Felt Bicycles is Back
The very first new bike I bought was a Felt. The first bike I ever sold to an online scammer was a Felt (that was painful). While working at SBR Sports in Orem, Utah, we were one of the very first Felt dealers in the state. They gave us great margin and our sales rep Betsy was always around to take any of our questions. It was a great relationship from the time we started to the time I moved on to go sell Internet for Cox Communications door-to-door — that, too, was painful.
The brand was super strong under its founder, Jim Felt. Well, until Jim got a little over his skis with the mindset of “Felt can be everything to everyone.” In 2017, the brand was sold to Rossignol and Jim left the company. It then played a bit of ownership hot potato, as in 2021 Pierer Mobility, the owner of KTM, took over the reigns from Rossignol. Pierer set their eyes on the concept of integrating gas powered dirt bikes with performance pedal and e-bikes.
The integration process that Rossignol and Pierer set out to do turned out to be challenging to say the least. And as of November 20th, Felt has new owners. The small group that had been in charge of Felt’s integration with Pierer Mobility, Florian Burguet and Cesar Tojo, bought 100% of the company.
How did they do it? Take a semi deep dive into the process over the last 5 years.
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I really hope they will be back, but they aren’t back yet. I have sold hundreds of Felt’s over the years but the take overs have destroyed the brand. The fact that are no spare parts available for over a year and a half now did not good to the brand. Not to say bike availability but owning a Felt and be in need of parts and left out hanging did not do good.
But I hope so that the brand can bounce back to what it ones was.
Jeroen
Listen to the podcast.
Even by corporate standards, that is an incredibly cringey list.
If it takes 10 bullet points to explain the mission, then it needs more work.