Chain Reaction bankrupt?

Looks like Chain Reaction is going poof!

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/wiggle-chain-reaction-cycles-pauses-invoice-payments-and-cancels-orders-as-insolvency-looms

Maybe this is part of why the Nukeproof distributorship is being expanded. Would make sense. 

It's a bummer, what a crazy market contraction after the COVID explosion.

Nukeproof in the US just went dark.

yeah, vitus/nukeproof just shuttered US operations; shit moves fast:

Despite exceeding our top and bottom line FY23 goals handily, SIGNA Sports United North America’s bike division has been forced to cease all operations with less than a few days’ notice. This was triggered Monday by a sudden reneging of a binding 150 million Euro equity commitment to SIGNA Sports United N.V.

last spring I was told to expect blood in the water but this is suprising, I looked but didnt see anything i wanted, the CRC site looks like it has changed

I haven't bought anything from CRC/Wiggle in years. They used to be my go-to for online shopping. There are so many much better options now, including some local ones.

I ended up buying stuff online from Calgary and they were great, maybe we should have a link where we can give our a thumbs up to a local

https://road.cc/content/news/what-hell-going-bike-industry-wiggle-roadcc-podcast-304619

some Brits ^^ doing a podcast on WTF is going on, WTF went wrong

Yeah local has gotten better lately and online has gotten tedious. 

Got winter riding gloves, liter of Shimano oil, brake line, and grips from kinetik today. That's totally the type of "grocery" order I'd have done online a couple years ago. 

Granted the ey have a good sale on basically everything right now, but Jenson nor CRC would have had any price advantage at all.

Posted by: skooks

I haven't bought anything from CRC/Wiggle in years. They used to be my go-to for online shopping. There are so many much better options now, including some local ones.

I agree, I can usually find what I want from some online vendor in Canada now, starting with local. Bicicletta has gotten a good bit of my business lately so I'm happier they made it through.

Shoutout to Calgary cycle,

when they sent my SDG dropper cartridge the picker picked the rong one ( they all look the same) so I called up Quinton, asked if a different cartridge would work ? He said he would ask the tech, got back to me in 15min said no it won't but I will issue a return shipping bill and we send you the correct cartidge

they made a mistake but they fixed it up really quick, I had guy I could actualy talk to by phone and by e-mail,

same with Steed, they said something would work that didnt so they issue a return WB and a visa credit

Whereas when i sent road tires back to CRC they just dissappeared so I would never tried to  return stuff to CRC again

i sure like this way of doing on-line business

CRC has been garbage for years. But sometimes I need garbage like $10 nukeproof grips or $10 brake pads or $10 jugs of no-name sealant. Where do I get that now?

^amazon

The golden age of CRC was when the Canadian dollar was strong (1 $CDN = 1 $US) and CRC could still ship SRAM and Shimano stuff to Canada. Maybe in 2014?

I bought a spare 11sp XX1 groupset at that time. If I remember well, the cassette cost me ~250$. It turned out I never needed the spare derailleur and cassette and got Eagle stuff on my next bike...These XX1 spare parts stayed NIB until last year, when I built my hardtail.

I know... #coolstorybro ;)

Posted by: FlipSide

The golden age of CRC was when the Canadian dollar was strong (1 $CDN = 1 $US) and CRC could still ship SRAM and Shimano stuff to Canada. Maybe in 2014?

I bought a spare 11sp XX1 groupset at that time. If I remember well, the cassette cost me ~250$. It turned out I never needed the spare derailleur and cassette and got Eagle stuff on my next bike...These XX1 spare parts stayed NIB until last year, when I built my hardtail.

I know... #coolstorybro ;)

It's true. From around 2013-2017, that's where I bought most of my stuff, because there were a lot of awesome deals. Tonnes of good clear-out items too, if you hunted for them. I got a full SLX group including cranks for peanuts, when I built up my hard tail in 2017, and then that was it for their Shimano/Sram distribution afterward.