Superstar Brings Manufacturing in house with new I/O Chainrings and Bash Guards

“precision machined debris gullies” = no explanation/pictures??? More technical reporting + less product release a** grabbing

Nobody cares about a company that refuses to ship its product to US.

@John, that’s weird.. I ordered several bits from Superstar, and I live in Argentina… Heck, I think its the first time I’m able to get something from an international vendor who doesn’t sell to the US market…

It’s Neil from Superstar here. We have nothing against you guys in the US but unfortunately most UK insurers literally triple the premium if we add the USA to out sales areas. In fact it’s the only country in the world with this issue. Unfortunately it’s to do with suing each other. We can’t just sell without insurance I’m afraid we employ too many staff who rely on us doing the right thing and looking after their livelihood.

We are working with the insurers to jump through the hoops required to get costs to something workable but there’s a huge amount of work and time involved. But then shipping costs are always an issue for direct selling on small ticket items.

But there’s lots of pretty cool stuff kicking off for us at the moment so keep your eyes peeled for new UK made kit.

Regards, Neil (superstar)

@ All,
Thanks for all the comments and discussion. I never implied Superstar, its policies, and its products are inferior. Quite the opposite, I want to try them but as in my original post stated the reason they gave me for not selling to the USA. Neil just verified in his post. I and a large portion of the mountain biking Yanks hate what companies like Specialized have done by creating such a litigious environment. It limits small companies entry into the market thus limiting innovation and our enjoyment.

But as its expensive for European companies to do business with the US, it is equally expensive for the average Yank to buy European mountain bike products. Cost is usually 25-50% higher than a USA product of similar quality. I have BOS and a Nicolai ION 16 along with a Turner and Cane Creek suspension…performance is the same but price is not. So when we (Yanks) want to buy a European product we are consciously going to spend significantly more for the sake of experimentation.

Just a shame, USA has the largest mountain bike population and expendable income (we don’t all sit on the couch and eat McDonald’s)…would be nice if Superstar could tap into it like other UK companies.

Cheers,
John

YT will be here soon. they signed cam zink for a reason. wish Last from Germany would would come over.

Obviously mindless thinks he knows better than Neil from Superstar. Please, mindless, give us all the details that you must have.

Mindless is correct we sell fasteners to the usa often safety crittical

Google superstar and check out failure rates it becomes obvious why its difficult or the risk is too high for an insurer with increased failures come increased risks of litigation that’s plain and simple

You sell direct but are not much cheaper if i shop around,i can get raceface atlas bars that only cost £5 uk pounds more than your direct sales handlebars so your direct sales and cutting out the middle man costs are failing big time,good job on moving to in house production but i still find your products expensive so will stick with raceface and straitline.

It’s Neil from Superstar here again. Please do read around about what people think of us on the internet, but bear in mind people can post whatever they like often with no evidence or basis on reality. There are a few trolls out there who keep banging on about poor quality or seconds etc, but if they care to visit us they will see thats completely fabricated. I suspect there are a few people in the industry who we have upset probably has something to do with it.

For example our pads are EXACTLY the same as 2 of the big OE players in the brake industry, the same part just with a different logo. We offer 45 day trial on them so you can try them and see they are exactly the same. We have sold over 500,000 (no joke ive checked the figures!) packs so far. If they were like some people claim i would have thousands of lawsuits looming….

As for everything else we get sub 0.1% return rate, but as we sell hundreds of thousands of items a year i am sure you will find someone complaining out there if you look hard enough – the same as any company. The insurance thing is nothing to do with our return rate (infact the insurers have no idea what that is), we have claimed zero times and we expect to continue for the next 50 years never making a claim…

As for the raceface bits which are still more expensive, you can get some bargains but can you get the whole range at that price? I didn’t think so! There are always clear out bargains out there and we don’t need to half price our products to shift them as they are great value at full price.

Anyway ill leave the trolls to continue bickering, i find it really amusing when i see them slating our product and recommending another brand which is the same item from the same factory with a different logo on but its “so much better quality”. (probably as they work for that brand….)

hey im off riding! CYA

Regards, Neil (superstar)

Neil, you’re not alone, everyone’s seeing it in this business. If you think it’s bad where you’re at, it’s bloody fricking murder trying to manufacture anything here and sell it here. I’ve been in the design side of the bike biz since the 80s, and am sitting here today on a full product line, complete, proto’d, with several seasons of field testing in, some parts nearly a decade of riding, and it’s all shelved. No one can make the numbers come close to working in the domestic market. The costs and risks are simply not worth taking on here. Sure, we double our potential market, but the odds of getting sued to ruin by those very same people and their insurance companies approach a guaranteed certainty.

For example, the liability on a domestic made plain-jane, bare-bones, nothing revolutionary crankset alone… adds over $300 per unit to the MSRP. That’s adding more than a complete Raceface crankset ON TOP of an already expensive product to make. If we order some crappy stock cranks from an asian sweatshops catalog, that liability penalty drops down to… $12 per unit. Blame is the real reason hardly anyone produces consumer products in this country anymore. It’s a cultural problem, and one far too big for me to solve. We’re looking at moving everything to Canada instead, & selling only to Canada, Europe, & Japan.