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That would be sad
If you ask on the CRC thread Neil might answer.
Lol, who am I kidding?
I thought they were moving out of the bike market.
This brings me as much glee as the fall of CRC did Neil.
Good riddance.
Well in 2023 Superstarcomponents was showing as having £1m+ in nett assets. If they've gone tits-up something drastic has happened.
I’d be sorry to see them go: pedals, headsets, chainrings, all good.
A load of us have their wheels so may be wanting spares.
And as a made in UK component manufacturer I would be sad to see them gone.
As above - i think they were getting out of the bike industry - well at least the retail side of it..
Never really got the hate for UK based manufacturing. In my experience the products I used were spot on.
From comments on previous threads I think the owner simply diversified into more profitable manufacturing.
Never really got the hate for UK based manufacturing.
Neil/Fruit has a bit of previous here that a few with long memories elect not to forget/forgive.
I've got a a couple of chainrings and a couple of pairs of pedals from them I really like.
Bought some great stuff from them over the years and UK manufacturing is a big draw. Never liked the branding or the shades of their anodising, just a bit cheap and naff, so it makes sense for them to supply to other brand.
Never really got the hate for UK based manufacturing.
I don’t think folk hate UK manufacturing, i suspect there ire is rather more focused than that.
Unfortunately for those who hate Neil, I think this is a case of us needing him more than he needs us.
Neil/Fruit has a bit of previous here that a few with long memories elect not to forget/forgive.
That was probably 15 years ago now, people have had shorter life sentences for murder.
This brings me as much glee as the fall of CRC did Neil.
Did it? I got bored of the thread but from the bits I read he was quite robust in the failings of the business model and overstretching themselves, but sympathetic to the inevitable human cost. Ready to be corrected though.
Fair point convert. Some of the stuff from years ago wasn't great but personally I found some of his commentary on CRC insightful and honest but what do I know. It didn't come across as particularly gleeful to me.
If they’ve gone tits-up something drastic has happened.
Would the toughest 12 months trading the UK Bike Trade has seen in living memory count as 'drastic.'
I wasn't a fan of their original 'order out of a Chinese catalogue and stick your logo on it' business model but, credit where credit's due, they've put the work in since, started designing and making in house etc, it would be a shame if the current iteration disappeared.
Maybe they’re restocking all of CRC stuff.
There’s 684 tech caps that need selling.
Had a prompt reply to a query on Monday, so hopefully just a website glitch.
That was probably 15 years ago now, people have had shorter life sentences for murder
True.
And since the days when every set of superstar pads seemed to delaminate before it wore out I've used them a lot as they're a cheap known quantity, same with uberbike (although they didn't go through the early delaminating bit).
The catalogue parts were just crap. BB's that lasted a few rides, cranks that fell off, etc. I don't think it's vindictive in any way to not want to go back there, it's been a crowded marketplace, why would I go back to a company that I felt gave truly awful products customer service when other companies exist.
The UK made stuff, there always seemed to be something to put you off in long term reviews. Seemed like they'd invested in CNC kit an order of magnitude better/more expensive than what Hope were using, but didn't have the experience designing stuff to back it up. And for Hope priced hubs, you can also get Hope hubs, it's a difficult sell.
I've had loads of stuff from them and it's almost all been great.
My favourites are the alpine 30 rims bought as part of an Enduro wheel set for stupid cheap maybe a year ago when they sold off all the wheel stock.
They've taken a beating and are still true and undinged despite many a hamfisted landing onto a load of rocks. I'd put them equal to DT ex511.
Superstarcomponents are great, and I write that as someone who's had and forgiven their shonky brakepads and robust customer service back in the day.
Current headsets, seatclamps etc. are excellent and on a par with Hope IMO (in fact their bolt-up seatclamps are a better design).
AFAIK they are making plenty from medical CNC machining so hopefully they do remain in the bike biz too.
Only had good experiences buying from superstar. Hopefully they'll stick around in the biking parts market.
I've liked the items I've bought from them. Couple of sets of wheels. Some other bits n pieces.
All been good.
Recently bought a chainring and their response to an email to them was rapid. Really good service and I hope all is ok
I got another one of their brilliant headsets delivered last week. There was something in an email about warehouse moves/changes
Years ago there was someone on here who had had a bad experience with a wheelset and won his money back in small claims court. Anyway, he set up a website slagging them, something like superstarripoffmerchants.co.uk off convinced he was going to bring them down. I doubt it ever got indexed by any search engines, let alone have anyone visit it!
