I've heard quite a few comments from a number of sources that Stages is circling the drain and probably won't be around much longer. I also heard that Giant was looking into acquiring it.

TeamStages also stopped unexpectedly and all the team members were offered a spot on any other Peak Athletic Collective teams.

I think the writing is on the wall.

This is a bummer. I always liked there meters and never had issues with them across many products.

Hard environment for a single product bike specific company.

Doesn’t it have to do with the new consumer law regarding the coin batteries?

Heard something about it.

Edit. Found this.

Likely the most far-reaching new requirement is that all consumer products containing coin or button cell batteries must be certified to comply with a formerly voluntary standard, UL 4200A-2023, to be lawfully manufactured or imported after March 19, 2024 (unless they are toys certified to meet ASTM F963).

I think that would be the most plausible answer agreed - however if it wasn't for the issue that absolutely nothing is in-stock on the site, not even floor mats, tablet holders, cycling computers, computer mounts or just plain old chainrings. Interestingly the UK distributor is have a bit of a stages barn sale too - with most stuff over 30% off...

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Regards, Richard

Gotcha. I’m an idiot for not looking at their site then. Just figured had something to do with above.

Thanks.

I guess we will see their future soon.

Interesting, but my 15-second Google-fu seems to indicate for Stages it'd be some labelling changes and maybe changing the battery door so that it has a screwdriver-style recession you stick a quarter in to remove the door vs. the little finger tabs it has now. Given that's like a 2-cent injection molded part, doesn't seem like it'd be a big deal to change out.

Given my difficulty in prying open those battery doors, I'd argue they're already pretty child-proof. But maybe not by the letter of the law.

Stages long has been a significant presence in the commercial spin bike/heath club space. I don’t know the relative percentages of their pm products to their other businesses.

Stages also stopped responding to support inquiries for about 6-8 months.

Not disagreeing; my point is that Stages is a bigger company than many assume and that the difficulties they are demonstrating seem consistent with the challenges for cycling and fitness equipment manufactures. I hope that they are in the process of internal reorganization, but there are a lot of big names out there that are closer to the edge of business failure than we might assume.

I heard from customer support a few weeks ago and they are pretty much in a holding pattern as the spin bike and power meter business get separated. The guy I talked to said he was pretty much the only person working there (hence the 6 week response time on my customer support request) and he said that while they are in this transition phase there was a hiring freeze and that they really weren't doing much business in the interim period.

So I certainly hope they aren't going belly up, but based on my interaction it sounds like it might just be a restructuring thing.

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Team Zoot 2023

Though if you "furlough" your staff like that, you're going to lose some/all of them. Which would be a huge hit having all that institutional knowledge walk out. Unless maybe they're all good going off on epic bike adventures with the time, and are cool coming back.

https://escapecollective.com/...ff-entire-workforce/

I drive by their HQ at least 1x a week & last week there was one of their vans in the lot during the work hours--but no employee cars in the lot. The building had zero lights or activity in it from what I could see--not a single car there. It wasn't a holiday either. I did think it was odd as usually there are many of their vans in the lot. Reminding me of a building in a ghost town--and it crossed my mind if perhaps they were moving or something--very peculiar.

I feel for people who bought their SB20 bikes. Stages was my very first pm - mostly good memories.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I have a SB20 ! So feeling it

Got to be honest thou had it since Sept 2020 and its been almost great (the power meters are utter garbage thou) so if it fails soon and I need another bike, this one has done a good few miles and I do feel I've had my moneys worth - its cost me 69€ per month so far.

But we could all see this happening, the bike was pretty good, but not great. The dash computers were 10yrs too late, and the power meters made no sense when you can buy pedal power meters and add the fact no one was getting any support from them it just wasn't a good prospect.

I'm sure they will be back after filing and clearing the debt.

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Regards, Richard

Everyone's different, but I have zero interest in pedal power meters. Have 5 crank-based power meters (of 3 different brands). Tried the pedal wrench dance thing, got tired of it real quick. Much prefer a low-cost PM on the crank on every bike.

A CFO friend of mine would often say that "most struggling companies are just one bankruptcy away from success."

I do not think that Stages has anything to offer toward its survival, however. If you scan across their major product categories, there is not much that might draw another company to invest or acquire to help Stages survive.

• Power Meters - Stages used to have a cost advantage, but the PM market has stabilized and become a little commoditized.
• Bike - Really cool, but this is becoming a crowded space and the Stages Bike does not offer anything special over the others
• Bike Computers - They are good, but Garmin seem to have this locked up. And seems to be the next best alternative offering. I like Stages is better than Wahoo, but they are a few steps behind the others.
• HRM - Totally a commodity space.

The Giant deal fell through last year. Maybe another fully integrated bike maker, like Trek or Specialized would buy Stages to get their computers and HRM. And a Specialized or Trek might be able to get more juice out of the Stages bike.

The bike ticked a lot of boxes for me, and it was hard to find all of these in others:

• Super quiet
• Easy to change position for different household members
• No thigh rubbing issues
• On the cheaper end for smart bikes

 
Made the news now:

Picked up this comment from a cycling forum

So it turns out Stages owes Giant a ton of cash and Giant is sueing Stages to settle the unpaid invoices totalling $13million ish.
Four of Stages top execs have now joined Giant so lets wait for the technology to re-emerge under the Giant brand. Giant already builds the Stages bike computer and all the indoor bikes.

How true it is, or whether it is just hearsay?

BRAIN article on this: https://www.bicycleretailer.com/...d-apparent-shut-down

i wonder if this ends up furthering a commoditization of power meters. SRAM has the inside track on this. i think 3/4 of all RED-equipped complete bikes are specd with power meters and i can only imagine that spec will trickle down. i don't know what the PM spec is on force equipped OE bikes.

i don't know much about this, but i don't think giant makes its own cranksets. the play here COULD be to get PMs on giant bikes at a lower cost. shimano is probably still pretty far behind on PMs, so, either giant would have to place its PMs on shimano cranksets for its own OE bikes (and the bikes it makes for other brands), or giant would make its own cranks.

or, there's some other tech that giant is interested in. maybe it doesn't care at all about the PMs and only wants stages employees to further its work on head units.

anybody in the know here?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Not in the know, but it's going to be tricky to have those employees legally do work on Stages-like PMs given Giant doesn't (yet) own the Stages IP. I assume the employees themselves don't own any of the designs.

If Giant comes out with a crank arm PM that looks like Stages in a very short timeline, can't imagine there won't be lawyers getting busy.

Apparently Giant has sued Stages over not paying their bills. My sheer guess is that Giant plans to acquire the Stages IP in settling that lawsuit. And then start producing power meters. Where those power meters will go, I don't know. Maybe they think they can glue on Stages-like PMs on SRAM/Shimano cranks for cheaper than buying the SRAM/Shimano versions.