Klein: Back from the Dead
April 11th, 2008 by Arleigh JenkinsThe buzz around Trek/Lemond split has left many questions. What is next for Trek? Will Armstrong be introducing a new bike line?
What most folks didn’t hear during all this buzz was the word Klein. That’s right Klein is coming back to the states. Just when Trek was pushing out the last old stock of Klein from their warehouses they decide the flip the switch back to on “On.”
WATERLOO, WI (BRAIN)—Trek will introduce a new Klein road bike line to its worldwide dealers this summer.
The line could replace LeMond bicycles on shop floors if Trek is successful in its appeal to drop the brand. The company yesterday asked a federal court to release it from its licensing agreement to produce LeMond bicycles.
Trek owns the Klein brand, which it purchased from Gary Klein in 1995. Trek withdrew Klein from the U.S. market a few years ago. It remains a current brand with current products outside of the United States.
Some Trek retailers speculated that Trek would simply put a Klein decal on current LeMond road models to preserve those designs.
But Joe Vadeboncoeur, director of product development for Trek Bicycles, said Trek is developing the new line expressly for Klein.
“Since there is a current Klein brand with its own unique product mix and brand identity, we will not be selling any current products that Trek developed for any of our other brands, relabeled as Klein,” said Vadeboncoeur.
Read the whole article over at Bicycle Retailer.
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Hmmm……Road bike stuff
Glad to see the guys and gals from Blue collar posting some new stuff though.
Kerbouchaud, I’m more excited about Klein as a mountain biker. Yes the article is about Trek/Lemond/Klein but I feel that the whole trek merger/seperation will affect Trek as a whole.
I’m just hoping that Trek doesn’t have any quaility fallouts in the midst of all of this merger / seperation. Funy thing is I have talked to a lot of people that used ride Treks a few years ago and they all complain that Trek Sucks. All of the people that ride Trek now love them and have nothing bad to say about their frames.
I can’t help but wonder if the frames that get all of the complaints were made during the original merger seperation when the focus was on the business instead of designing and building a top quality bike.
Again, I’m just guessing and surmising here as I can find no other logical explanation for the lack of faith that the old riders have with Trek.
I love the damn things and just hope they don’t screw it up again…Course with a lifetime warranty on thir frames I guess there isn’t too much to worry about.
As for the road bike thing, I live in a part of florida that does not lend itself to road biking. I’m pretty sure that every bad driver from other states has been banished to this part of Florida. There are some guys that do it, but It just aint safe. I feel safer riding the double black diamonds than I do riding on the road.
The Klein Attitude, despite the cable routing that made some mechanics pull out their hair, used to be a go to frame for folks who wanted a brick stiff rear triangle for racing. I hope they bring back the entire line.
I was excited to hear that LeMond was getting away from Trek, now I have mixed feeling about Klein coming back.
:’(
1. They are Back in the US, and though they are aluminum, I have heard they are Seriously fast!
2. BUT they are part of Trek
So what’s the real deal, why do road racers hate trek?
Quinn: See, this is a comment I have seen over the years that I just don’t understand. The fact is that Klein, on it’s own, would have closed shop years ago with some help. Trek came in and became that help. If Trek supposedly ruined Klein, as so many insist that they did, who then would not have ruined them?
The fact that Klein is still around at all is because some other company infused money into that company to keep them alive. Whether that was Trek or someone else is not why Klein stagnated or became less than stellar.
Klein was well on its way to obsolescence before Trek got its mits on the company. Gary was reluctant to move to suspension, first for the front end, and then was off the back with rear suspension trends. Without real innovations in these areas, Klein was passed by quickly in the fast paced 90’s when all this suspension business was at it’s hottest.
If Trek did anything wrong, it was that it didn’t have anything going on itself with rear suspension other than a mildly successful URT bike. It didn’t have anything to give Klein at that time that may have kept the line relavant in mountain biking terms, like say Cannondale, (the most closely compared aluminum mtb company to Klein) had.
Certainly things have changed since then and Trek has much to offer a brand like Klein which is sorely in need of an overhaul in my opinion.
Ted,
I am not diagreeing that Trek has a lot to offer Klein, I am just stating my dislike for Trek.
And I ask again Quinn, WHY?
