The demise of Saddleback in May saw Chris King lose its long-time UK distributor. Now the 50-year-old Oregon-based component brand has announced a new UK distribution partner, Tempo Industries, set up by two former Saddleback employees.
Ashley Matthews and Charles Coleman have more than 15 years of experience in the cycling industry, which they say includes tech service, support and wheel building.
Alongside sales of Chris King products, Tempo Industries will offer servicing in-house for Chris King’s hubs, headsets and bottom brackets from its Bath base and use its founders’ wheel-building experience to offer complete wheelsets built on Chris King hubs.
Tempo Industries’ founders released a statement saying: “We’ve had a great working relationship with the team at King over the past 15 years and the opportunity to continue that is an exciting prospect.
“We want to give them more time and focus in this ever-evolving industry. In our eyes, there’s so much more work to be done to support retailers and enhance the customer experience for the brand.
“While our setup is much smaller than the previous distributor, our focus is solely on supporting Chris King products as we start this new journey, so we’ll be dedicating our time to ensuring people get the service they require.”
Saddleback ceased trading in May this year, with 42 staff losing their jobs. The collapse also saw a number of prestige brands lose their UK distribution arrangements, including not only Chris King, but also Castelli, Sportful and Pivot, as well as smaller brands such as Abbey Tools and Silca.
Other brands jumped ship before the Saddleback closure, including Cannondale and ENVE.
Further turbulence at Cannondale has more recently seen the brand announce the closure of its US East Coast HQ, with the brand’s operations consolidated in the Netherlands by its owner Pon Holdings, which also owns Santa Cruz and Cervélo, potentially resulting in around 140 US staff losing their jobs.
ENVE, meanwhile, has switched to French distributor Mohawk’s Cycles to handle its UK distribution.
Manifattura Valcismon, the Italian owner of Castelli and Sportful, has set up its own UK subsidiary, MVC Group UK Ltd, to handle UK distribution and direct-to-consumer sales for the two high-end cycle clothing brands.
