UK bikes in the USA

orange71

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Something I've always wondered, while many US bikes make it over here in the UK and are sucessful, is there much evidence of 'UK' bikes doing well in the States? I put quotes round UK, as I guess although they call themselves UK, they are made elsewhere. Likes of Orange etc. How big are they and others in the States?
 
it all depends if they have a good distributor .

Lapierre are probably the biggest company in france , and yet they are unknown overhere .
 
It not only with bikes. Look at cars and music. It always has to be very special to become popular in the US. Not only with english stuff, but also with eg dutch things.
Now I have to think very deep to discover good things from Holland which are known abroad.
eh.. B1, Giant, Batavus, Koga Miyata, Gazelle.
 
Pace is big with the 29er crowd (forks only), and I alway remember the review in MBR (or similar) about pace being from the 'town' of Yorkshire - famous for its puddings and princess diana.....

Orange do well as well, and Marin could be thought of as a 'british' brand doing well in the states. But on the whole it's the old style road bikes that do the best. Bob Jackson, Hetchin and the like are very sought after numbers
 
Now I have to think very deep to discover good things from Holland which are known abroad.
eh.. B1, Giant, Batavus, Koga Miyata, Gazelle.

Ko Zieleman, of course !

Isn't B1 already bankrupt????
Giant may have a big distibutor in Lelystad, but are they Dutch???

Batavus and Koga are both part of Europe's largest bicycle conglomerate: Accell. Lapierre is also part of Accell. Accell is listed in A'dam. It has proven to be a good stock.

Bart defo had success with his American Eagle abroad, but was AE also a success from a commercial perspective??? I doubt.
 
I remember from an early nineties MBA that Pace was considered an interesting company by them -MBA- that set themselves apart from all other European MTBs that of course -to them, MBA- were considered inferior to the mountainbikes of the land that gave the world the MTB, the US.

Raleigh is UK, but in US there was different Raleigh and actually I do not know how those 2 were related. Paid US Raleigh only for using the name or were they owned by UK Raleigh etc.
 
Urm, yeah Pete...I though Marin were US too... :?

I read the article MBA did on the Pace RC100 in the early 90's...they love it by all accounts...I guess orange have a standing over there now with their downhill rigs and Steve Peat doing so well on the World circuit...

Don't know about other UK brands though...
 
Urm, yeah Pete...I though Marin were US too...
Marin are a wierd one. Essentially a US founded company, still with there head office there, but the entire mountain and city ranges are UK designed. Pretty much all are then made in the east, e.g.Taiwan.

Where is the "heart" of the company anyway? The head office or the design house? I know they're US really, but I also like to think of Marin as a UK brand.

As it happens, Whyte are definately a UK brand, sharing the same designers as Marin but also being UK based.
 
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