This is a bitter blow. Wiggle and Chain Reaction appear to have run their course.

According to a report in Cycling News, Wiggle and Chain Reaction Cycles are to lay off their entire workforce. Since administration in October the group have been on life support, at the time cutting about a sixth of their workforce from over 600 staff to around 500. Now, once the stock and warehouse is empty, time’s up for the remainder.

The background as I understand it is: Wiggle and CRC were owned by Signa Sports United, itself owned by Signa Holdings who loaded the businesses with debt. And then withdrew their funding commitments. Cue multiple crises, not just for Wiggle but ProBikeShop and other online retailers in the group.

600 jobs gone

The new WiggleCRC owner – yet to be confirmed but speculated as being Mike Ashley – is buying IP but no stock and no people. Style over substance.

So the degradation of the UK cycle market continues after high profile closures of large bike distributors such as Moore Large, 2Pure and Hotlines in 2023 as well as many smaller businesses.

600 people; no jobs. 600 people who had useful employment running not just the internet business, but developing the dhb clothing brand, the Nukeproof and Vitus bike brands, Prime wheels, and the Lifeline accessories brand. All well respected brands, all essentially gone.

Who knows what will happen next?

What comes around goes around

Some people will say that WiggleCRC themselves have been responsible for tough times in the bike industry before now.

When the internet came along, two small businesses in Northern Ireland and Portsmouth at first competed for and then merged together to secure sales and custom that traditionally went to local bike shops. It’s possible to argue they were better as independent concerns.

Some will say this type of creative destruction, first identified by the economist Schumpeter and such a feature of our capitalist market is just par for the course. Stuff dies so that new stuff can grow.

But this is different. We are witnessing an industry withering, not growing.

What harms one, harms us all

Partly, I think over time WiggleCRC did help to grow the bike and sporting market as much as they hurt bike shop sales. Their reliable service contrasted hugely with an industry that wasn’t always – perhaps still isn’t always – the most diverse or welcoming of retail landscapes.

Partly too, losing WiggleCRC in their current form deprives us of a major player in that market. Competition works both ways.

Mainly it shows the weakness of our current economic model.

Lack of investment, short termism and ultimately a business loaded with debt it didn’t directly generate isn’t a case of bad luck; it’s a feature, not a bug of our current system. Ultimately, 600 people without jobs is an outcome not of a business with no customers, or a business offering poor quality at high prices but of a business being used as something else entirely.

It takes people (and Haribo)

600 people. I didn’t know any of them; I never met any of them. But every time a box turned up with a spare part for me, someone had put a little packet of Haribo in the box for me too. Every Vitus bike, or Nukeproof model release, or a new season’s dhb clothing range came out; someone had thought about that, and they’d thought about it from the point of view of you and me.

It wasn’t about the brand. It is about cycling and the business of cycling.

About the author

Matt is one of the founding Molefathers of the Muddymoles, and is the designer and main administrator of the website.

Having ridden a 2007 Orange Five for many years then a 2016 YT Industries Jeffsy 29er, he now rocks a Bird Aether 9 and a Pace RC-627.

An early On-One Inbred still lurks in the back of the stable as a reminder of how things have moved on. You can even find him on road bikes - currently a 2019 Cannondale Topstone 105 SE, a much-used 2011 Specialized Secteur and very niche belt drive Trek District 1.

If you've ever wondered how we got into mountain biking and how the MuddyMoles started, well wonder no more.