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Trek Bicycle Corporation

Trek Bicycle Corporation is the world's largest manufacturer of bicycles sold by specialty retailers. Founded in 1976, the company sells close to a million bikes a year, as well as full lines of bicycle accessories and clothing. In addition to bicycles bearing the Trek brand name, the company also markets a line of mountain bikes named after Gary Fisher, one of the inventors of the mountain bike, and a line of bikes named for racing star Greg LeMond. Trek has several European subsidiaries, and its equipment is distributed in over 60 countries across the globe. In the United States, Trek maintains five Wisconsin manufacturing plants and four distribution centers. In addition to its manufacturing operations, Trek sponsors a number of racing teams, an on-site repair program, and an annual fund-raising ride for Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer.

Early History

Trek was established in 1976, at the peak of the 1970s bicycle boom. Its founders were Dick Burke, president of Milwaukee-based appliance and electronics distributor Roth Co., and Bevill Hogg, the proprietor of a chain of bike stores, one of which was located in nearby Madison. With financial backing from Roth's parent company, the Brookfield, Wisconsin-based Intrepid Corporation, Burke and Hogg launched Trek in an old warehouse in Waterloo, Wisconsin, located halfway between Milwaukee and Madison. With a work force of about five, the company began making high-quality, lightweight steel bicycle frames by hand.

From the outset, Trek committed itself to selling bicycles primarily through specialty bicycle stores, rather than through general retail outlets. This decision helped the company to maintain its image as a supplier of equipment for serious bicycling enthusiasts. Trek quickly became a favorite brand among that connoisseur market, and independent bicycle shops have remained Trek's most important outlet.

Competing primarily against European and Japanese manufacturers, Trek began to have an impact quickly, gaining industry attention both for the quality of its bikes and for being an American company. Trek bicycles were especially popular in the Midwest, the company's own backyard. By 1978, however, Trek was distributing to both coasts, as well as to other bicycling hotspots, such as Colorado. After only three years in business, the company's annual sales had grown to $750,000.

By 1980, Trek had outgrown its original plant. The company moved to a new facility in Waterloo, and there it began mass-producing bicycles. Sales were so brisk that Trek also contracted a Taiwanese firm to produce some of the company's bikes. Among bicycling enthusiasts, Trek was quickly gaining a reputation as a producer of the very highest caliber of bicycles available, and its sales reflected that reputation. During the early 1980s, sales virtually doubled each year.

The Age of Mountain Bikes

In 1983 Trek became a fairly early entrant into the mountain bike market, with the introduction of its 850 model. Developed in California in the late 1970s, mountain bikes featured more comfortable seats, fatter tires, and more gears than the ten-speed road bikes that dominated the market at the time. Fueled largely by the surging popularity of mountain bikes, Trek sold more than 45,000 bikes in 1984. The company also launched its Trek Components Group that year.

During the 1980s, Trek was one of the very few American companies that stood in the way of an all-out takeover of bicycle manufacturing by Taiwanese factories. Although even Trek continued to import some of its bikes from Taiwan, the company found that it was able to offset the somewhat higher costs associated with manufacturing in America by saving on ocean shipping and cutting out other middlemen. Even labor costs proved to be a relatively minor problem, since making bikes was seen by young employees, many of them avid bicycling hobbyists themselves, as a fairly glamorous job, and those employees were therefore willing to work for rather modest wages. As Trek expanded its facilities over the next several years, it was able to rely less and less on imports.

After a conflict with cofounder Burke, Hogg left Trek in 1985 to start his own bicycle company in California. In spite of the changes, Trek continued to grow at an impressive rate. In 1985 the company introduced its first aluminum road bike, Model 2000. Its first carbon composite road bike, Model 2500, hit the market the following year. By 1986 sales had soared to $16 million, and surging demand led to the addition of 75,000 square feet to the company's Waterloo manufacturing facility.

A New Philosophy for the Late 1980s

Ten years of startling growth did not come without problems, however. As Burke explained in a 1996 Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) interview, "In all fairness, Bevill [Hogg, company cofounder] was more of a dreamer than a manager." Although sales remained solid, Trek began to experience difficulties in a number of areas. Unsold inventory began to pile up, and as a result the company was losing money. With morale nearing rock bottom, Burke decided to take over the day-to-day management of the company. He instituted a "back to basics" approach, emphasizing sensible business practices and quality service. His new mission statement had four components: "Produce a quality product at a competitive price, deliver it on time in a positive environment."

Burke's new approach began to pay off quickly. Improved efficiency and marketing, combined with Trek's ongoing reputation for turning out quality products, breathed new life into the company's sagging bottom line. Sales doubled in each of the next three years. In 1987 Trek successfully introduced a new line of mountain bikes, and their popularity helped the company sell a total of about 100,000 bicycles in 1988.

Trek continued to find innovative ways to make money during the last years of the 1980s. In 1988 the company introduced a line of bicycling apparel. The following year, Trek entered the stationary bicycle market with Trek Fitness bikes. In 1989 the Jazz line of children's bicycles were introduced, and the company opened subsidiaries in Great Britain and Germany. Within five years, international sales accounted for about 35 percent of the company's business. By 1990 mountain bikes made up nearly half the bicycles sold in the United States, and Trek was prepared to claim a strong share of those sales. The company sold 350,000 bikes altogether that year. Trek's sales grew to about $175 million for fiscal 1991, and the company had about 700 employees by that time.

The High-Tech 1990s

During the first part of the 1990s, Trek remained at the technological forefront among bicycle manufacturers. Throughout the 1980s, the company had succeeded in developing advanced materials that enabled it to maximize the lightness and strength of its bicycle frames. These breakthroughs led to the 1992 development of the Optimum Compaction Low Void (OCLV) carbon fiber lamination process. Using the OCLV process, Trek was able to make the lightest production frames in the world, weighing in at a mere 2.44 pounds. Trek's first OCLV carbon road bike, Model 5500, was introduced in 1992, and its first OCLV carbon mountain bikes, Models 9800 and 9900, were unveiled a year later.

Meanwhile, another expansion project took place at Trek's Waterloo plant, which now measured 140,000 square feet. During the early 1990s, the bicycle industry in the United States experienced a bit of a sales slump. To compensate, Trek looked to boost its sales in other areas. The company continued to emphasize international growth during this period. Sales in Japan, for example grew by about 40 percent per year from 1991 through 1993. Trek also concentrated more on sales in Europe, where it was gaining a solid reputation among bicycle buyers who had long thought of American bikes as heavy, clunky monsters built for kids.

In addition, the company began to focus more on the sale of bicycling accessories. Beginning in 1992, Trek assembled helmets at a new plant in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, out of parts purchased from other companies. By 1993 the plant was making helmets at a rate of about half a million a year, double its total from 1992. Trek also launched a small line of tandem bikes in 1992. Although a relatively small market, the tandem bikes proved popular among family fitness buffs.

In 1993 Trek acquired the Gary Fisher Mountain Bike Company, the company founded by and named for the originator of the mountain bike. Gary Fisher's sales increased tenfold in its first year as part of the growing Trek empire, from $2 million to $20 million. Altogether, company sales reached $230 million for 1993, a $20 million increase from the previous year. That modest increase was impressive considering that it came during a period so difficult for bike makers that it saw longtime industry giant Schwinn sink into bankruptcy. Having passed competitors Specialized and Cannondale, Trek was now the clear market leader in specialty bike shop sales. By this time, exports generated $80 million of Trek's sales, and the company maintained seven overseas distribution operations--one in Japan and the other six in Europe.

Trek passed the $250 million mark in sales in 1994. By that time, the company was manufacturing 65 different models in its Wisconsin plants, including road bike, mountain bike, hybrid, and tandem styles. Trek expanded its children's bicycle business that year with the introduction of a line called Trek Kids. A number of major developments took place at Trek in 1995. That year, the company opened a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Whitewater, Wisconsin. The Whitewater plant, capable of producing 3,000 bicycles a day, dwarfed the company's other factories.

Acquisitions in the Mid-1990s

Trek also bought out two smaller niche-market competitors in 1995--Bontrager Bicycles, based in Santa Cruz, California; and Klein Bicycles of Chehalis, Washington. Those companies' plants remained in operation after the purchases. On top of those additions, Trek also signed a ten-year licensing deal with bicycle-racing superstar Greg LeMond to use his name on a line of road bikes. Additionally, the company introduced a new line of mountain bikes featuring an innovative Y-shaped frame. Trek's Y-frame received an "Outstanding Design and Engineering Award" from Popular Mechanics magazine, and the U.S. Secret Service even bought a few Y-frame bikes for patrolling the grounds of the White House.