It was a two way street in terms of technology between Trek and Klein for a while. The aluminum alloy that Trek now uses on their high end hard tails was first found in the Klein line, in the aforementioned Attitude frame. It made for some seriously thin tubes, rivaling the scandium alloyed stuff everyone is gaga over these days.
I don’t know that Klein ever got fully left behind in the suspension end of stuff by the rest of the Trek stable. I mean, the Adept was essentially a Fisher Sugar with a shorter top tube, which was not so dissimilar to a Fuel in that they were both linkage driven single pivots. It has only been in the last two years that Fisher/Trek have been trying new things, in terms of fork offest for the former and that new floating shock mount and concentric to the axle pivot feature for the latter. Klein at least tried that second generation URT thing in the interim with the Maverick licensed design on the Palomino, which by most accounts was a really good riding bike.
Whatever, I ramble. I think Klein’s problem was a marketing one..Gary Fisher sells bikes the way Miley Cyrus sells lip gloss and blond wigs. The hoi polloi respond to the Trek brand at the sound of the name Lance like nothing else. Klein only ever had beautiful paint, innovative (at the time) frame designs and an uber nerd at the helm. Gary Klein isn’t exactly going in the spot where you have your Cheryl Tiegs poster.
Why? I go for bikes/companies like Cannondale and Rocky Mountain and Raleigh
I see……..I think? Kinda like I prefer a Toyota, Lexus or Honda cause they have really cool names and their cars look really nice but…..I drive a Kia cause that’s what I can afford and there really isn’t a damn thing wrong with it except that it doesn’t have a cool name and maybe not so flashy? Oh yeah, Kia has a great warranty too.
Sorry, not trying to be arguementative but I’m looking at buying a new bike soon and I’m really wanting to know if there is really anything wrong with Trek or if it’s just a case of brand-name snobbery.
Kerbouchaud,
bikes are a personal think, go with what already know, For instance, I much perfer steel, and shimano, and rim brakes, also, exacly what are you going to use it for?
Last summer I picked up an XXIX, its still, but disc, I got that one because it was In the LBS, rather than weight a month for an SE Stout, which is alloy but rim brake.
I then bought a Kona Jake, alloy, I compromosed on the steel because I needed something light weight and it was in-expensive.
I’m currently running a K-2 hardtail (don’t laugh) with XTR v-brakes rocksox dart-3 fork, travitiv cranks with Mallet C clipless pedals. XT front and rear derailiurs with shimano rapid fire shifters. Titec Hellbent OS stem and bars and getting ready to pick up a set of Sun rims. I do a lot of tight technical singletrack in Florida with a lot of jumps, drops and pretty steep fast decents, but I also ride some XC type trails when there is nothing else rideable.
The bike I’m looking at is a Trek fuel EX-6 if I can still get one, or a 5.5 if the 6 isn’t available anymore. They look like good bike, have half decent componentry (I can always upgrade what I don’t like) the prices are right (under $1300) and they have a lifetime warranty on the frame. My big question mark is why a lot of people who have been in the sport for a while don’t like the Trek bikes? They look pretty decent to me.
You got it right with the snobbery idea. When you spend years in this sport, what one actually needs to enjoy the woods becomes increasingly obscured by brand name concerns and a not so subtle push by advertisers and magazines to drop all of your coin on the newest edition of bike part gee-whizzery. The fact is that Trek makes good bikes backed up by good warranty (though they are as guilty of selling snake oil as anyone).
Bottom line is that there is no concrete reason why you shouldn’t feel good about spending your resources on a Trek bike, or any other for that matter, you have found you enjoy.
Kerbouchaud, from 2000 until just last year Trek was trailing Specialized, Giant and others in their factory processes — Trek were using outdated building methods that limited their designs. Trek finally bit the bullet to retool last year and their current bikes are excellent. Not saying the previous bikes were bad, but you could get better bikes for the same money from elsewhere, especially at the very high end. Current Treks are about evenly matched with their competitors.
I talked to a Trek rep this morning about the future of Klein and it looks like it’s going to be all road. No mountain bikes are planned for the obvious reason… Gary Fisher and Trek are already covering that.
So Klein will be back from the dead… but not back to it’s roots.