[Closed] Sick bikes maybe not so sick

https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/4/EU011252251

https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/4/EU017449158

For example

That would be handy if you were trying to hide your previous dealings a bit.

Is anything they do original?

poorly bike company ?

or the poorly teeshirt company maybe.

Well all the good names are taken, so it is a bit difficult to be original there. At least they didn't try "the Naked Bicycle Company" - that would be way more unoriginal.

Will they be calling themselves Ubyk?

What are they changing to?
Puke?
Vomit?
Ponzi cycles? (nice Italian ring to it)

Said it before and I'll say it again.

Botulism Bikes.👍

Sick, that's free, you can have it on me.

Said it before and I'll say it again.

Botulism Bikes.👍

Sick, that's free, you can have it on me.

You're welcome.

Holy smokes the parallels with Dashbot are even more striking.
Dashbot project on kickstarter
Used social media to keep the excitement high
Pushed other product sales to continue their social media (C.H.I.P) and Corp front end
Teased investors with a couple of prototype images.
Dashbot announced name change to Voder with legal issues

Then...
Things went real quiet
Dashbot continued to ignore questions by investors on updates and project status
Dashbot ran the f*** away with everyone's money long enough after Kickstarter had handed over the cash and credit card chargebacks expired.to leave everyone out of pocket.

Sick are a massive sensor company.

I'm sure writing a letter saying we don't tread on your toes to the BOD would be enough to satisfy there's no common ground or confusion

"Sickly Bikes"

?

Irritable Bowel Syndrome Bikes?
I>B>S> would maybe look cool on a brown t shirt............

Suck!

Imaginary Bike Co.

I suspect they're trying to make some other point here, but this made me laugh

Norwegian Blue?

I'd say Ghost bikes, but that's already taken.

Why did i just get that email they sent out?

They only sent it out to the haters.

Wamblecropt bikes.

Bring back an old time word to mirror the archaic delivery and customer services

Why did i just get that email they sent out?

They follow you on Instagram. Soon they'll be following you home...

According to the latest email...

Got the full email? Care to share?

Blackflag

Member
I’d say Ghost bikes, but that’s already taken.

Vapour cycles?

Debilitated Dandy Horse?

I'll guarantee that's not TM'd yet. Come on you know you want to.

They're down to about 4 dedicated fanbois now who still comment on all their posts. kingzarse is my favourite Sick fanboi, he comments via emoji every time, check it out lol... The initial hype is dying and no one's willing to put their reputations into shady dealings. Good to see a bunch of new faces waiting for bikes, every insta post gets a 'where's my bike at?' too.

Full email.......

And where have you been?.

Well, you must have know something was up (for a start, I was hardly online, I LOVE ONLINE). As you likely know, We never trademarked Sick (if you want to know our reasons, skip to the bottom I go into more detail). We found out that a lawyer from a component company had started legal action over the name sick (They sent paoerwork to Tims old house address from 2 years ago?). They started their brand in 2018, and figured that since we didn’t trademark Sick then it was OK to just take it and get global ™. Totally legal, yup. Morally, a little grey.

We’ve never talked to the company, they never approached us to chat, just liked our name and took it. It looks like it's going to take a lot of money to fight it, and on top of that, we don’t really want to ‘own’ the name sick so, really, this is going to make a bunch of lawyers some money and relieve a couple of startups of their turnover. In this kind of thing, no one really wins.

Best case scenario, they see its a PR disaster (we suggested live and let live) worst case, we have to change the brands name, not the end of the world, but not what we want. Home is wherever you guys are.

London Bike Show.

As a rule, I don’t really like doing events, it takes up alot of time, and I’m not great in big crowds. But its coming round again

LONDON BIKE SHOW

But, we do have a product launch to do and its one of those, NEXT STAGE IN EVOLUTION kinda deals. No secret, we’ve had trouble with logistics and keeping up with demand. Never really managing to catch up. The Shrike and The Sesh will be changing that. We’ve made a massive order to Taiwan, made by one of the most respected steel frame fabricators, with the personal help of alot of much larger bike brands who dedicated time to help us get it right, we will have these frames onshore around June time. In the UK it will be next day(ish) delivery for the most part. It’s really surreal to be at this junction, something we have really wanted to make happen and finally we will be there. But what about the UK? Well, one of the reasons I’ve been under the radar a bit is I’ve been handling reshoring some products. Mainly setting up for the Gnarcissist, Deathwish and Gravel bike to be made here, south of London, in the UK. We won’t be severing our former manufacturers off, these frames will be in addition, and will be held stock only. As you can imagine, getting them ready at a reasonable price requires a bit of dark magic. So, Lee has designed a largely CNC aluminum rear, coupled with a brazed or tig welded steel front triangle which will be available in a few varieties (Straight up 4130 through to Reyonlds / Columbus).