Largely on the continuing strength of mountain bike sales, Trek's revenue grew to $327 million in 1995, a jump of nearly 19 percent. In early 1996, the company announced plans to add another 45,000 square feet to its Oconomowoc distribution center. It also announced its intention to build a distribution center in Atlanta to go with its existing centers in New Jersey and Southern California. Around the same time, Trek revealed that it was joining forces with Volkswagen of America to form a professional mountain bike team. The Trek/Volkswagen alliance went further yet, with the introduction of the Volkswagen Jetta Trek, a car that comes equipped with a mountain bike and rack.

In 1996, Trek also began planning a retail "superstore" on the west side of Madison, Wisconsin. The announcement did not sit particularly well with the specialty retailers already selling Trek bikes in the area. Although the company had dabbled in retail operations before--Trek has another retail store already operating in Madison, and flirted briefly with part ownership of a chain of stores in northern California--Burke insisted that it was not about to plunge into retail as a major part of their operation.

Meanwhile, Trek continued to beat out much of the competition in terms of quality and service, as it sought to solidify its position at the front of the high-end bicycle pack. Its ability to thrive during a period in which the bicycle industry as a whole was more or less stagnant suggests that Trek is poised to maintain its dominant position.

Principal Subsidiaries: Fahrradhandel Gesellschaft GmbH (Austria); Bikeurope BV (Netherlands); Trek Denmark; Trek Bicycle GmbH (Germany); Trek Japan; Bike USA S.L. (Spain); Trek Fahrrad AG (Switzerland); Trek UK.

Source: International Directory of Company Histories , Vol. 16. St. James Press, 1997.

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Why the guy who helped take Trek Bicycle from a Wisconsin barn to a billion-dollar company says he never sweats over sales figures or competitors

Pedaling a bike is one of John Burke 's favorite things to do, and it plays an important role in creating "the world's best bikes and cycling gear," which is how his company, Trek Bicycle , brands itself.

Richard Burke, John's father, cofounded Trek in 1976 in a barn in Waterloo, Wisconsin. John Burke joined his father's company in 1984 and became president of the privately owned corporation in 1997.

Today, Trek is a billion-dollar company with 2,000 employees, half of whom work in Wisconsin, and it still makes custom road bikes by hand in the US. Trek owns several brands , and it sponsors or owns eight racing programs, including the Trek-Segafredo team, which competes in the Tour de France . Trek is also an industry leader in bicycling advocacy.

The company has racked up many awards over the years. Recently VeloNews and Cycling Weekly called the company's top bike, the Tour-proven Madone , the king of race bikes.

Things haven't always been so rosy. Lance Armstrong made Trek a richer company in the 2000s, but Trek officially terminated its relationship with the disgraced sports icon in 2012 after it was found that he had doped during his Tour victories . Around that time there was also a bitter legal dispute between Trek and partner Greg LeMond , the former American cycling champion, but that was eventually resolved. The company has moved on, and it appears to be at the top of its game again with renewed energy and purpose.

In a Business Insider interview at Trek headquarters in Waterloo — " the Silicon Valley of high-end and custom-built bicycles " — Burke talked about Steve Jobs' influence on Trek, " the Lance effect ," making bicycling safer, and President Trump 's tax plan.

Daniel McMahon: Trek started back in '76 in a barn with five people. Today it's a billion-dollar company with 2,000 employees. Did you ever imagine it would grow this big?

John Burke: My dad was always focused on the sales number and I never really was, even though I was the sales guy. To me the size doesn't matter. What matters is your body of work. How good are the products? How incredible is the service? How are we taking care of our customers? If we do an amazing job on the product side and we do an amazing job taking care of our customers, the business will grow, and that's what I like to focus on.

McMahon: Does that become more challenging as you grow bigger and bigger?

Burke: It becomes more interesting.

In one way it becomes more challenging because there's so much turmoil in the market. And as companies get bigger, the natural tendency is to become slower and to not change. And in other ways it's incredibly interesting because we've never had more opportunities and we've never moved faster as a company. There isn't a day that I don't get up and I'm not fired up to come to work. There's a lot going on here.

McMahon: So getting better is what motivates you?

Burke: Somebody once said that a successful life is living up to your potential and giving back to others, and I think that from a business standpoint, I always want us to live up to our potential. And you're always chasing your potential. The more you improve, the more potential there is. It's just a game. And we have a massive amount of potential.

McMahon: Trek has been around for about 40 years now. What does success look like for Trek today?

Burke: I would define success for Trek as living up to its potential and giving back to others. One of the things we do at Trek that I'm really proud of is how we use the bicycle company for other people. My mother and my father were huge believers in "To whom much is given, much is required," and neither one of them started off with a lot of money. We've been able to take that philosophy and move it into the business.

Take a look at Dream Bikes , which we've had for 10 years now. We did that in Madison and it became successful, and then added a second location there. We've got one in Milwaukee. We just added one in New Orleans and two or three others, including one in Chicago . That's a big thing for us. Look at NICA [National Interscholastic Cycling Association]. They got 7,000 kids and it's been growing like a weed. We got a guy here, Aaron Mock, and his wife, and they do an amazing job volunteering for NICA, and they really made the Wisconsin NICA happen. There are 450 kids in Wisconsin in NICA, and so I became more interested in this, and we said, "We're going to put the full force of Trek behind NICA." Last year we gave them a million dollars , and we're giving them our time and energy.

We did research. We asked, "How many golfers are there in the United States?" Well, there are 400,000 golfers in the United States. Mountain biking should be able to exceed golf by 2030. Get your kid outside, get your kid exercise. The family can get involved, and it's a no-drop sport. There's a high school in Utah that has 300 kids in high-school mountain biking.

Another program we're working on is PlacesForBikes . In June we're having a conference here in Madison, and we're going to take leaders in bicycle advocacy and say, "How can we move faster to make America more bicycle-friendly in cities?" And the only way that program could happen is because of Trek. We put a bunch of resources in it, we worked with a bunch of companies, and now we're getting our competitors involved in supporting that program. We love to do great things with the bike company.

McMahon: Do you ever feel as if Trek is growing too fast and going in too many directions? You talk about focusing on making great products and providing great customer service, and you've spoken elsewhere about how you admired Steve Jobs and his passion for quality.

Burke: I tell you, one of our failings is that we do too many things. And you're right, I'm a huge fan of Steve Jobs and what he did at Apple , and we've used those lessons very well here. But we do bite off a lot of different things. We have an appetite for change and we want to play. There are a lot of companies who've seen this advocacy stuff, and most of the bike industry sees it and they go, "That's not me — somebody else does that." And we see that and we say, "No, that's part of our reason for being." And so we do that kind of stuff. We do a lot of different things.

McMahon: Describe your decision-making process. You come off as a no-nonsense guy who makes decisions quickly.

Burke: Yeah. [Laughs] You know, my decision-making process happens in this room. There are these two whiteboards, and the reason there are two is that one usually gets filled up and we go on to the other. But my decision-making process is really simple: I get the best people in the room, I get a whiteboard and a bunch of markers, and I listen to what everybody has to say, and I write it all up on the board, and then we figure it out, and we go. I love getting people's input — that's why you have people. And we have so many smart people around here.

We have an appetite for change and we want to play.

When you can put stuff up on a board you can visualize it; it just helps me think the problem through and it becomes clearer. I thought I was weird that I always had to have this whiteboard. Then I Googled "Steve Jobs whiteboard" and he was a huge fan of it. So in all the Trek offices around the world there's a big whiteboard.

McMahon: How do you pick the right people? And what's an "awesome bus"?

Burke: We have this thing where we say, "Get the right people, in the right seats, in the awesome bus." The whole philosophy of the awesome bus is a great place to work. We do everything we can to make Trek a great place to work.

If you look outside the door here, we've got the best 15 miles of mountain-bike trails. They're not in Whistler, they're not in Colorado — they're right across the street here in Waterloo. And you see people go over by the hundreds every day to go ride their mountain bikes. We have this amazing café — it's frickin phenomenal. And the largest ESOP [employee stock ownership plan] in the state of Wisconsin is Trek. Employees own a good piece of the business here. And if you take a look at our health program, we do everything to make this a great awesome bus.

So what we look for and who that's up to are our great individual leaders who are tasked with hiring their teams. I hire my team, but those people go and hire their teams.

