Brandon Els

Could be the new mountain bike specific Oakley Jawbones.

GoLefty In 2007 Oakley paid an R 212 000 admission of guilt fine for fixing prices at retailers in South Africa. Too many good people are being hurt by what is being posted on this forum. Human beings err and I believe that an error was made in arranging this meeting. Even though Probike did not agree with the meeting we still did attend the meeting which in hindsight is also an error. The intention of the meeting was incorrect, but I am prepared to sign an affidavit that I am not aware of any pricing in the bicycle industry actually being affected and I have many people in the industry from who I can gather this proof. I suggest that all attendies of the meeting negotiate an admission of guilt fine with the competitions commission based on the intention, but not the outcome of the meeting. This will stop some attendies of the meeting being left to dry and take all the heat. Collective responsibility should be taken for the error in judgement of the intention of the meeting and even though I disagreed with Fritz on the intention of the meeting, he and Andrew should not be hung out to dry on this matter. There were too many people present. Oakley have done this in 2007 and they are a great company who also err'd. This is my view of a resolution. We have all stated our points of view. Brandon

Harryn I posted on this forum in the first place in response to Probike's name appearing on a list of attendee's of a cycle industry meeting. The competition between a few players in the cycle industry is quite legendary. I don't mind that this thread was switched to the contents of a private e mail I sent to Silverback. The e mail was in response to Silverback informing dealers the pricing and spec of Raleigh. We prefer of course that dealers would rather look at Probike's own catalogues and latest price lists. Silverback has won the latest round in the marketing battle by getting my e mail published here. That's okay. It's a kind of Coke/Pepsi or MTN/Neotel thing between the 2 brands. Silverback is going to keep making our life tough with excellent priced product and positioning themselves cleverly as Zoon has done by forwarding this e mail for posting here and we are going to keep their life tough by doing the exact same thing, responding to their marketing to dealers and selling some product below our cost. Probike has many loss leaders that open our customers order books and they then order other product from us which is good for our business. Back to the reason I posted in the first place: it was in response to Probike being associated with a certain industry meeting. Industry players who post on these pages always run the risk of censure by members to a certain extent as I have personally experienced when I naively took on Chris Willemse here a year or 2 ago. That's also okay! Chris is still a good customer of Probike. As I said to Holy Roller I would prefer not to debate questions and counter questions on the forum regarding the original reason I posted here because my intention was merely to clarify our position on competition, but I am available at any time on 083 458 5552 or brandon@probike.co.za Brandon

This is the first time that Probike's name has been mentioned with regard to the meeting on this forum and thus feel I have to respond. I have posted below the response of Probike sent by myself on 19 September 2008 @ 18h27 to Fritz Pienaar in response to the minutes of the meeting recieved via e mail by Dave Wyatt from Probike. From: Brandon Els [mailto:brandon@probike.co.za] Sent: 19 September 2008 06:27 PM To: fritz@cyclesport.co.za Cc: 'Dave Wyatt'; 'stephen@coolheat.co.za' Subject: FW: Minutes - margins in the bicycling industry<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Fritz Probike would like to make it clear that we attended the meeting reluctantly. Our company does not agree with the contents of your e mail which implies that dealers must collude to achieve an agreed margin or exclude suppliers. Our company encourages competition amongst wholesalers and retailers. Please take this as our company?s official response to the minutes of the meeting that have been circulated by yourself. Kind Regards <?: prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Brandon From: Dave Wyatt [mailto:dave@probike.co.za] Sent: 17 September 2008 06:20 PM To: Brandon Els Subject: Fw: Minutes - margins in the bicycling industry ----- Original Message ----- From: Fritz Pienaar To: dave@probike.co.za Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:25 PM Subject: Minutes - margins in the bicycling industry Dear bicycle wholesaler and retailer, Thank you for your support and great response in making our industry more healthy. For those of you who were unaware of this meeting here is a quick refresher: "I am sure that most of you are aware that there are a lot of concerns in the retail bicycle industry. There is a lot of rumours about retail shops that are struggling and wholesalers that are not getting paid. This causes a lot of problems for everyone in the industry and I?m sure that you would agree that it is not a healthy position to be in. I have had numerous meetings with retail shops and wholesalers over the last couple of months and everyone seems to agree that the retail shops are not making enough profit and that something needs to be done about it. The bicycle wholesalers agree that a healthier retail industry would also allow for a healthier wholesale industry." We've had a great response from the meeting on 10th September 2008! With all the mayor bicycle wholesalers and retailers in Gauteng, we've all come to agreement that raising the margins is the resolution to the problem. It is of utmost importance that we sign-up and state that you support this decision, we need everyone?s support to be able to make this change and to be able to implement these changes right away. Click here to see the attendance of the meeting on 10th September 2008 Click here to see the meeting on 10th September 2008 minutes Please click here, to state if you are supportive of higher margins in the Bicycling Retail sector (We recommend that you read the minutes if you were not present at the meeting) Regards, Fritz Pienaar 083 275 2123 PS. Please forward this to all bike shops you know of, or wholesalers that did not attend.

It must be on a couch right? It was 9.25 kg out the box with Scwalbe Tyres and Scott Pilot Bars. The Crossmarks 2.1 UST worked well for me in the Epic so slapped them on with Stan's, took off the pilot bars and put on Ritchey WCS stem and Ritchey WCS 10 degree rizor bar. It now is more marathon ready at 9.82 kg. One can get crazy, I have the spec for an 8.8 kg 150 mm Genius, but how good is the ride?

Jules, I am answering this from JHB International about to catch a flight and will not be able to reply again until I am in China. The good news is that the prices in our 2008 Raleigh Breakaway Deal are unmatched in the industry so if somebody is looking for a bike its a good place to start. It is not just the devaluation of the currency, but a steep increase in factory prices ex the East in the first half of this year. If you multiply the factory price increases and the currency situation then the increases are a lot more than just the currency devaluation. We have also not mixed parts to reduce the cost of our bikes. We have continued with full group sets. Probike nett's between 4% - 5% of our turnover if this is an audit. Price increases are not just on bicycles. Please look at the prices of all goods that are just hitting our stores like Camelbak etc. Maybe this will force a restructure in the industry. Regarding some comments on Scott a Genius Limited retails anywhere in the world for about $ 12 000. It retails here for R 129 999.95 after we let 15% go to import duty. We sold 2 this week believe it or not. Hope this helps. There are tough times coming for all business.

Dylan and his 2009 Spark Jr RC just like Frischi's just 24".