potential to boost its sales, and in announced that they, too, would begin selling bikes to sporting goods stores and discount retailers, but that they would be selling bikes under the Full Force brand.
Specialized's decision to expand their retail channel beyond bike shops was met with skepticism from Specialized dealers. Many bike shop owners saw this move as a serious mistake. It was easy for Specialized's customer-dealers to see the move as a breach of their trust and loyalty--they had been loyally selling Specialized's products only to have their customers stolen from them by discount sports stores. Sinyard reasoned that the customers who purchased bikes at the discount stores were customers who would not have ventured into specialty bike shops, and he hoped to hook them on the purchase of the bike in the discount store, and then reel them into the specialty bike shops to purchase additional Specialized parts.
Some dealers were extremely angry at Specialized's move, but most dealers took the news in stride and waited to see what would happen. Two years after Specialized distributed their low-end Full Force line, they discontinued it. Sinyard, in what some people believed to be a mark of his graduation into a mature businessman, wrote a formal letter of apology to all Specialized dealers. The Ultralight Composite Wheel had a 1 mph advantage over a conventional wire spoke wheel tested at 30 mph. Although competition was fierce and internal company organization faced problems, low U.
Ironically, the downturn in bike sales might have been the fault of Specialized's earlier success; "As it turned out, mountain bikes were a catalyst for all kinds of outdoor activities," said Specialized's marketing director Chris Murphy. Specialized's success moving into the late s had something to do with the formation of innovative partnerships with popular brands. Specialized renovated deteriorated parks and constructed permanent fixtures for kids to use for riding BMX, skateboarding, and inline skating in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami.
Specialized's partnership with Subaru was equally community-minded. Subaru helped to support some of Specialized's grass roots programs including Friends o' Trails, which teaches off-road biking. While many other bike and car companies joined forces and offered buy-a-car-get-a-bike deals, Specialized and Subaru's deal did not include a similar promotion. In , in a strange twist of fate, one of Specialized's bicycles made the leap from backcountry trails to museum galleries.
A San Francisco gallery's exhibit, entitled "Wild Design: Design for the Wild," showcased the artful design of many modern sporting goods. A Specialized mountain bike, made from lightweight aluminum typically used in airplanes, caught the curator's eye and was included in the display shown in both San Francisco and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Building a highly functional and dynamic Web site was a top priority for Specialized.
Because their products were sold primarily out of their catalog and through bike shops, the company saw the Web as a prime opportunity to build brand awareness and cultivate even deeper customer loyalty.
When a customer sends e-mail to the site, they do not receive a blanket response, said global E-marketing manager Mike Regan, instead they get a response with the name of a Specialized employee attached so the "customer has a clear sense that they're dealing with an individual who cares about their needs.
In June , Merida--the second-largest bicycle manufacturer in the world--acquired a minority share of Specialized. It was not revealed exactly what percentage of the company had been sold. The bike that started it all in the Stumpjumper, the best cross-country bike money could buy Seb Rogers.
The Stumpjumper boasted an eponymous tyre that capitalised on the know-how already gained from Specialized producing its own line of road tyres. An open block tread pattern paved the way for a long line of imitators Seb Rogers.
Built for use on touring bikes, the TA Cyclotourist chainset gave the Stumpjumper the gear range it needed for off-road use, but not the durability. Never intended for extended abuse away from tarmac, failures were relatively common Seb Rogers. Mike may head up a huge corporation but he still gets out on his bike regularly Seb Rogers. The bike that started it all in the stumpjumper, the best cross-country bike money could buy: Seb Rogers.
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