Home > Other Fun Stuff > Advocacy & Industry News

Friday Roundup: BrilliBrilliant Unicorn x Festka, Tariffs, Dirty 30, Eroica, trainer discounts & more!

Festka Scalatore custom carbon road bike
14 Comments
Support us! Bikerumor may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More

BrilliBrilliant Unicorn & Festka come together in Innsbruck for Worlds – The 2018 Road World Championships have been running along for almost a week already in Austria. And now Vienna-based clothing maker BBUC & Prague custom framebuilder Festka have  collaborated on a special edition bike & riding kit to highlight the international nature of the  weeks of racing. The design envisions a fictional BBUC Nation with mixed elements of the Czech & Austrian flags, now applied to a Festka Scalatore carbon road bike and two matching jersey & bib short combinations.

The lightweight carbon Scalatore shines in a glossy blue with red & white (Czech & Austrian flags), plus Brilli’s pink. Just three of the limited edition framesets will be available for 6500€. With its coordinated design the BrilliBrilliant Unicorn kit will be available separately in the coming weeks either in the same colors or a more muted, monochromatic look. Festka.com & BBUC.co

Industry News

  •  How Motorsports Made Zipp – Zipp was founded in Indianapolis 30 years ago for a reason – the city’s deep history and expertise in the pursuit of speed – think Indy 500 & Brickyard 400. Looking back on three decades of composites engineering, Zipp tells the story of how motorsports made their brand… Zipp.com

Light & Motion confirms Rando dynamo charging, intros Urban 1000, Seca 2000 Race, & Vis Micro II

  • Trump China Tariffs push Light & Motion to send production to the PhilippinesBRAIN keyed us onto a story from Nation Public Radio about how the recent China Tariffs were specifically hitting California company Light & Motion. If you haven’t noticed the new 10% tariff on Chinese made products will have a big impact on the cycling industry which outsources tons of products, and that tariff is set to ride to 25% at the start of 2019. The trouble for Light & Motion is actually the exceptions to the tariff. Since they manufacture in the US, but use a lot of Chinese-made components, all of their materials will get hit with price increases. Yet completed bike lights are exempt from the tariff, so L&M’s competitors can import complete products without getting hit with the tariff. In order to maintain their quality & pricing levels Light & Motion are now heading to the Philippines to set up a production facility, moving manufacture out of the US to stay competitive. NPR.org

Where to Ride

  • Get Down at IMBA’s Dirty 30 – The IMBA Dirty 30 celebration in Bentonville is coming up fast – Oct 26-28! They’ve joined forces with Outerbike to host guided rides, happy hours, parties, and a Saturday night celebration of 30 years of mountain bike advocacy. Rumors suggest there may or may not be a Friday night dance routine in the works. Don’t miss it. Support mountain bike trail advocacy, while getting to demo new bikes and ride excellent trails with friends! IMBA.com

  • Join 7000 Eroica retro-grouches on the roads of Gaiole in Chianti Oct 7 – We jest, you know you want to ride the white gravel of Chianti on an old steel road bike with a tubular twisted around your shoulders! Autumn brings L’Eroica back to Siena on the first Sunday of October, when riders from all over the world will participate in the signature retro road event. There’s something for every cyclist looking for the beauty of fatigue and thrill of conquest before modern bike technology and smooth asphalt prevailed. Take on between 32-209km of beautiful Italian road & gravel on your pre-1987 road bike. Eroica.cc

Gear & Deals

  • Save on Smart training with Kinetic – Don’t let impending colder & wetter weather derail your training plans. For a limited time only in their Red Tag Fall Sale, Kinetic has all of their Smart Control (offering connection to digital training platforms with on-the-fly resistance control) and Smart (no resistance feedback, but connected to your mobile device and training programs) trainer models & their bundles are on sale. Save up to 15% at: KurtKinetic.com.

SaveSave

SaveSave

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

14 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Bob
Bob
6 years ago

sounds like a great excuse for L&M to shift production elsewhere and not look like the bad guy. According to companies that make things in the US, the quality is of such high standards that no other place can make things as well. that is what justifies the high price. So now will the quality will fall because they are not made in the states?

Robin
Robin
6 years ago
Reply to  Bob

Read the article more carefully: since some of the components in L&M lights come China, the tariffs on those components will increase the cost of L&M lights to an uncompetitive level. They’re moving production to keep costs at a competitive level. There is nothing that indicates that quality will decrease with the move.