Feel free to chant ITS COMING HOME. The Sesh and Shrike demo bikes have been going down super well, you can test them in Swinley, in Brighton and soon enough, in North Wales.

We've not really named it yet but its a Deathwish, but also kinda not.

Paypal Shutdown Resolved
We can now accept Paypal on www.sickbicycle.co again, but it will be for a limited time as we are getting a bit tired with them messing us around.

From time to time, Paypal get sh**ty with us. Despite having all of our legal documents (passport, marriage certificate, er, to my wife, not each other, we are just good friends) Well they decided that they would ‘freeze our account’ to ‘better understand it’ in the meantime this meant we couldn't progress some refunds, so that ‘concerned them that they were getting a spike in resolution centre requests’ well, you don’t say!?! Why ever could that be! -

After we sacrificed a chicken and kissed a picture of Elon Musk. They undid what has been done. However this was the final straw so we are swapping out Paypal for Amazon payments - I know from one evil corp to another, but what can you do? That's capitalism folks.

Why we didn’t protect the name.

In the first instance, Sick was designed to be a company that acted as to make a tool for riders. You look at The Gnarcissist, Gnarpoon, Sleipnir, they are hardly likely to dethrone any major brands best sellers. They are for a small group of people. So we didn't really want to go the corporate route.

It’s our feeling that common use terms should not be trademarked, SICK is a term that many people use, in fact, we overused it so much that’s why we called Sick, Sick.

Its a term that belongs in action sports, not to be hoarded and trademarked. Which is laughable.

The language of extreme / action sports is part of its culture. It’s ingrained. People shouldn't ‘own’ that. We don’t have the right to commodify the culture.

Not only laughable, it’s wrong and, from a business perspective, its bad PR and costly to fight.

Example, Brewdog famously lost over the word ‘Punk’ - Trademarking the term Punk must be just about the most un-punk thing ever. Its not even unusual in the bike industry, heck, lots of indies went to war with specialized over the name EPIC and ROUBAIX.

Whilst we openly joked in interviews, one day we would be as big as Trek and Specialized, the truth is closer to the fact that, we all had day jobs, we all had young families, and this was going to just be a vehicle for releasing cool bikes we wanted to own and our group of friends wanted to ride. I frequently get told I’m ‘in it for the money’ which is staggering. I’ve lived bikes my whole life, my parents lived bikes, none of us even have a driving license! If Sick failed, I’d still be doing bikes stuff, I’d be working for another bike company or something.

See you at LBS

Jordan

Hang on they are making a gravel bike!!

Interesting they are moving from paypal to amazon payments.

Anyone ever had to claim via amazon payments to a 3rd party?

As for it being because of Paypal messing them around well...

You'd think it would be a grovel bike.... But you'd be wrong it's not their style. Your wrong not them !

Anyone ever had to claim via amazon payments to a 3rd party?

1) you’re limited to 50 claims. Now, I’ve only had to claim off PayPal twice, so I admit being scammed 50 times would be downright careless, but why put a limit on it if they’re genuine cases?
2) the maximum you can claim is £2k. Really?! Why would anyone in their right minds buy something over this limit (like, oooh, an expensive bike) then?!

Or realistically we are now on very unfavourable terms with pay pal after using way too many lives up so we need to move - probably

Morally, a little grey

That was my favourite part.

Can they not go all Santa Cruz on this, and rename as S1CK ?

51CK, Shirley?

Morally, a little grey

That was art.

Also, the other company called Sick...This lot?

https://www.sickcomponents.com

Hardly a big outfit, by the looks of it. Still, Andorran lawyers, eh?

Yes Tom… you have it sorted… send them a message.

Why we didn’t protect the name.

In the first instance, Sick was designed to be a company that acted as to make a tool for riders. You look at The Gnarcissist, Gnarpoon, Sleipnir, they are hardly likely to dethrone any major brands best sellers. They are for a small group of people. So we didn’t really want to go the corporate route.

