Want To Buy a Mountain Bike (Company)?
Well, it turns out the rumors about Iron Horse were mostly true: the company declared bankruptcy and an auction for assets and trademarks is scheduled for July 13. Bids are coming in around the $2 million mark which doesn’t seem bad when you consider that’s the price of just 320 Iron Horse Sunday World Cup mountain bikes 
Anyone want to go in with me and make a bid?
Pacific Cycles (the guys who make Wal-Mart bikes, among others) appear to be the high bidders right now but Randall Scott’s Outdoor Cycles company is also making a bid. Scott’s bid may be more attractive given that he’s the son of the former Iron Horse president and the deal would include a percentage of licensing royalties (though less $$ up front). The company is currently based in Nevada and also builds bikes under the Jeep, Columbia, and K2 brand names and owns several trademarks including Hollowpoint and Triump.
It’s always sad to see MTB companies go bust, though based on previous rumors it sounds like this one has been a long time coming. Hopefully the new owners will bring Iron Horse back much stronger…
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Tags: iron horse
June 19th, 2009 at 9:45 am
You mean there’s no TARP money left to help out a mismanaged bike brand? Honestly the market is so saturated with well engineered bikes with leading edge linkages and geometries. As romantic as it may be to bid for a bike company and own it…Social Darwinism is in play…and the loss of the DW Link license took this company out of the running. Let it die honorably…maybe they’ll resurrect the name in 10 yrs like they did with Motobecane.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Well said.