If you take a look at the guy in charge of legal at Trek, he's been here for 22 years. The guy in charge of our international business, he's been here 28 years. Guy in charge of product, 29 years. Guy in charge of US sales, 31 years. If you take the woman in charge of global customer service, she's been here 28 years. The woman in charge of the international distributor market, 28 years. We've got a core group of people who have been here a long time.

And when you go down in the organization, people spend a lot of time here, and they do so for a good reason. I always thought, if you take a look at the ballplayer who plays for the same team his whole career, that's something special. People move around in companies more today than they ever have, but when you just take a look at some of these people who have worked at Trek for a long time, I look at that and I say, that's really cool. And you won't find that anywhere else in the bike business.

McMahon: How do you feel these days about Specialized , one of your fiercest rivals?

Burke: I think Specialized is a great competitor. They make us better.

McMahon: You've been candid about wanting to beat them.

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Burke: I respect all the brands we compete with. Specialized does some good stuff. We have a great competition with Specialized and with other companies. The one thing I like the most about Trek is we're not focused on Specialized; we're focused on Trek. If we do what Trek needs to do, we're doing great. We have so many great plans on the drawing board; we have so many platforms to execute on.

Let's focus on what we're doing. That was one of the keys at Apple: They stopped focusing on Microsoft and they did their deal. What Trek needs to do is focus on Trek.

McMahon: It's been over decade since the beginning of the end of " the Lance effect ." Armstrong's influence was clearly a critical chapter of Trek's business and history. Now that you've had that distance, how do you look back on the Lance effect today?

Burke: The best thing about the Lance effect is probably two things. One, it got a lot of people riding their bikes. Not just riding around the neighborhood — I mean, it got a lot of people into serious riding. Marathon riders picked up cycling. It got a lot of people into the serious side of the sport. That had a huge impact, not just on the business but on the sport itself.

And then what he did for the Tour de France and the way that brought bike racing to the masses. I mean, I frickin love bike racing. Bike racing is an amazing sport. People would not have seen as much bike racing if Lance wouldn't have raced in the Tour de France. He got a lot of people to tune in and see what racing was about.

McMahon: There are many examples of successful and unsuccessful business relationships — Armstrong and Tiger Woods spring to mind. What business lessons did you learn after working with Armstrong ?

Burke: Lance did for cycling what Tiger Woods did for golf. When the sea rises so do all the boats. That's what Lance did. And it wasn't just Trek: It was anybody who was doing road bikes. Before Lance started riding there were really only two companies selling road bikes — Trek and Cannondale . Then all of a sudden everybody and their brother was selling road bikes in the United States. So it definitely grew the market and brought a lot people into the game.

The thing that excites me is, I've been lucky enough to ride my bike in some amazing places and to really enjoy cycling. It got people into the sport who I thought would never ride.

McMahon: Last year, your second book, " 12 Simple Solutions to Save America ," was well received. It "challenges Americans to resist the status quo and change what elected officials are unwilling or unable to change." Trump is now president , and he promised to bring about great change. What do you think so far?

Burke: We're 100 days in and he finally comes out with a tax plan — and it was 250 words? And there was no bad news. Here's this huge opportunity to simplify everything and to have massive change, and you get 250 words. Look, I don't need a tax break — Trek doesn't need a tax break. We're going to succeed and fail in the market based on how good our products are and how good our services are. But as a member of the community, we have a moral duty to be a good corporate citizen, and one way you're a good corporate citizen is you pay your taxes.

You have General Electric, a great American company, which made a profit of $12 billion. They filed a 57,000-page tax return and paid zero in taxes. So if you want to reduce corporate taxes, that's fine, reduce them, but Trump wants to reduce them from 35% to 15%, and I think that's too big a decline. But then he doesn't want to get rid of any of the deductions? Why do oil companies get deductions and bicycle companies don't? Why do certain industries get deductions and shoemakers don't? The brewer doesn't get a deduction. It doesn't make sense. You're leaving in place this super-complicated tax system.

So it's treats for everybody. For corporate America, you get a lower rate, and you get to keep your deductions. And for all the individual taxpayers, you get a lower rate. We're 19 trillion frickin dollars in debt and everybody got a treat. And I just go, "You're kidding me." You call that leadership? I don't.

When you're the president of the United States and you come out with this "American First" theory, what are you saying to the rest of the world? I've been so fortunate here in growing the business. When I started here, we were doing $16 million and now we do over a billion dollars, and I've worked with an incredible team to do that. We took the business from just being in the US to right now — 60% of our business is around the world.

And one of the reasons why American is as strong as it is, is there are a lot of great American companies who have access to markets all around the world — General Electric, Coca-Cola, Apple, Trek, Harley-Davidson. The whole American First thing ... I just don't find that conducive to America's future or anyone else in the world.

The best definition I ever heard of leadership is, leadership is the ability to make the dream a reality at the grassroots level. But leadership is also, "Here's the vision, and I'm going to convince people where we need to go." And what we've come to in American politics is saying, "Well, I need to get elected, so I'm going to tell all these people whatever they want to hear." If you're the richest person on the playground and you're the biggest person on the playground ... we usually lead like, "Talk softly and carry a big stick," and when we're walking around with a blow horn, that's not the way we roll.

We're a leader in the world, but to maintain that status over the long haul, you actually need a leader who can look at the people and say, "You know, we've got problems here," and whether your talking about tax codes, gun control, nuclear proliferation, big issues, "Here are the problems, and here are the solutions, and this is why we need to do it." And more than just a sound bite, we've got to educate people and say, "This is why we need to move here." And I think we lack that right now, and I think we've lacked it for a while.

McMahon: Going back to advocacy, it's obviously good for business, but what specifically got you interested in it?

Burke: I got involved when [Minnesota congressman] Jim Oberstar called me in 1997. There was a transportation bill and they said they needed some industry help. And I was like, "What?!" He said, "I really want you to come down to Washington." So I went down there and he's like, "You need to get involved." I had been to Europe, and I had seen what cycling could do — it's amazing. And the more I got into it, I'm like, "This just makes sense for the country — it makes sense for the people." And it's not going to happen unless you get people involved.

When you have good bike infrastructure, people ride their bikes.

So I got involved in advocacy and I got other people involved. You went from the federal government spending $20 million a year to spending over a billion dollars a year on cycling infrastructure. And it happened because of Oberstar and the support he got, and it's made an incredible difference. That goes back to the bicycle's been really good to me, and it's like, what can I do? I can do many things. There's NICA, for example. We're doing PlacesForBikes, and that stems from the advocacy.

McMahon: One product I really like is the Flare R taillight . How did it come about?

Burke: I was out in San Diego about five years ago, and I was driving along Highway 1. There was a guy riding a road bike and he had a light on the back of his bike, and it was the first light I'd ever seen on the back of a road bike. And yet you really couldn't see it at all — the light it was emitting, you just couldn't see it. And I go, "That's a great idea."

I came back and I said to the guys, "We need light on the back of road bikes that do this." So we came up with the Flare R. I think that is the most awesome product. I have a sketchy stretch on my way to work here, and as soon as I put that thing one, I could tell that I was getting more space. Whenever I have to drive my car in to work here, I have so much pride when, all of a sudden, you can see, from a mile and a half away, this lineup of lights going into Trek.

McMahon: How optimistic are you for the future of bicycling? There's lots of hype about autonomous cars, ride-sharing, and the rest. You once talked about how in the US only something like 1% or so of all trips are made by bicycle, and that the goal should be 5% by 2025.

Burke: I'm still optimistic . You see this in places like New York, where they put in the infrastructure and a ton of people ride their bikes. You see it in DC. Whoever thought there would be a bike lane from the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue? If you would've told people that 10 years ago they would have said you're crazy, and that happened. You see places like Portland and here in Madison. When you have good bike infrastructure, people ride their bikes.

I just take a look at the bike's impact on the environment — people just don't understand how big a problem we have with the environment. It's a really big deal. And the No. 1 choice a consumer can make is what kind of gas mileage their car gets. I ride my bike to work and back every day in the summer. That's what kind of gas mileage my car gets in the summer. And you look at 40% of car trips being less than 2 miles, and you just go — bikes can have a huge impact. And I still think all of that can happen.

The next 20 years are going to be really kind to the bicycle.

McMahon: What assumptions do people have about you or Trek?

Burke: One thing about Trek is, some people see it as this big bike company. I had an ex-competitor walk up to me last week, and he said, "John, you have the most amazing company." He goes, "The values you guys have are just unbelievable." And I was like, "Wow, that was really cool." This place has an amazing heart and an amazing soul.