It’s our feeling that common use terms should not be trademarked, SICK is a term that many people use, in fact, we overused it so much that’s why we called Sick, Sick.

Its a term that belongs in action sports, not to be hoarded and trademarked. Which is laughable.

The language of extreme / action sports is part of its culture. It’s ingrained. People shouldn’t ‘own’ that. We don’t have the right to commodify the culture.

Not only laughable, it’s wrong and, from a business perspective, its bad PR and costly to fight.

Example, Brewdog famously lost over the word ‘Punk’ – Trademarking the term Punk must be just about the most un-punk thing ever. Its not even unusual in the bike industry, heck, lots of indies went to war with specialized over the name EPIC and ROUBAIX.
We couldn't afford it.

Fixed.

Yes Tom… you have it sorted… send them a message.

Will do, just as soon as I've filed the TM.

Suck bike co?

Why we didn’t protect the name.

In the first instance, Sick was designed to be a company that acted as to make a tool for riders. You look at The Gnarcissist, Gnarpoon, Sleipnir, they are hardly likely to dethrone any major brands best sellers. They are for a small group of people. So we didn’t really want to go the corporate route.

It’s our feeling that common use terms should not be trademarked, SICK is a term that many people use, in fact, we overused it so much that’s why we called Sick, Sick.

Its a term that belongs in action sports, not to be hoarded and trademarked. Which is laughable.

The language of extreme / action sports is part of its culture. It’s ingrained. People shouldn’t ‘own’ that. We don’t have the right to commodify the culture.

Not only laughable, it’s wrong and, from a business perspective, its bad PR and costly to fight.

Example, Brewdog famously lost over the word ‘Punk’ – Trademarking the term Punk must be just about the most un-punk thing ever. Its not even unusual in the bike industry, heck, lots of indies went to war with specialized over the name EPIC and ROUBAIX.
We couldn’t afford it.

Fixed.

Yes Tom… you have it sorted… send them a message.

Will do, just as soon as I’ve filed the TM.

Bit harsh it's only 400 quid ,

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">From time to time, Paypal get sh**ty with us. Despite having all of our legal documents (passport, marriage certificate, er, to my wife, not each other, we are just good friends) Well they decided that they would ‘freeze our account’ to ‘better understand it’ in the meantime this meant we couldn’t progress some refunds, so that ‘concerned them that they were getting a spike in resolution centre requests’ well, you don’t say!?! Why ever could that be! –</span>

Bit harsh it’s only 400 quid ,

Given the amounts they aren’t refunding customers (I’m talking T-shirt money now, apparently it’s not just frames they are shit at sending out), I’d say it’s a fair guess.

They should shove it to Paypal and set up their own payments service, with minimal protection. They could call it statutory sick pay.

IANAL so happy to be corrected on this but, isn't it a very very easy case of proving you've been using a name /branding for a significant period before the trademark was registered?

It shouldn't be much more expensive than recorded post, if as per their email it's the new component company.

9.1 here I think
Linky

On the other hand of course I can imagine the (greyspoke's posted) 2012 registration for clothing related trademarking of sick would cause a t shirt company more problems.

Also, the other company called Sick…This lot?

Welcome to the sickness.

The Squits Bicycle co?

munchausen by proxy bikes

Or

Stockholm syndrome cycles?

Puke PushBikes 🙂

Picolax Cycles?

Menstrual cycles? 'Cos they are all........................

“They should shove it to Paypal and set up their own payments service, with minimal protection. They could call it statutory sick pay.”

Deserves repeating as it seems to have been missed up there. Great work.

Getting Donald Trump to do their email marketing is a stroke of genius.

'Stick' Bicycles, coz no one would touch them even with a sh!tty one.

Ok what am I missing, they aren't called "Sick" they are "Sick Bicycle Co" aren't they?

They are a registered limited company, and there are plenty of companies using the word "sick" in their Ltd.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/search?q=Sick

And Sick Corp Ltd has common Directors!

I'm no expert but I think it sounds very fishy, some tin pot spanish components company surely do not own the right to use the word "sick" in a company name.

So what's the real story?

So what’s the real story?

They're ripping people off by taking money and not delivering the products. HTH.

Given their ability to hype something seems a shame they don't have the skills to deliver.

Never realised a bike brand could do so much clothing - I think rapha have less options!

Looks like their website is down now?

Looks fine to me?

