Monday, March 20, 2006

Stumptown bike builder folds

Portland-based Mountain Cycles -- builder of the Stumptown bicycle -- called their employees to a meeting last Friday, where they were told that their Taiwan parent company decided to pull the plug on Kinesis USA and Mountain Cycles.

Some of you may recall Specialized's Cease and Desist letter to Mountain Cycles regarding Mountain Cycle's use of the Stumptown brand name. Speculation in Portland is that threatened legal action from Specialized or backroom dealings in Taiwan may have contributed to Mountain Cycle's demise. I personally don't believe there's a connection, but should globalized bicycle corporations be wary of the backlash that may occur after the failure of a popular local bike builder?

1 comment:

sam said...

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Sam
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