So when you buy a Trek you get an owner's manual. If you open it up there's a note from me. Usually when you open up an owner's manual there's this sh-- you can't even understand, and ours used to be like that. I said, I want to write our owner's manual. You got all these legal people writing the frickin owner's manual, and I was like, I want to write it.

My manual says: Thank you for buying a Trek. Welcome to the Trek family. If you ever have a problem with your Trek, see your Trek retailer and they'll take care of you. And if they don't, call Trek and we'll take care of you. If Trek's not taking care of you, send me an email and I will take care of you. And I signed it.

So every year I can tell you when the bike season kind of kicks off because I start getting emails. I just think it's kind of interesting that you can send an email to the CEO of Trek and you'll get a response that day, that if you got a problem, you're always going to be taken care of — always.

I got an email from a guy last night, and he got a response in 30 seconds. I replied — I do that stuff all the time. One customer at a time, because that's how we roll. I don't care how big we are. I'm more concerned about how great our products are and how great our service is. If we nail that, we'll do really well.

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Trek Bicycle

Fortune Rankings

• Great Place to Work

Trek Bicycle, a bicycle and equipment design and manufacturing company, has peddled up 23 spots in the ranks from last year. With an annual global revenue of more than $1 billion, it’s one of the largest bicycle brands in the world, and in line with the brand, quality attention to good health is one of its priorities. Employees at its Waterloo, Wisc., headquarters received free farm-to-table meals during the pandemic. Now, access to the café costs a flat $5-per-day rate. Beyond that, Trek has paid $2 million in tuition reimbursements since 2006, about $484,000 of which was paid last year. It also sponsors Pride Rides in support of queer communities across the country. 

• Trek’s inclusion model is aimed at giving people at all levels of the company the opportunity to learn with programs like Level 5 leadership training.
• The Trek Health Center at HQ provides wellness services like primary care, chiropractic care, physical therapy, and mental health consultations.
• After one year at the company, all Trek employees are automatically enrolled in an employee stock ownership plan.
• Trek recently added two weeks to its paternity leave plan.
• Trek offers education assistance programs, reimbursing education expenses for GED, associate, undergraduate, and graduate work up to $30,000 over an employee’s lifetime.

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• Updated : 4/4/2024
• Country : U.S.
• Headquarters : Waterloo, Wis.
• Industry : Specialty Retailers: Other
• CEO : John Burke
• Website : https://www.trekbikes.com/us
• Company type : Private
• Revenues ($M) :
• Profits ($M) :
• Market value ($M) :
• Number of employees :
• Founded : 1976
• U.S. Employees : 3,494
• Sites : 257
• HQ Location : Waterloo, Wis.
• Web Address : https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/
• Date info provided (companies may opt to keep some data confidential) : May 9, 2023
• Rank last year : 94
• Years on list : 2
• U.S. employees : 2,855
• U.S. job openings : 125
• Year founded : 1976
• 100% health coverage : No
• Subsidized childcare : No
• Compressed work weeks : -
• Option to work remotely : Yes
• Minimum requirement in-office attendance (days per week) : varies by team
• Percentage of health care premiums covered : 70
• Mental health coverage : Yes
• Free mental health sessions (per year) : -
• Free backup childcare time off (days) : -
• Maximum $ amount covered for fertility services : $10,000
• Fully paid maternal leave (days) : 60
• Fully paid paternal leave (days) : 10
• Fully paid adoptive leave (days) : 10
• Maternal leave in addition to regular time off (days) : 60
• Paid days off for volunteering : -
• % Women : 21%
• % Minorities : 19%
• % African-American/Black : 2%
• % Asian : 3%
• % Caucasian/White : 81%
• % Hispanic/Latino : 7%
• % Native American/Alaska Native : -
• % Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander : -
• % Two or more races : 3%
• % Unknown ethnicity : 2%

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VO:  We never just see the numbers. We see the people.

John:  My dad started Trek in a red barn in Waterloo, Wisconsin. And now it spans the globe. All the families around here have been part of the family that’s built Trek. People spend their whole careers here. The heart and the soul and the passion which they bring to the business. That’s what you can attribute the growth to, it’s the people.

That’s the special sauce. And every day we try harder and the flywheel spins. You wanna take what was given to you and you wanna build it. And you wanna pass it along. If I can do that, I would have done well.

VO:  That’s why we’re here to help make it happen. JPMorgan Chase.

For many, “Work hard, play hard” is a trope. But at Trek , one of the largest producers of high-end bicycles in the world, those words have guided the company from its origin as a small, Midwest family business to a billion-dollar global enterprise.

Those words are evident, for example, in how often Trek president John Burke braved the Alps during France’s L'Étape du Tour. They’re evident in the way Trek employees will hop onto a bike and hit the trails to break up a workday. The words are part of the culture that Burke’s father, Richard, set in motion in 1976 in a barn in Waterloo, Wisconsin where the company’s first five employees began hand-building steel touring bicycles using proprietary cast lugs, adding an American flare to a European brazing style.

“Waterloo plays a big part in Trek’s identity, and the red barn plays an even bigger part,” explains John Burke, who started working for the company in sales and service right out of college in 1983. He became president in 1997, when the company had expanded well outside the U.S.

“And I think that’s because of the humility that my father had, and my mother still has,” he continues. “I think that’s just the Wisconsin roots. We focus on other people and not on ourselves. And we’re always trying to earn people’s business and take care of our customers.”

In Tandem from the Beginning

In 1980, Trek built its first factory down the road from the little red barn and soon broke into the mountain bike business. Several years later, a distributor in Switzerland ordered a container of bikes. Much to Trek’s delight, the same distributor called back to order several more containers in short order. That was when Burke and his team realized the immense opportunity outside the U.S and the global appeal of Trek bicycles. When the company intentionally put a strategy in place to serve the international audience, it quickly gained market share from Japanese and European competitors.

This growth, however, came with new challenges, like navigating a global supply chain and distribution requirements. At each step of the way, the company has looked to JPMorgan Chase both for capital and guidance about how to expand into new markets. “It was JPMorgan Chase that helped get us to the next level,” says   Trek CFO Chad Brown.

“We’ve had a relationship with them [Trek] since the beginning,” adds Tony Maggiore, Midwest & Canada Segment Head,  Middle Market Banking & Specialized Industries , JPMorgan Chase. “We’ve helped them explore international growth in countries where it can be hard to do business, but our expertise in those countries makes it much easier. We have world-class solutions, both in the U.S. and overseas, that we deliver to clients on a local basis. It’s a strategic advantage and we know that companies like Trek really value it.”

Trek has grown to become a truly global business producing millions of bicycles every year. Today, more than 60 percent of the company’s revenue comes from outside the U.S. Its custom road bikes are still assembled and painted in the U.S. The first part of the company’s mission, “Build only products we love,” is a legacy that Burke wears with pride.

“We make decisions from a global perspective but the values and humility that the company lives by are what have made those decisions successful. Remaining close to our foundation in Waterloo, Wisconsin, has been very beneficial for us to build upon who we are as a company and the positive impact we can have,” said Burke. 

“I’ve inherited this jewel. I need to pass it on in better shape than I inherited it.”

Learn more about how JPMorgan Chase helps  small businesses grow and scale .

The testimonials on this page are the sole opinions, findings or experiences of the speakers and not those of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. or any of its affiliates. These opinions, findings or experiences may not be representative of what all customers may achieve. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. or any of its affiliates aren't liable for decisions made or actions taken in reliance on any of the testimonial information provided. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. is not affiliated with nor responsible for Trek, and does not provide or endorse third party products, services or other content.

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The bike industry is "in chaos" says boss: so what do Trek’s plans to ‘right size’ mean for the industry… and you?

First Published Mar 12, 2024

In the latest development in the bike industry’s stormy commercial conditions, Trek Bicycle says that it plans to “right size” by cutting spending by 10% and reducing the number of individual products it offers by 40% over the next two years. This was originally reported by Bicycle Retailer and Industry News . 

For those not fluent in corporate jargon, rightsizing is “the process of restructuring a business to meet new objections and increase efficiencies”, according to Forbes . In other words, Trek is changing things up to save money, although it says its overall strategy remains unchanged.

How do we know this? Although Trek has yet to announce anything officially, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News has got hold of an internal memo sent by company president John Burke to executives. Yeah, crafty. He said that these changes are a response to slow sales and high levels of inventory – the downturn in the bike industry’s fortunes, essentially.

