Race Face shuts its doors

The writing was on the wall well before the decision RaceFace made to sell their products to MEC. For years, bicycle shops had to deal with an unfair tax advantage the co-op enjoys. To show support for the cycling industry, most distributors and wholesalers in Canada will not deal with MEC, and thus MEC must deal directly with the suppliers.

As such, when RaceFace decided to sell to MEC, they were dropped like a bad habit from Cycles Lambert and that was the final nail in the coffin in my opinion. In essence, RaceFace choose to deal with MEC for about $300,000 a year instead of Cycles Lamberts account for $1.3 million a year. Many of you mentioned how you enjoyed cheap RF products over the last few years, well that was probably because Lambert was blowing out old inventory that they didn't want to sit on or sell for years to come. Norco did the same thing to Blackspire when they signed a deal with MEC. What makes me think poor management killed this company is that Blackspire remains in business, yet RF died out even though their product is superior (also my opinion).

Hopefully someone can see a business oppurtunity here and buy the name and bring the company back to life, like they have somewhat with Syncros. Unfortunately, they will probably me made in Asia somewhere where manufacturing costs are much lower. I would like to see Rocky Mountain Bicycles buy back their former in house component label, but a little birdy told me things are a little rocky at RMB as well.

LOL MEC / Lambert etc…. Believe it or not there is a world outside Vancouver, BC, or even Canada! It's a big country but feck all people live here. I had Race Face bits on my bike long before I'd heard of names like Tim Hortons, Save On Foods or Busters.