The end of the year always brings those bleak, “I’m no longer part of…” type posts. Contracts expire and deals change. That is the way things work. But, on December 14th, something weird happened with GT Bikes. Albert Mercado was the first to post that he was, and I quote, “In 2025 I will no longer be riding for @gtbicycles (not by choice) Thanks for everything ✌🏽.” Over the next day or two, the rest of the team would follow suit. You can surely check the instagram of the following people and find some kind of heartfelt (well, mostly) about their time with GT: Brian Kachinsky, Bethany Hedrick, Dan Conway, Tate Roskelly, Chelsea Wolfe, Duda Pensa, Gustavo Balaloka, Jeff Purdy, Leandro Moreira, Julian Molina, Mason Ritter, Ratty Maty, Michael Dickson, Shane Leeper, Tom Justice, and Tristen Cooper.
I can see you there (you look great today, by the way) saying, “Damn, GT dropped their entire BMX team. Are they out of BMX?!” Before I answer, there’s more… A couple days later the mountain bike team began posting similar messages. As far as I can tell, about half of them had made a post about it thus far, but it’s a safe bet that they’re all gone, too. For proof, here’s one from David Lieb:
“Okay, so no BMX team and no MTB team. Are they going out of business?,” you ask? Here’s where I’m unsure… Bicycle Retailer posted an article yesterday with the headline: “GT Bicycles pausing new product releases, reducing workforce“
ALISO VIEJO, Calif. (BRAIN) — GT Bicycles, which separated from Cycling Sports Group/Cannondale to a stand-alone Pon Holdings brand last year with its own design team, will pause releasing new products while streamlining operations.
GT Managing Director Jason Schiers told BRAIN on Tuesday there will be layoffs before the end of the year but the brand will continue to sell bikes in 2025. In a story for BRAIN in February, Schiers said the GT team was expanding from eight to 23 employees.
“To ensure a sustainable and successful future, we are implementing a strategic reorientation to align with evolving customer preferences,” according to a statement by GT. The brand will focus “on core strengths, and refining our strategy to position GT for long-term growth. … We will continue to sell our current range from existing inventory,” GT said in the statement.
Warranty and customer service will be handled by Cycling Sports Group.
“GT Bicycles remains a brand with strong potential, and this decision has been taken to lay a solid foundation for its next chapter,” the brand said.
A bit vague (by design I assume), but it basically states that they’re not making any new products and laying off people, but will continue to sell their existing products (overstock?). Before I go any further, let’s get things somewhat clear…this is heavy. GT Bikes is a legendary brand. A brand that started in 1972. That was once the most popular BMX brand in the world and sponsored top names from Eddie Fiola, Gary Ellis, Dave Voelker, and Jamie Bestwick. But, we’ve been here before. GT’s founders Gary Turner and Richard Long sold a controlling interest to Boston-based investment firm Bain Capital in 1993. It became a publicly-traded company in 1995. In 1998, it was purchased by a company called Questor (who owned Schwinn) for 175 million dollars and, just three years later, they filed bankruptcy. Questor ended up selling GT for a reported 86 million to Pacifc Cycle where, and I quote: “All people at Schwinn/GT got fired after Pacific Cycles bought the company. Only a few employees got re-hired for 90 days to help Pacific with the transition. Riders were told that there would not be any paychecks coming till the end of the year.” A few years after that, Pacific Cycle was bought by Dorel, then Dorel was bought by Pon…see what I’m getting at?
So is GT Bikes dead? Surely not, as bike companies rarely seem to actually die—especially a legacy brand that is as large as GT. But, it has been gutted. There is no team and there are no new products in the works. Hell, we have no idea how many people even work at GT right now… So, I think it’s safe to say that we can collectively mourn what GT was and what it did for our little world: It is no longer supporting a couple dozen riders around the world, from Olympic hopefuls like Duda and Gustavo to young female riders pushing boundaries like Bethany Hedrick to established street bosses like Dan Conway or dirt legends like Leandro Moreira. It is not sending product and/or money to several events like Swampfest, Royal Rumble, and Bikeside Jams. And, on the selfish side, it will no longer be advertising with small media outlets via Dig and their print mag offerings, The Bloom’s trips and yearly calendar, or own efforts including NORA Cup. It’s fine if you are of the opinion that they are/were a big, “bad” corporation and we’re better off without them, but they also did a lot of cool, good things and we can’t simply discount that…
While the official word from GT seems to be that the brand is on “pause,” only time will tell what that really means. For now it seems like it’s going into some sort of caterpillar-like chrysalis/coma. I guess the real question is: Will it’ll emerge a butterfly or a chrome-plated turd?
And, for no reason at all, I’ll end with GT’s 1988 Demo Tape:
