The exact position of the sale/purchase of Chain Reaction Cycles and Wiggle is still lost in the dust of their slow collapse over the past few months. The current best guess / least denied rumor is that the bike industry’s favorite pantomime villain – Mike Ashley of Sports Direct/Evans Cycles fame – has bought the IP to the house brands. In this case, as there are unlikely to be any patents involved, this Intellectual property is mainly the right to use the trademarks and names for the CRCWiggle house brands. These include Nukeproof, Vitus, Ragley, DHB and Brand-X. Product lines that have grown to become very well-regarded and well-known players in the value market. Nukeproof has also been a top-level racing brand with top World Cup DH results right up to the end of last season. What Ashley will do with these brands (if it is him who’s bought them) is totally unknown though.
What became clear a few days ago, however, is that it won’t be continuing to run them as before. Pretty much everyone – from legendary racers like Sam Hill to warehouse, marketing and clerical staff – involved in those brands, distributor Hotlines and the overall CRCWiggle business lost their jobs last week. While there’s no official statement relating to any of this, the buzz on LinkedIn and other social media is that the skeleton crew remaining are purely in place for short-term, shift everything and shut down purposes. "UP TO 80% OFF: THE FINAL SALE" emails arriving in inboxes support that sad conclusion too.