John Burke said Trek would reduce overall spending by 10% with cuts to programmes and positions, with decisions on this made on or before last Friday (8th March). As mentioned, those decisions have yet to be made public.

Trek’s stock-keeping units (SKUs) in the 2026 model year will be 40% lower than in the 2024 model year. An SKU is a separate product that a company offers. If a particular product is available in several sizes and/or different colours, that all adds to the number of SKUs offered.

Does this mean Trek’s 2026 bike range will be 40% smaller in two years? Possibly, but bear in mind that Trek has a huuuuuuge range. As well as the road and mountain bikes you’re probably most familiar with, it also sells loads of city bikes, electric bikes, children’s bikes, cruisers, you name it. Trek sells a helluva lot besides bikes too – everything from stabilisers and kickstands to T-shirts and toe-covers – so let’s not get too alarmist. We’re unlikely to see the demise of the Madone, Emonda or Domane anytime soon.

John Burke is quoted as saying, “These are turbulent times in our business”, and he went on to say that the global bike market is “in chaos” with high stock levels at wholesale and retail levels, leading to “significant and continued” discounting.

Judging by pretty much everything that we’ve been hearing since the end of the Covid-induced bike boom, that’s a fair comment. You only have to take a look online and you’ll see huge discounts right, left, and centre as companies try to shift stock that’s cluttering up warehouses and shops to make way for the new stuff that’s on order.

In the UK, the apparent impending demise of Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles – at least in its current form – is only exacerbating the situation. How does anyone compete with a massive powerhouse that’s having a final clearance sale and selling off bikes at 30-50% off?

> It's our Bike of the Year but should you buy the Vitus Venon EVO-RS Force AXS All-Road bike at 30% discount?

John Burke said that retail sales were below the levels forecast by Trek and that the company had not hit its monthly sales goals for the past 15 months. Rather than simply hoping for better days ahead or continuing to make cuts around the edges, he said Trek had to “right-size our business to the realities of the marketplace”.

> “You have to dig in for the next three to five years”: What lies ahead for a struggling bike industry in 2024? 

In Trek’s case, reducing the number of products it’ll be offering also chimes with the company’s drive towards sustainability. Trek outlined its intention to launch a trade-in and refurbishment scheme last year, initially confined to the United States of America, to cut down on waste and extend the lifespan of its bicycles, even if that means making and selling less. That said, whether Trek’s plans to rightsize result in producing less overall or simply offering fewer options remains to be seen.

What are the implications of Trek’s decisions? We’ve spoken to several industry insiders who, off the record, say that we could be about to see many other major companies rationalise their activities to increase efficiency.

During the pandemic, we saw a huge shortage of bikes and equipment. It’s only three years since we ran a story on road.cc: Britain’s bike shortage, part 1: what’s going on, when will supplies return, and how can you improve your chances of bagging the bike you want?

Wow! Back then, bike brands could sell pretty much whatever they could produce, and they were falling over themselves to add new production lines and even build entirely new factories. How times change.

Specialized slashes jobs in latest sign of cycling industry downturn

Are we likely to see similar moves from other big companies? Yes, even though most will probably manage to enact their right-sizing strategies more privately, without leaks to the media.

Bicycle Retailer and Industry News quotes Steve Fenton, owner of Pro-Lite Manufacturing , as saying, “I might be going totally against the grain with what I'm going to tell you, but I think it's the right thing to do, and actually if I was in charge, I'd be doing it on a much bigger scale. My opinion is that all (the big brands) have to do it.”

Is right-sizing likely to affect some areas of the bike market more than others? It’s possible, yes. Most mountain bikes tend to be more complex than most road bikes due to their suspension systems; there are more parts involved. The same goes for electric bikes. Our industry contacts say that these sectors are likely to be hit by rightsizing more than road bikes where the options on offer can be potentially reduced far less. That’s a bit of a simplification, though. Different companies are likely to be affected in different ways depending on their own particular exposure to overstocks in certain areas.

Naturally, we have contacted Trek for comment, but got a big “no comment” from those guys. Maybe they’ll release a full statement at some stage. We did, though take the opportunity to ask Ian Whittingham, Co-Founder/ Director of Sigma Sports, for his take on the situation.

“I think a lot of this makes sense,” he said. “I think it’s a good time to reset and have a look at what you're offering, to consider whether you really need that many colour options or model options within each range. It’s probably quite a sensible move by Trek for their size business. It’s certainly something we've done in the last couple of years post-COVID. “We’ve been trying to curate our ranges a bit better than we might have done before to make sure we were in stock with the right stuff rather than big, broad ranges of products.”

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24 comments.

Funily enough it will be all about making bigger profits.  If they were serious about sustainability they would manfacture as close as possible to local markets.  They won't and people will defend them for it.  

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I'm not sure that works. Multiple framebuilding and assembly factories on each continent, parts shipped to each one then distributed 'locally' in a radial or similar fashion is not cheaper or as efficient otherwise many brands would have done that already. It's similar to why local bakeries, skilled trades and craftspeople have been put out of work - it's cheaper to buy shitty Chorleywood 'bread' and thousands of other items (including many non-food products) from a supermarket instead of a local shop.

Centralising manufacture and assembly to one centre of excellence (in this case mainly Taiwan, which isn't too far from where many components are manufactured) and sent around the world in containers seems more sensible to me.

And it's not necessarily about bigger profits but remaining profitable in a shrinking market instead of carrying on as before then going into administration, as has happened to any number of brands, distributors and retailers.

They certainly want the profit they were making. But they really are trying to stop the bleeding right now. They don't want bike shops closing which is what's happening

Do you think it would be more sustainable to have component and frameset factories build in every region of the world, for every bike company?

Trek is an equivalent of a slow, wobbly oil tanker with too much weigth on the very top, too many captains on the bridge, too far from the rest of the crew. 

I believe it is high time for big companies to try cheaper components. There are groupset companies that are practically unknown yet they are way cheaper and with better reviews. Make your base model as cheap yet good as possible but also open to upgrades (hate to see 7 speed base models from big brands) and money will follow.

Ah, but what price do the big companies actually pay? I'll bet it's not the full rrp that even single clients don't cough up, but much, much less.

Sure the OEM prices they pay are much cheaper, but given that a bike cost now as a groupset, every cost saving is welcome especially at lower spec bikes. At higher end models, I am sure that there are people happy to pay crazy prices for bikes.

I know how much cheaper they are for OEMs. But that largely just offsets the bike building costs, at least for lower tear bikes.

Those cheapo components from Empire and LTwoo are cheap because they're only making a bit of profit over their costs. They're not going to slash that profit for Trek, Specialized and Giant to get reasonable wholesale prices they can profit on.

So Trek is finally having to address their haphazard way of doing business where they added way too many products and options in search of increasing top line revenue, while jacking up prices on everything (as most of the bike industry has been doing) in order to increase profits despite the poor planning and execution.  Corporate greed is a constant, it's just a matter of which was the executives are currently attempting to implement it.

Now they'll cut product options and staff to ensure they can continue to reap the same rewards from the lower revenues since the Covid bike boom is long over and a lot of cyclists aren't willing to deal with bikes, even with some of the current steep discounts still being more expensive (even inflation adjusted) than their equivalent 10 years ago. The eye watering price of middle to top tier bikes that aren't much different than those bikes, except some aero improvements that have a negligible impact to 99% of the buyers since we don't ride at pro level speeds needing those questionable 10 seconds over 40k at 45kph....

It doesn't hurt that the market is insatiable when people have money to spend. They just reacted to that, we didn't have to buy but they reacted to that money they were being flooded with. The reality is that they were very short-sighted. No different than Americans buying big trucks when gas is cheap(gas is always cheap in the US😂) and hybrids when gas is "expensive" like those prices aren't just going to fluctuate again and again

Trek has gone way overboard with how many different models they sell, they have at least 60 different bikes, and that doesn't include children's bikes.

Heck, personally I think all they really need is 5 within each category, they have 4 categories and 1 child category, which would leave about 25 bike models.

Chop at least half of those would save Trek a lot of money, and prevent as much confusion among buyers as to what to get.   

I think the big thing they need to do is get rid of the 3 different carbon layups they offer for many bikes. Specialized did this with the Tarmac. 2 is plenty. And while I wouldn't be a fan, not offering as many colors in every model will save tons of money.

Like a lot of companies, they've got far too many performance models; are they really all needed? Similarly, I had a look at their alloy MTB Hardtails; Marlin, Roscoe, X-Caliber, Procaliber......Are all those really needed?