Their latest “sorry” insta post actually read quite well.....then they did the “it was out of our hands” but again, weird that they don’t get that it’s always their fault when they later talk about being from a manufacturing background

I see from the pink bike coverage that sick are at the London bike show. Had anyone been down and asked them where their bike is?

Evidently they have one of the bigger stands.

Wonder where everyone’s money went?

To be fair the show was pretty sparse and lots of exhibitors who shouldn't be able to afford to exhibit were doing, so I reckon the new owners probably cut a lot of deals to fill the hall. Sick had a big floorspace but 4 or 5 bikes there, so doubt they booked that space, it was probably upgraded.

They should shove it to Paypal and set up their own payments service, with minimal protection. They could call it statutory sick pay.

This needs a wider audience 🤣👍

It would be a shame if nobody from the bike media turned up to chat with them about their supply issues instead of just punting out their press releases. You know - actual journalism.

From Pinkbike...no hint of irony.

This UK based company had a large stall at the show - bigger than some of the world's leading brands - and their collection of long and slack bikes also stood out from the crowd. The Sesh has one of the nicest paint jobs of the whole show.

I liked this from the insta feed

"Cheers for finnaly sending my frame from that competition last year really enjoying it haha. When are you actually gonna post it this is a joke you do a competition and never send off the prize and the other boss messages you to say il send it off personally and deliver it to your house and never dose good work guys keep it up"

Mind you this is pretty close

"We’ve always been about the rider, now we want to make sure we can take care of our customers."

“We’ve always been about the rider, now we want to make sure we can take care of our customers.”

Wha? By default any customer they have will be a bike rider.

The only reason why their customers aren’t riders at the moment is because they’re waiting for their bikes 😂

Bike journalism is in a sorry state if nobody is willing to report on what this company is doing. Sad state of affairs.

Well Andi is at the show, I’m sure he’ll have a chat.

Bike journalism is in a sorry state

This ∆∆∆∆∆∆

You ask a magazine if their interested in your new blah blah and they get you to send in your own copy.....

However as I said previously even OJ sold a million papers ....and he was really naughty

Well Andi is at the show, I’m sure he’ll have a chat.

Looking at insta, he’s already had a nice long chat...

View this post on Instagram

Looking at insta, he’s already had a nice long chat…

Be writing a long article maybe .

You need to remember Tom this is an industry where there are favourites and the sun shines out of certain people's arses.

Oh, I’m fully aware, just shedding some of that sunlight back on those relationships.

The comments on the PB London bike show news article get stuck in quickly on their appalling customer service...fair to say word is out now on their reputation

That Ribble frame looks lovely

Reckon the whole trademarks thing is just a big distraction, smoke and mirrors. We can't deliver, but in the meantime, just concentrate on our imaginary trademark issues while we either a) sort stuff out or b) disappear in the smoke we just created. Decide for yourselves which is the most likely.

Sorry, Saturday morning conspiracy theories coming through.

Browsing for a cheap hardtail and found this- LINKY

Even the people who actually received bikes aren't happy with Sick.

Looks like Andi is another fanboi....Dimbleby wouldn't have let them off like that 😉

Sick could sort all this out so easily once and for all by actually sorting out existing customers before new ones, I can't understand why this mess is still continuing, is worse than Brexit

Sick need to start owning their problems and start taking responsibility for their products. People didn’t order their products from their suppliers they ordered them from Sick and they should be able to to details the problem and give updated delivery dates and respond to customer queries. Actually scrap that. They should just know where the reply button is on their email client.

I’m blocked from their Instagram now for calling them out. They still delete the negative without responding and putting complaint to bed. Remember when they used to be fighty and said they would take on the haters? Well I’m here, let’s hear what you have to say.

Have to agree about the journalism, or shocking lack of it. I understand bike mags being essentially glossy adverts but to have prominent threads on forums lamenting the service from a company that actually calls people out for fights and not question them about their conduct sucks.

If they're your mates you should be letting them know it's no way to conduct business, if you've just bought into their publicity then my god how crap a journo are you?

Next time I see sick bike on the homepage I expect a proper arcticle, not a promo helping them raise more money and not deliver to customers.

Perhaps the editors would like to comment?

*1 for the lack of interest from journos on this.

Disappointed..

Bike "journalism" is too timid to even bite a hand that doesn't feed it.

Unless it's about sexism, obvs.

a company that actually calls people out for fights and not question them about their conduct sucks.

I’ve seen the owner and I don’t think he could fight off a cold. Very odd behaviour.