Bob
Bob
6 years ago
Reply to  Robin

yes i read that as well. my point is US companies all tout how much better the quality is in US made goods thus justifying the high price. Since L&M are moving to overseas production, their quality must be going down since it is not made in the US any longer.

I would also expect a drop in price since they are not in much cheaper labor markets. Since this probably wont happen, that gets back to my first comment of them shifting outside the US for profit reasons and not looking like the bad guy. they could look for non-china made components or raise the price of their goods. we are not talking a price change at the retail end of 25%.

Robin
Robin
6 years ago
Reply to  Bob

US made products are not necessarily better. I’d wager there might things that L&M considered in their analysis that you aren’t privy to. Your assumptions aren’t necessarily facts.

Record12
Record12
6 years ago
Reply to  Robin

Yet, I will not ride parts made in Japan/China any time I can avoid it. My frames, groupsets, tires…tubes are China.

There is nothing wrong with national pride, no matter what nation you are in or from.

Record11Carbon
Record11Carbon
6 years ago
Reply to  Robin

When did national pride become a bad thing? I will not purchase anything made in China if I can avoid it. My bike bits are US and Italian for the most part. Traveled the world a few times over. Yep, it simply is far better in the US.

Robin
Robin
6 years ago
Reply to  Record11Carbon

You confused an objective statement, a statement of fact, with a lack of national pride. Facts are important.

Record11Carbon
Record11Carbon
6 years ago
Reply to  Robin

Yep, sorry. That is the bugger about internet. No tense or tone.

therealgreenplease
6 years ago
Reply to  Bob

I think some clarity is needed in the whole “China vs USA” quality debate. China makes some very high-quality low-cost items such as LED lights, consumer electronics, etc. Would you want to fly on an airplane made in China? I wouldn’t. I also won’t buy a Chinese car ever again. I bought a Volvo XC60 three years ago and it was the worst car I’ve ever owned. Literally a lemon. I had a battery crack and lost all power in my vehicle (no exaggeration, that actually happened) and I had the seals on my rear differential fail three times. I also had my alternator fail twice. New car, all in the first 30,000 miles. Guess what: the Chinese own Volvo now (Geeley Automotive Group) and while most vehicles are still assembled outside of China, many of the parts are now made in China. Every part that failed on my Volvo was made in China.

Haromania
6 years ago

Whenever one of my friends or family buys a car (new or used) and it isn’t a Honda or Toyota I always ask the same question…”Did they run out of Honda’s and Toyota’s”?

Record11Carbon
Record11Carbon
6 years ago
Reply to  Haromania

Huh. Never heard that one at the Mercedes or Porsche dealerships I shop at…..weird.

silverlining
silverlining
6 years ago
Reply to  Bob

Bob gets it. However, many people lack critical thinking skills, can’t apply logic or reasoning, and seem to go out of their way to make decisions based on emotion not facts or research.

Morten Reippuert
Morten Reippuert
6 years ago

L’Eroica: leaving wedensday morning for my 3rd participation….

My 1987 Koga-Miyata Full Pro Ltd (31/200) shure miss the white roads and poplar trees.

see ya there, hope for sunshine up del Bosco and downhill from Montalchino so i feel inclined to hide out for the rain an hour or two at cantina montalchino like in 2015 and 2017 (at least they have Brunello’s from the barrels).

…secret this year: a tripple crank fro the +20% section on del Boso

…reminder to self: need to lace a NOS non dinged front rim this weekend.

Rider29er
Rider29er
6 years ago

I bought an. Volvo XC60 R-Design in 2013. It’s really fast and I drive it hard. I now have 95,000 miles on the odometer and the only issues I’ve had was a dead battery, replacement of a failed sensor and a UV joint boot. Car manufacturers don’t make most of their OEM components. I would never blame a car company for a bad battery.
I had a bad cell in my Honda Prelude which caused all of my elctronics to temporarily fail which stalled my car and left me stranded on the side of the road. I bought a new battery and everything returned to normal; I didn’t blame Honda.
The first Chinese made Volvo, the S60, didn’t hit our shores until 2015 and it’s ratings haven’t been any worse than other European makes. Nissan and Toyota now have factories in China. Ford will soon build cars there along with GM.
I don’t have any issue with a product produced in China by an established company with a record of reliably in its factories located in other countries.

Derek

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.