Anyway, he was adamant he would be their nemesis.
It has been up this week as I wanted to order a headset. I hadn't got round to measuring the head tube until today. I am hoping it is a temporary glitch
Gave up on getting a response from them when I wanted to exchange some wrong hub adapters they'd sent me by mistake. Still using a spare 'temporary' front wheel 3 months later 🙄
Shame though TBH as I've bought all sorts from them over the years with no probs.
I've been happy with all the bits and pieces I've bought from superstar over the years, would be sad to see them go.
Always had great stuff from SS and I've bought pretty much every product they've made over the years.
Would be a shame if SS did go, though I feel they no longer beat the rest of the market in the way they used to most - price.
Lots more competition now and their stuff does look a little 'dated' - pedals have gone up a huge amount in price.
As others say above though, I think Neil has enough to do and the bike biz he continues with is just a sideline now vs the other way around.
Less UK manufacturing is bad - more choice good.
Lets be honest though the current SS website is horrendous, like properly terrible so maybe its being taken down for re-design.
This brings me as much glee as the fall of CRC did Neil.
Good riddance.
I'm not exactly a Neil/ Fruit/ SSComponents fan but that's a ****ish thing to say.
As expected with some of your comments on here your weren't as brash and loud when we met in the real word.
You ****ed up with your hamfisted rock mechanics and tried to blame someone else.
That was a long time ago.
Plenty of time to grow up for most folks...
I’ve only bought pedals and they’re a bit crap frankly, had to change bearings inside 12 months of sporadic riding whereas my Wellgo flat pedals at less than half the price are still going strong and smooth 10 years later with no servicing.
This was from Superstar when I got my order sent last week,
Hello thankyou for your email, we will update status via emails on your order and account. You will get a notification once your order has been shipped and collected by our shipping partners when it happens.
We are moving to a fulfillment warehouse so parts are in several locations. Your order may ship as two shipments. While this is underway we are not shipping every day from the Lincoln warehouse.
We apologise for the inconvenience and will process orders and emails as fast as we can. while we transition to the new warehouse
So the company maybe shut while the transition happens?
Never had an issue, always good service. Their pedals are a favourite of mine, the wheels have lasted well, if a bit of a pain to set up tubeless. I understand some have a gripe, I think we can all agree that less choice is a bad thing.
Hopefully Superstar are still going strong for all that work there and their suppliers.
Judging from the email about fulfilment centres its likely a new site is being put up - the current (or past) website is utterly horrible and probably didn't have the functionality to deal with multiple fulfilment centres for order shipping.
Likely see a shopify type website pop up in the next few days, though it is a bit silly not announcing this on facebook / instagram or putting a holding page in place.
Get that Neil is a bit Marmite on here but IME the company has always provided well for customers.
Haven't bought anything from them for a while but they used to be one of my go to 'bits and pieces' vendors/manufacturers. Wheels, pedals, pads, all good. When I did need customer service (freehub explosion halfway round the Jacob's Ladder loop, which was nice) it was excellent - free, upgraded hub laced into my rim super quick with no quibbles.
Would be sad to see them go. More choice is good + UK made... so hope it's just a website thing/glitch.
They might get out of the bike trade, but it sounds like his CNC machines are spinning constantly on other stuff so I’m sure they’re fine. Bought loads wheels off him, a Pacenti rim failed- he laced it onto a stans one instead. No dramas at all.
How can you tell the machines are spinning constantly? The odd Facebook flex doesn’t really say anything.
He does have some properly serious machinery though so must have / had a lot of work at some point (and probably still has) to justify their purchase.
The economy is in a strange place right now though, not just the bike world, so anything could happen - hopefully not.
True, I have no idea TBH, just going on what Neil has said.
Superstar have always just been another neutral parts supplier to me. Not excellent, not dreadful.
Ive got a Switch Ultra front hub that seems indestructible. I had a matching rear hub that was terrible (ratchet made of cheese with a pawl design that was begging to squirt out of its seat and carve a groove through the ratchet). Not to mention axles that snapped if you looked at them wrong.
In terms of consumables (brake pads, chainrings etc) I've had loads off thrm when the price has been right.
I don’t wish them ill.
From what I read on social media they sold the wheel building business a few years ago and have no intention to continue with brake pads etc concentrating only on in-house products.
They were pushing chainrings out with 30% off for less than £25 for a while, take VAT, transaction fees, postage, material etc off and you can’t have more than £8.00-£10.00 left, got to sell a lot of them for it to be worthwhile, maybe they have decided it isn’t anymore, or needed to get some cash in quick.
got to sell a lot of them for it to be worthwhile, maybe they have decided it isn’t anymore
Well Neil seemed to allude to that in the CRC thread. Gave the impression we just weren't worth his while.