You've listed entry and performance models for both trail and XC race hard tails. I doubt there is much market for a cheap line of dedicated race bikes, when that product space is covered by the lower spec options of the Procaliber. The proliferation of SKUs in the MTB sector have also been compounded by the COVID boom coinciding with the rise in popularity for 29" FS bikes, which has blurred the lines further between use case product categories. Where there used to be XC, trail/AM, Enduro and DH, XC still sits in the 100-120mm travel range, but now there's also Down-country, Enduro has grown and split into short travel enduro and super-enduro. Who even knows what to class a 140mm travel bike as now?

If they're serious about cutting SKUs and sustainability then they should move away from the annual refresh cycle, it's madness. Shimano don't release a new group each year. We don't need 8 new versions of the Giant Defy when they're still busy selling '22 inventory. Only replace a model when there's a fundamental shift (e.g new geo to accommodate wider tubeless tyres)

This! Component brands don't do it, car brands don't do it, motorcycle brands don't do it, and bicycle brands shouldn't do it either. Nobody should care if a bike is 'last year's model' as long as its tech (or look) is not too outdated.

But it's generally only the paint scheme that changes from year to year. The frame stays unchanged for maybe 4-5 years. The automotive industry does similar, with cosmetic changes (light clusters, bumpers and grill) changing while the metal underneath stays the same.

Have you ever looked at cars from year to year?😂

Veganpotter wrote: Have you ever looked at cars from year to year?😂

Yes. They don't change from year to year. 

They do exactly what every car and electronics company does(not phones) and have been doing this for decades. The issue really hurting the industry is really still online shopping...a problem throughout all retail industries

So, get your aero 650b gravel commuting bike now, before ultra-niche product catagories are rationalised out of existance.

It's more likely that they will cut the number of options for each bike - groupset/spec level, colours, maybe even sizes. And as the article states, a lot of the SKUs will be for parts and accessories.

Trek GB's website shows 12 road helmets (with up to 5 colour options for each); 12 MTB helmets (ditto, 42 options); 29 commute/fitness helmets and 7 kids' helmets. Almost all of them will be available in multiple sizes. SKUs a-plenty!

When you consider that the helmet market has many established brands then does it really make sense for Trek to stock and promote up to 200 helmet models of their own?

The Equipment category encompasses everything from handlebars, pumps and panniers to phone & tablet accessories. There are 17 models in Shoes. The £150 Circuit road shoe is available in 13 sizes and 5 colours, that's potentially 65 options for a single model. That category also lists overshoes, 3 footbeds/insoles in 5 sizes and parts including Bontrager branded SPD and 3-bolt Look-compatible cleats. They sell 8 models of bottle cage, one of which has 12 colour options.

The handlebar category lists 95 items, quite a few of which are Speed Concept aerobars & very specific parts. This is a shrinking market, even triathlon is seeing a significant drop in participation and there are very few people interested in the blinged-up, barely used TT/tri bikes I see advertised online.

I don't consider this to be either wise or sustainable. It would be too simplistic to say "Trek should just focus on selling bikes" but there are surely good (and it seems now pressing) reasons to reduce inventory and the overheads associated with the 'everything with our name on it' path they have gone down.

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I'd be £75k was covered by his go fund me. Hopefully a lot more will be due to really hurt the pratt.

In mah deh, wi ad ter wet fer caryer pidgin, n'ope t'adnt bin et bah French on't weh.

It sounds like you've worked it out between yourselves!...

You pandered to them:...

No, ignoring a PSPO shouldn't be a criminal offence, but it is, and so if a police officer or an accredited council officer (even if they work for...

This is totalitarian madness! Luckily Croydon town centre is still cycle friendly. At this moment, struck down with sciatica, extreme lower back...

I think the rim brakes on the inflatable wheels probably mean that's not an issue. The more I Iook at this, the more it looks like it's part licorice.

Definitely worse than the UK, but I'm in the suburbs of a mid-size city in Illinois not known for being bike friendly, and I have very few problems...

The residents have made up safety concerns based on no collisions between cyclists and pedestrians, and instead put other people's safety at risk...

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Caroline Morse Teel is the Executive Editor for SmarterTravel Media. Caroline has a passion for adventure travel and has hiked to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the bottom of the Grand Canyon in pursuit of a good story. Follow her around the world on Instagram @TravelWithCaroline .

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Top Trip: Explore under-the-radar Europe by foot on Exodus Adventure Travels’ Lakes & Mountains of Slovenia walking tour .

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Best Adventure Group Travel: World Expeditions

World Expeditions has been taking adventurous travelers to remote locations all over the world ever since its first group trek through Nepal in 1975. Today, World Expeditions offers active itineraries on every continent. Intrepid travelers can opt for trips themed around mountaineering, rafting, cycling, hiking, and more. 

World Expeditions aims to leave communities and places where they operate tours better than they found them. Trips are created using the company’s Thoughtful Travel Charter as a guideline, which emphasizes respect for the environment, sustainability, having a positive impact on local communities, protecting wildlife, and more. 

World Expeditions’ trips are capped at just 16 people to provide a good experience for participants, and there are no single supplements for solo travelers willing to share a room with someone of the same gender. 

Top Trip: Summit Africa’s tallest mountain on a fully-supported trek up Kilimanjaro on World Expeditions’ eight day trip up the beautiful Lemosho Route . 

Best Budget Group Travel: G Adventures 

For travelers on a budget, G Adventures offers cheap group tours that make dream destinations accessible to nearly anyone. (Think: sailing the Galapagos for just $1,014 , criss-crossing India’s Golden Triangle for $799 , or spending 8 days in Bali for less than $749.)

G Adventures is one of the best tour companies for solo travelers as well, as most trips don’t have a single-supplement. You can choose to share a room with another G Adventures solo traveler, or pay extra to have your own space.

G Adventures keeps costs down by opting for cheaper hotels and local meals, and making certain activities optional (for an additional cost). Pick your travel style—options range from “basic” to more luxe tours run in partnership with National Geographic. Family tours, local living tours (featuring homestays), and wellness-focused tours are also available. 

Top Trip: G Adventures’ China Express trip is a great way to see the highlights of China if you’re short on both time and budget. 

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Best Educational Group Tours: EF Go Ahead Tours

When you really want to learn about a destination, consider a group trip with EF Go Ahead Tours . EF is the world’s largest private education company, and the Go Ahead Tours arm capitalizes on the company’s relationships with local educators, historians, and tour guides to create group trips that take you deep into a destination. 

These small group tours generally cap at 38 travelers, and feature unique educational experiences. For a bucket list trip, EF Go Ahead Tour’s special event tours are particularly enticing, as they offer behind-the-scenes access to tough-to-plan trips like Oktoberfest in Munich or Cherry Blossom season in Japan. 

Intimidated by solo travel? EF Go Ahead Tours is a great option for solo travelers, since it offers designated trips for solo travelers , where everyone is traveling alone, making it less intimidating.  

Top Trip: Bring the tastes of Italy home with you on EF Go Ahead Tours’ Food & Wine: Piedmont & Tuscany tour (operated in partnership with America’s Test Kitchen), where you’ll learn how to make local dishes. 

Best Responsible Group Travel: Intrepid Travel

Looking for a responsible group travel operator that focuses on bettering the communities and destinations they visit? Intrepid Travel is the world’s largest travel B Corporation, a certification for companies doing good. 

Intrepid Travel’s tours focus on sustainability, diversity, inclusion, and sustaining communities. The company has its own charity, The Intrepid Foundation , which has donated over 10 million dollars to over 160 community organizations. 

Intrepid Travel’s small group tours attract a wide range of travelers, but they are especially great for younger travelers, as they have a large number of trips designed for people aged 18-35 . (Other trips, including family-focused trips, are geared toward any age.)

Top Trip: Experience foodie trip of a lifetime Intrepid Travel’s South Korea Real Food Adventure , which includes time in three cities and an overnight temple stay.

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Best Private Group Travel: Kensington Tours

Whether your group consists of just two people or involves taking the entire extended family, Kensington Tours will take all the hassle of planning out of the equation. This private group operator creates personalized trips and itineraries tailored to your preferences, while their experts handle all the logistics and bookings. 

Plans are entirely flexible, and can even be changed while on the trip on a whim. Need some inspiration? Browse Kensington Tours’ travel ideas , to get some ideas for your next adventure. 

Top Trip: Sail around the stunning shores of Croatia and the Dalmation Islands on a private luxury catamaran on Kensington Tours’ fully customizable tour . 

