The Untold Story of Absolute Evil... and How the Undead May Rise

Last year, Seb Kemp stirred up the apparent cobwebs at Evil Bikes' Seattle headquarters. The story is long, but compelling.

Read the truly evil story here...

Never ridden an evil bike.
Very good read. Open and candid
Interesting to see what will come next
Hope they get it sorted

It doesn’t matter what bike you ride. You can ride my bikes, Santa Cruz, Specialized, whatever, you can still go out and have fun.

I'd go even farther: you can also be fast on any of those bikes. I love hearing this attitude from within the industry, although it's ironic from a guy who still has ties to DW.

I look at motocross (which I know almost nothing about, so please correct me if I'm wrong), but it seems to me that those bikes are all nearly functionally identical and what separates the brands is marketing and which pro rider happens to be winning races on which bike. They don't have different suspension designs, and they don't sell their "science" or methodology…at least not from an outsider's perspective. Maybe it's different if you read all the articles in the magazines. What they do do (ha, I said do do) is sell like hot cakes.

If someone new to our sport is in the market for a new bike, all the talk about suspension design is going to confuse them, and probably turn them off if anything. I hope Evil does survive and Kevin can keep this sort of perspective. It pains me when a snowboarder calls our sport "gay".

Good read, but what a fiasco… seems like they did everything wrong in launching Evil first time around. Good intentions, but poor business plan and quality control led to disaster. The Undead looks hawt, but at who's expense?

wow, good read. i like the glimpse into the industry, and yeah i'm cheering for the little guy. i hope kevin can get it together. i find it interesting that the piece was written a year ago and yet we're just seeing it now.

too bad they didn't fire that vendor right at the start.

Didn't i read this weeks ago? Maybe somewhere else?

Regardless; Evil you've got a long long way to go before i'm convinced to buy one of your bikes.

The fact that a bike 'brand' run by a design and marketing firm failed is of no surprise to me whatsoever. Just because you design toilet seats and ipod cases doesn't mean that you can make a good bike.

The whole Evil thing really just sounds like a marketing scam.

1: Old brand everyone remembers fondly
2: Hottest suspension designer we can find
3: 'Spy' shots galore
4: Hype
5: 'Two weeks'
6: Cool stickers
7: Profit?

/rant.

brilliant article, and very candid - props to the last man standing at Evil Bikes

I know, first hand, all about their problems with the aluminium-alloy vendor in TW

we can give them a name - pacific cycles, but no not the Pacific behind GT, etc. but a smaller outfit who specialize in small production runs for niche brands and strange, folding / utility bikes under their own brand name

in my previous job, I was selling frames shipped direct from this vendor, under the Banshee / Mythic bikes brand name in the UK

complete nightmare in terms of school-boy manufacturing errors, piss-poor QC and warranty claims (last season we had return rate of nearly 70%)

I won't go into the specifics, but it was breathtaking to see the problems, and hear of the frustration the brand owners suffered, despite spending a lot of time in TW actually trying to sort things out in this factory!

such a shame as the guys behind this brand, Keith and Jay are 2 of the nicest guys, you could meet, straight-shooters and super passionate about their brand, which I know you guys in Canada are loving too!

but Banshee / Mythic was totally f*cked up by this dodgy factory in TW, the same factory that gave Evil Bikes all their issues with the Revolt :(

longest article on the web i have read in a long time, but well worth it.

As mentioned above i wont be running to get a hot off the press evil bike, but am cheering for them, and would pick one up after a year or so if they hold up

Didn't i read this weeks ago? Maybe somewhere else?

http://2flat.net/2012/03/09/the-writer-knows-nothing-evil/

great read seb; glad this piece saw the light of day, so to speak. i do like some of kevin's ideologies (and agree w/ you dynamo), but he's spread himself too thin, and needs to commit more resources to his bike hobby if he hopes it to succeed. hoping for the best - i covet the uprising.

I loved my Evil. Very nice write up. Kevin is a super nice guy and easy to deal with. Yes I'm still waiting for my warrenty frame and when the bikes finally get released I will be emailing right away to get in line for one.

great piece, seb. and like nortonwhis experienced, this is the longest article on bikes i have probably ever read online, and it kept me glued.
i was quite surprised to see it was penned last year. why the wait?
i got a chance to swing a leg over the trail bike referenced here, and i gotta say i was impressed. while anyone can go fast on anything ('it's not about the bike' as is often said) i think the uprising could be some hot sh*t if it crawls out of the grave and takes to the trails.

One of my favourite things about our readers is that you can actually read. An article like this wouldn't fly most places on the web. Being able to post articles of length and substance is one of the joys of being, like Señor Walsh, an independent operator. Great work Seb as well as Mason and Morgan.

Seb originally posted this on his personal blog, as mentioned above.

I'd go even farther: you can also be fast on any of those bikes. I love hearing this attitude from within the industry, although it's ironic from a guy who still has ties to DW.

I look at motocross (which I know almost nothing about, so please correct me if I'm wrong), but it seems to me that those bikes are all nearly functionally identical and what separates the brands is marketing and which pro rider happens to be winning races on which bike. They don't have different suspension designs, and they don't sell their "science" or methodology…at least not from an outsider's perspective. Maybe it's different if you read all the articles in the magazines. What they do do (ha, I said do do) is sell like hot cakes.

If someone new to our sport is in the market for a new bike, all the talk about suspension design is going to confuse them, and probably turn them off if anything. I hope Evil does survive and Kevin can keep this sort of perspective. It pains me when a snowboarder calls our sport "gay".

It is painful that a ton of outsiders call our sport 'gay' and it just isn't in snowboarding… I really relate to what is stated by Kevin in this article. It's a boys club in this industry and everyone is trapped in a huge bubble and looks to the two closest industries to connect with, moto [HTML_REMOVED] bmx…and also snow because everyone participates in that during the off season.

The big thing for me about the two former ones is they are nothing similar to where mountain biking should be, other than they share two wheels. Our sport really needs to push to form it's own identity and it shouldn't be based off the rockstar 'two-stroke, cold smoke' vibes of moto, or off a culture of biking in a fairly urban environment on 20" wheels. They're just two different niches, but fortunately mountain bikes can be adapted and can be capable of working in both… personally I just don't think because they can, they should.

I'm really interested to see where things go with Evil launching an AM bike with Zink on the team and Kevin at the helm steering the brand.