FWIW I can see his point. They came into the market as a budget brand, by manufacturing in house they're going up against the likes of Hope and Rideworks and they just don't have the rep to be commanding that sort of money. If they can put their machines to more productive uses then more power to them.
Well Neil seemed to allude to that in the CRC thread. Gave the impression we just weren’t worth his while.
Yeah, regardless of what happened with Neil many years ago, the fact that he was actively posting on the CRC/Wiggle thread while simultaneously ignoring a couple of "paging" posts from folks looking for some support on stuff they'd bought from Superstar made me think he'd stopped giving a shit about selling bike components.
I like a lot that their hubs were made in the UK and half the price of Hope. But I did notice that the slots for the pawls in my SS hub have a lot less metal around them than the equivalent Hope which might explain why a bit of that metal cracked off. Making hubs is probably a lot harder than it sounds.
I get the whole ‘he doesn’t give a shit about bike components anymore’ thing but it does seem like an odd position that while he was responding to the CRC thread in this way he was also posting pictures on FB of him making chainrings to sell at almost half the price of the competition / for very little profit.
If you don’t care about bike parts and have so much other more profitable work why make bike parts and sell them at not far off alibaba prices, especially when you are running the shop solo and time must be rather short.
Interesting that most posting have purchased wheels from them previously too when that side of things was sold off.
Appreciate this is a bit of an advert, however, looks like a good business model and not entirely bike related any more - as said.
Only made in November 2023, so unless work has dried up massively and he can't afford to pay for the machines, I guess all is probably good.
Would be good to get Neil to come on, but he's probably busy programming.
I bought something from superstar about 15yrs ago, realised they had reduced they had reduced the ‘strong, light, cheap - pick two’ wisdom by one. Haven’t bought anything since and the owners postings on here have done nothing to improve my view.
There are nicer people to buy cheap tat from.
@Twonks - the video was released in November but SS moved units and got the Matsuura(s) this time last year.
Unite Components has a few videos up lately from machine suppliers but they had to move back to sharing a unit / reduce staff since - these promo videos aren’t anything more then adverts for the machine suppliers.
A friend who’s quite high up in a shop says they refuse the MTD videos, no real gain for the shop, just a scripted ‘this machine has made my business amazing’ video and a day lost to it.
Overall I agree though - likely the site issue will be resolved or they have had enough of bike tat.
It wouldn't be fair to engage in unfounded speculation or cast aspersions on the management of a company based on imperfect information about its operations and a poor understanding of accounting and corporate law.
Taking the video as literal then the answer is that a third party will now run the website and sales
twonks
Full Member
Appreciate this is a bit of an advert, however, looks like a good business model and not entirely bike related any more – as said.Only made in November 2023, so unless work has dried up massively and he can’t afford to pay for the machines, I guess all is probably good.
Would be good to get Neil to come on, but he’s probably busy programming
It's for sale. None of his other equipment is.
Not stalking but fell down a Matsuura/CNC rabbit hole as I have an interest in CAD/manufacturing.
Superstar have some nice gear, if that has all been funded on the back of early Chinese catalogue rebranding then fair play to him.
https://www.superstarmanufacturing.com/capabilities
That's not a good sign, an almost brand new machine (looks immaculate, barely turned the spindle) and one of the new ones the video above was made to promote them buying being sold off at Cott - I believe they had two of these at the same time, a huge investment for a small company, they must be £500k+ each.
It could be that was a machine on finance and surplus to requirements if things have slowed hence the sale, or maybe more is to come. The loss on this thing will be eye watering.
Certainly doesn't pair well with the website going down.
I love UK Manufacturing.
I absolutely hate UK companies proclaomkng their Britishness when they are pedalling (no pun intended) shite from China (other oppressive regimes also available). It's just deceitful Bullshit. And all too common these days.
Ever seen shiiite brake pads fall apart on a ride. **** dangerous!
Superstar have always made it really clear what is uk made.
Might be telling that we've had no word on here from Neil yet. I'd have expected him to squash this if not true by now.
They don't seem to have been actively marketing for a long time, or adding much in the way of new products.
Maybe the web service came up for renewal and he just thought "**** it, I CBA anymore".
As I've said on other threads, their chainrings are my favourite (I find them more durable than most) and their Slackeriser headset is a fab, reasonably priced product. I'd miss those.