Best Polar Group Travel: Chimu Adventures

Whether you’re headed north to the Artic or south to Antarctica, Chimu Adventures has the perfect polar group trip for you. Chimu Adventures has some of the most variety for polar trips, with options to fly, cruise, or a combination of both to get to your destination. For an ultra-unique Antarctica trip, Chimu Adventures offers cruises departing from Australia or New Zealand (most Antarctica trips depart from Argentina).

Chimu Adventures is one of the cheapest group trips to Antarctica, with rates starting under $6,000.

Top Trip: If you’re pressed for time (or simply don’t have the stomach for the Drake Passage), Chimu Adventures’ Antarctica Fly Cruise will get you to the ends of the earth quickly and smoothly.

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Best Group Tours for Solo Travelers: For the Love of Travel

Group tours can be a great way to meet new people, but they can sometimes skew on the older age range. If you’re between 25-39 and a solo traveler looking to meet new people, you’ll love For the Love of Travel . All participants on the trips are between 25-39, and according to the company, 80 percent are solo travelers—so you’ll make friends fast. Hoping to meet someone who will be more than just a friend on your next trip? Trips include a balanced number of “gal and guy spots” to ensure an even balance of genders within groups (and of course, non-binary genders are always welcome). 

For the Love of Travel offers weeklong (or longer) international trips as well as shorter weekender trips to closer destinations like Mexico or Costa Rica—perfect for people without a lot of vacation time.

Top Trip: Sleep in a glass igloo under the Northern Lights, go sledding with huskies, and warm up in traditional saunas on For the Love of Travel’s Lapland tour , already booking dates for 2024.

Best Biking Tours Group Travel: DuVine Cycling

Biking through the rolling hills of Italy or across the mountain roads of Chile sounds like a dream, but the logistics seem daunting (especially if you don’t want to haul all your own stuff from point-to-point). Enter: DuVine Cycling , a luxury small group tour company that specializes in bike trips. 

With trips across Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the United States, DuVine Cycling is a cyclist’s dream. Choose from all-biking trips or mix things up with a cycle and sail bike tour or a multi-sport adventure —no matter what, everything is included, from luxury boutique accommodations to top-quality name brand bikes. 

Top Trip: DuVine’s Holland Bike Tour promises “tulips, windmills, beer, and cheese”—what more could you need?

Best Luxury Group Travel: Abercrombie & Kent

Abercrombie & Kent has been delighting discerning travelers since 1962. Today, they take travelers on unforgettable adventures across over 100 different countries and all seven continents. Although Abercrombie & Kent’s trips are pricey, they encompass once-in-a-lifetime experiences like private jet tours around the world or luxury chartered cruises .

There are trips designed for solo travelers and families , and the small group journeys max out at around 14-18 guests.

Top Trip: Swim with whale sharks in the Philippines, feed proboscis monkeys in Malaysia, and photograph wild tigers in India on Abercrombie & Kent’s Wildlife & Nature: Around the World by Private Jet trip , already booking dates into 2024.

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We hand-pick everything we recommend and select items through testing and reviews. Some products are sent to us free of charge with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions and do not accept compensation to review products. All items are in stock and prices are accurate at the time of publication. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission.

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The time has come: Fisker has filed for bankruptcy

After many signals suggesting that it would happen, Fisker has officially filed for bankruptcy.

The chapter 11 filing came late Monday night in Delaware, where Fisker is incorporated. Soon after, Fisker posted a statement on its website .

In the statement, Fisker blamed “market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently.” It is seeking to sell its assets under bankruptcy, which number somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion in value.

The statement continues with some details that may be of interest to customers, including the mention of “preserving certain customer programs” while the company continues “reduced operations.”

The announcement doesn’t come as a surprise, as Fisker reportedly hired bankruptcy consultants in March , and missed a loan payment earlier this month . It had sought investment from a “large automaker,” thought to be Nissan, but those talks fell through . And last month, Fisker filed for the equivalent of bankruptcy in Austria , where its contract manufacturer Magna Steyr is located.

LOS ANGELES (June 17, 2024) – Fisker Group Inc. (“Fisker”), the operating subsidiary of Fisker Inc., today announced that it filed for Chapter 11 protection in the District of Delaware on June 17,2024. It is in advanced discussions with financial stakeholders regarding debtor-in-possession financing and the sale of its assets. “Fisker has made incredible progress since our founding, bringing the Ocean SUV to market twice as fast as expected in the auto industry and making good on our promises to deliver the most sustainable vehicle in the world,” said a Fisker spokesperson. “We are proud of our achievements, and we have put thousands of Fisker Ocean SUVs in customers’ hands in both North American and Europe. But like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently. After evaluating all options for our business, we determined that proceeding with a sale of our assets under Chapter 11 is the most viable path forward for the company.” Fisker’s previously announced manufacturing pause will remain in place. Fisker intends to file certain customary motions with the Bankruptcy Court to ensure its reduced operations are able to continue, including paying employee wages and benefits, preserving certain customer programs, and compensating needed vendors on a go-forward basis. Fisker Inc. and other U.S. subsidiaries, as well as subsidiaries outside the U.S., are not included in the Chapter 11 filing at this time. Fisker statement on its bankruptcy filing

So, Fisker has been on the ropes for some time, showing significant financial difficulties for most of the past year.

Top comment by Ben

It seems like when this company developed its business plan, they assumed the most optimistic assumptions in order for them to make their business model work. Zero percent interest, exponential growth in EV adoption among mainstream carbuyers, and a never-ending willingness among consumers to embrace new auto brands.

The company was able to start delivering its Ocean SUV just about a year ago , reportedly even with positive gross margins due to its contract manufacturing structure.

However, it ended up having sales and inventory problems over the past several months. While Fisker has produced around 10,000 vehicles, it had only delivered about half of those at the close of last year (which is the most recent information we have – Fisker didn’t file a quarterly report in Q1 of this year). Fisker recently cut prices on its inventory vehicles after pausing production and trying new sales methods to try to draw down inventory.

We were some of the first media to get an Ocean for an overnight review back in November, and we found it an attractive vehicle with some neat features, but that all parts of the vehicle’s software were simply not ready for prime time. Reviews by other media mostly echoed these same points. Software updates eventually fixed some of these problems, while leaving many others intact.

During its rocky Ocean launch, Fisker still introduced some hot new concept vehicles last year – the Ronin supercar , Alaska truck , and Pear utilitarian economy vehicle . We were particularly looking forward to the Pear , but today’s announcement suggests we might be waiting forever.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Jameson has been driving electric vehicles since 2009, and has been writing about them and about clean energy for electrek.co since 2016.

You can contact him at [email protected]

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Looking to change the world? Good. Us too. We believe bikes are a simple solution to the world’s most complex problems—climate change, congestion, the health of our people and planet. And it’s through the bicycle that we will change our world for the better. Whether you’re answering calls in Customer Care, working the front lines in retail, or designing saddles, everything you do here will help create a better future.

For our planet

We take the bicycle's world-changing potential seriously—so much so that we've changed the products we make and how we make them. We created this continuously evolving plan of action to help us reduce our carbon footprint and be a more conscious global citizen.

For our people

To address systemic racism, we created All In—an ever-changing plan of action that guides us on our journey toward a more inclusive, equitable, and diverse future.

• See the commitment
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For athletes everywhere

We’re committed to pioneering equity in women’s professional cycling through unrivaled team support, equal minimum salary requirements, matched prize money, and more. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. Simple as that.

Ask any Trek employee what their favorite part of their job is, and you’ll almost always get the same answer: their coworkers. People at Trek welcome, inspire, and care for one another. And that makes all the difference.

Mio Suzuki Director of Advanced Technologies, United States

MY PRODUCT: A long-term vision that ensures Trek is always at the cutting edge of technology and product innovation.

Evie Richards Trek Factory Racing Athlete, Worldwide

MY PRODUCT: Race wins, inspiration, fun, and the kind of friendliness that can help every rider be their best.

Meghna Kapoor Software Engineer, India

MY PRODUCT: The backend architecture of our website that allows us to present our best and biggest ideas to the world.

Anibal Ibarra Customer Service Rep, Mexico

MY PRODUCT: My product is hospitality and great relationships for retailers, my colleagues, and other vendors.

Ryuto Doi Service Trainer, Japan

MY PRODUCT: Instruction that helps Trek Service Techs become the best experts in their field.

Joyce Jia Finance controller, China

MY PRODUCT: Financial reports that keep the company on target, improve our bottom line, and ensure we're in a position to invest in our future.

