I’ve always been a fan of the little guy. In this case, the “little” guy isn’t so little anymore. While SRAM is looking to exceed $400 million in revenue year ending June 30, they are still far behind Shimano who according to the Boss Report is “on pace to sell more than $1 billion in cycling components this year.”
But at a handsome $400 million in revenue this family owned company is not looking to sell but will be looking to leverage the momentum they have to keep the growth machine going. To do this they’ve employed JP Morgan to help find an investor who is willing to come along for the ride.
A Little History on SRAM
If you’ve not been hearing about SRAM in one form or another then you’ve been living in a vanilla ice-cream world. Welcome to 31 flavors. Well, it’s more like 2-3 depending if you’re a roadie or a dirt digger.
In the world of mountain biking SRAM
really became top of its class when in 2001 it introduced X.0 which was touted as revolutionary and visionary. It’s taken Shimano years to catch up and honestly I don’t think they really have or will. I guess we’ll see if the new Saint line can get them a step closer.
For the roadie crowd 2006 may go down as the year of years. I’m not talking about the mess with the Tour de France, I’m talking about when SRAM
launched its new road line. A short two years later, Alberto Contador wins last month’s Giro d’Italia riding on SRAM Red while second place finisher Riccardo Ricco was also riding SRAM. In it’s first Grand Tour this is an amazing finish for a product line that is less than two years old. Campagnolo and Shimano may not be shivering in their cleats but they will at least be taking notice of what went down this past week.
So riding this momentum which has been building since it’s launch in 1987 is exactly what SRAM is looking to do with finding an investor. Will they overtake Shimano one day? Hard to say, but I’m sure it’ll be worth someone’s money to give it a go.
June 19, 2008 - 1:34 pm - posted by Jason Mitchell
SRAM has been mowing Shimano’s lawn for years now. When they wasted their efforts on the supid Dual Control levers and rapid-rise rear derailleurs, SRAM was busy improving on their designs and introducing kick-butt trigger shifters.
SRAM’s MTB triggers are still the gold-standard in my book.
June 19, 2008 - 2:00 pm - posted by Brig Graff
I’m just glad SRAM’s success caused shimano to tone down the “loop of death” on their rear derailleurs.
June 19, 2008 - 2:33 pm - posted by Kendall Card
Love the “mowing Shimano’s lawn” comment. Instant classic.
One thing I failed to mention in the post was that I had a chance to try the SRAM force while at Interbike last year. The double tap shifting was easy to get used to coming from Ultegra. Unlike Ultegra which takes some finesse when shifting one or two gears, there is no doubt that you’ve shifted to the next gear when you to tap the SRAM. Perhaps I’ll do a review on them shortly.