My first thoughts were that the website, which was awful had either failed or was being replaced.
Pair that with a 1 year old machine being auctioned (Finance companies / liquidators often use Cotts, not private sellers) and no explanation of the site going down on social media though and it does have a more serious look to it.
As I say, I believe a few of the other UK manufacturing guys are also sweating big time right now, they only do bike parts though.
I'm not really following this thread - in the sense, it seems to be bigging up SSC bits or really not liking SSC products...and it now seems to be suggesting that they are going under?
I certainly hope that isn't the case, never good that a company closes...
Their website has been down since Friday, no holding page or announcement as to what is happening on social media and a post above shows their recently purchased, rather expensive machine is being auctioned off for sale.
It also looks like they have removed the promotional video from Facebook where the machine is being showed off and the machine has been removed from the www.superstarmanufacturing.com
Are they 'going under' - unlikely, are they suffering in the same way many business are right now - quite likely.
Lot of speculation which I am also guilty of here, I am sure reality will show up soon, the mutterings about hating superstar are the usual crowd who cant leave things in the past even though they happened over 10 years ago.
Imagine how many posts there would be on a forum or how many conversations made if everything was absent of speculation?
I have nothing against Neil or SS but do know a few people who are in the machine-shop world and closely linked so that side is an interest to me.
Neil was also rather happy to speculate on the demise of CRC when facts weren't available.
So he's probably up the swanny? I can give up all hope of getting the hundred odd quid he owes me back? (If it helps frankconway, it's a fact that he has £100 of mine)
Hopefully this is just because of the expected changes to their order fulfilment process, but a bit surprised the site is down.
Bought my first part off them a month or two ago, they weren't on my radar until I read about them on here, so had some catching up to do on the historical negativity and animosity. The guy does seem to occasionally jump in guns blazing, but I get the impression he's done pretty much everything single handedly. So from product design to taking on the huge loans to purchase those very expensive machines to market research , sales and marketing to answering customer service issues, to working 12+ hour shifts 7 days a week. Not to excuse the occasional abrasiveness that doesn't help the brand image, but if that was me I'd be cranky AF. Running your own business can be terrifying.
Parts quality and design seems to have improved over the years, while prices are keen with the direct to consumer model, though he recently stated prices may be going up soon. Hope the guy's doing ok and it's back to business as usual
The whole ‘doing it alone’ thing (which seems impossible and more a marketing statement for the video imo) is recent - companies house show 5 employees at the last filing.
Superstar has a fairly long history, from importing rebranded parts to in house manufacture and more recently the public announcement that bike parts dont pay, which might explain the site being down.
What is true is that he is impressively self funded, and has a lot of bloody expensive machinery, one of which when up for auction 4 days ago, about when the site went offline.
I am certainly not in the SS hater camp, I think what he has done with the company is bloody impressive, none of the other UK lot have managed it.
Imagine how many posts there would be on a forum or how many conversations made if everything was absent of speculation?
Sure but there is speculation ("I reckon BYD will sell an e-bike soon" or "De Bruyner will move to Saudi") and speculation that can affect real people's livelihoods. There's a hundred different reasons why some machine could get sold and yet people are treating it as proof that someone's business is kaput.
The reason the thread started is the sites down, someone then found the machine for sale, some people are owed money and nobody has heard from them and no announcement via social media or otherwise which would take a few seconds to remove all speculation.
As I say, Neil saw fit to do the same on the CRC thread did he not?
Hope it all works out nicely - I know Neil moved the business from Lincoln to Brackley to be better placed for motorsport subcontract work (makes sense) so hopefully that flow of money is safe, even if there's been a change of fortunes in the bike industry.
As others have said, I too have had plenty of SS parts over the years and been impressed - the only issue I ever had was a rear hub dying after a very hard season of riding & racing, and SS built an upgraded hub into the wheel for me at no cost, so I was well pleased.
To build from a badge/brand/import business into UK manufacturing and subcontracting for others is quite the achievement.
Hopefully it all shakes out and a new website is up soon, I reckon maybe using Amazon FBA for logistics as that'd alleviate a lot of the pain many D2C companies currently face in many industries.
Looking at the images on their website there's zero chance you could fund the payments on those machines with just one employee. I think even x5 employees would be stretching things.
Ok I have been unfair with my wording there, in no way do I believe SS is upto anything of that nature at all and as I say above genuinely think what he has achieved is hugely impressive and I hope they continue in business.
Ill keep it buttoned until the facts play out and buy a new chainring if the site comes back up for being a dick.