A glimpse into life at Trek

Want to take a closer look?

• Explore Trek HQ

Certified Great Place to Work We think working at Trek is pretty awesome. But don’t take our word for it! Trek made Fortune Magazine’s 2024 list of the Top 100 Best Places to Work. According to our annual Great Place to Work survey, 89% of employees at Trek say it’s a great place to work compared to 59% of employees at a typical US-based company.

• See our results

Multiple brands. Endless opportunities.

Born and raised in the humble surf community of Leucadia, California, Electra combines creativity, innovation, design, and attention to detail to make the most comfortable bikes possible.

BCycle is a public bike sharing system that enhances cities' transportation ecosystems and helps reduce carbon emissions and congestion by providing a sustainable, affordable transportation option.

Ascend is a retail profit machine built for bike shops. Retailers worldwide use our products and services to easily set, measure, and track goals and performance while continually forecasting for the future.

It’s no secret that the best leaders have the happiest and most productive employees. We built a masterclass in leadership to help all Trek employees become better versions of themselves and create a culture of continuous improvement, empathetic support, and healthy team dynamics.

Leaders with humility don't work hard to get credit, they work hard because they care. They're never boastful, always grateful, and forever willing to learn and grow.

To lead with will is to be driven by desire and determination. Willful leaders are always ready to roll up their sleeves and put in work in order to achieve exemplary results.

Best team on the field

Hiring the right people is about more than just technical fit—we want people on our team who show up every day with empathy, kindness, and care.

Iconic leaders aren't satisfied with the status quo. They're constantly looking for bigger, better, and bolder ways to do things.

Let’s work together to make the world better Have a cause you’re passionate about? We’ll support you any way we can. Whether you need extra funding, paid time off, or another set of eager hands, we’re always happy to help.

Local grants

We established a local grant program to provide funding for projects that help get more people on bikes. If you or someone you know needs some seed money to start a bike shop or enhance your community in any way, reach out to us at [email protected]

Volunteer PTO

All Trek employees have access to paid time off to volunteer for non-profits that help build our communities, so whether you want to spend the day volunteering at the polls, working at a food bank, or empowering our youth, we’ll support you every step of the way.

Employee profile: Tati Koufopanteli, LIFE Camp

In the summer of 2020, Trek store manager Tati Koufopantaeli was looking for ways to get more involved with the youth in her community. With Trek’s support, she partnered with a non-profit called Life Camp to help get kids from underserved communities involved in cycling. Over eight weeks, the program gives students mentorship and training to enter the workforce—and all students who complete the program are guaranteed a position with Trek. Now, with Tati’s help, we’re expanding this program to more communities across the country.

Employee profile: Chad Wolfe, Taco Trek Ride

Chad Wolfe was looking for ways to unite the cyclists in his community. The manager of Trek’s Johnson City location, Chad wanted to create a group ride that appealed to everyone—old-school roadies, trike-pushing toddlers, brand-new mountain bikers, you name it. And so, the Taco Trek Ride was born. Trek supports Chad with marketing materials to help him reach even more riders, and we invite his insight on enacting similar events at Trek stores around the world.

Trek’s not-so-basic benefits Sure—offering a 401k isn’t revolutionary. But creating a great environment for our employees has long been a company value at Trek. We’re always looking for ways to improve our employees’ home and work lives, and we expand what’s available to them every year. From rare benefits like ESOP and paid time off for volunteer work to expanded healthcare coverage, we do our best to take care of everyone who works at Trek.

Tuition reimbursement

Wanna better yourself? Say no more. We offer an Educational Assistance Program that covers up to 75% of the cost of approved college or business-related courses. If you want to take classes, attend seminars, or work toward an advanced degree, we’ll do whatever it takes to make that an easy and accessible choice.

We want to help you build a secure financial future. That’s why we match up to 6% of all 401k contributions, and we provide financial planning resources to help you and your family live more comfortably.

Discounts on the world’s best bikes

You were waiting for this one, weren’t you? One of our most-loved benefits at Trek is a hefty discount on the world’s best bikes and gear. All Trek employees enjoy discounts on products from Trek and our many other brands.

Expanded healthcare coverage

We offer healthcare coverage to all employees working 20 hours or more, because healthy employees are happy employees. And we do our best to take care of everyone who works at Trek.

Mansion Hill Inn

We transformed a 19th-century mansion into the Midwest’s most beautiful bed and breakfast as part of our commitment to unforgettable hospitality. We always keep a few rooms open to house prospective employees from out of state, and we’ll go out of our way to ensure you enjoy your stay.

Employer-matched donations

In an effort to increase the impact of Trek employees, we match all employee financial contributions to accredited non-profits dedicated to social equity, youth development, and environmental sustainability.

Trek Scholarship Program

Our love for our employees extends to their families, too. Over the years, the Trek Scholarship Program has provided over $2 million in contributions to help provide secondary education for Trek families.

Employee Stock Ownership Program

Employees own the single largest percentage of Trek. All US employees are enrolled in our ESOP program after their first year, giving them a direct share in Trek's financial success.

Lunch ride, anyone? Humans aren’t meant to sit at a desk eight hours a day. Whatever part of the business you’re in, we encourage you to do things during your workday that help you feel your very best. Whether it’s a lunch ride with your coworkers, a mid-day walk, or weekly therapy, we’ll do whatever we can to support you and make sure you have the time and resources you need to thrive both mentally and physically.

Wellness perks

If you’re joining us at Trek HQ in Waterloo, you’ll enjoy an on-site gym complete with the world’s most wonderful fitness trainer, a café stocked with healthy, freshly made food, a full-time primary care clinic, massage therapists, mental health counselors, dieticians, athletic trainers—and that’s just the start of it. Not joining us in the ‘loo? You’ll still have access to virtual benefits, including workout classes, doctor appointments, counseling, and more.

Trek trails

We built 30-kilometers of world-class mountain bike trails in our own backyard to provide employees with a much-needed sanctuary during the workday. Now, riders of all skills levels gather at our private trails for lunch rides, product testing, late summer bonfires, and the kind of respite only the natural world can provide. No matter where in the world you work, as a Trek employee, you’re welcome to join us on the trails at any time.

Meet me at the Lodge

Some companies do break rooms a little differently than others. Ours is called The Lodge, and it’s located in the middle of Trek’s private mountain bike trails — a place to kick your feet up, grab a cold beverage, and enjoy the company of your coworkers after a couple epic laps. This LEED Certified respite is complete with pinball machines, a bar, and plenty of boardgames. The worst part about The Lodge? Leaving.

Join the club!

Bikes may be our primary focus, but we still dabble in ball-and-stick sports. We have various sports clubs at Waterloo HQ — from lacrosse to pickleball to hockey — and all employees are welcome to join. The only price of membership is great energy and maybe e a few high-fives. Lifting heavy things more your speed? We also have a CrossFit-certified box and climbing walls onsite.

Like every great relationship, we’re looking for something meaningful. Our success relies entirely on the quality of our people, and our process is admittedly deliberate so you can get a better picture of what you’re joining and we can get a full understanding of who we’re welcoming to Trek.

Step 1 Make the first move

Every amazing journey begins somewhere, and this one starts with you making the first move. Find a role that speaks to you, drop us your resume, and we’ll let you know if we’re ready to move on to the next step. Either way you’ll hear from us – because nobody likes to be ghosted.

Step 2 Get better acquainted

You like us. We like you back. The second step is an easy 30-minute call with one of our friendly recruiters so we can both get to know each other better. During this conversation, we’ll learn more about you and you’ll learn more about Trek and the opportunities and amenities we offer.

Step 3 Take things to the next level

The Hiring Manager interview is a one-on-one discussion with the manager you’d report to in your desired role. Be prepared to discuss your experience and provide us with a fuller picture of what you’ll bring to the table, because at this point, you’ve got a great shot.

Step 4 Meet the family

At this stage, you’ll speak with multiple people you’ll be working with on a daily basis. This step allows us to gauge your experience and talents from multiple perspectives and gives you a 360-degree view of the people you’ll interact with, the culture of the team, and the expectations of the role.

Step 5 First trip together

Things are getting serious! We’re people people, and we believe the best way to get to know each other is to sit down and have an old-fashioned face-to-face conversation. While not all interviews will end onsite, in many cases, candidates will travel and tour Trek headquarters, meet their hiring manager and team in person, and decide if this is the commitment we’re all looking for.

Step 6 Let’s make it official

We want you to become a part of the Trek team, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Our hiring manager and recruiter will reach out with the specifics. Welcome to Trek!