The big shock announcement in 2017 in terms of brand shift was the split between Mojo and Fox, one of the longest partnerships in the Mountain Bike Industry that I think few would have expected. Chris Porter (big cheese at Mojo) offered his take on the situation which you can read here.

2018 has also seen a couple of other splits already, first came the announcement on 3rd January that Zyro Fisher will no longer be distributing Muc Off, followed shortly by an email from Silverfish confirming that they are picking up the brand.

We have always been a fan of several muc off products especially their Silicone Shine, Carbon Gripper and Biogrease, all of which we use in abundance in the workshop. That said the problem with Muc off from a retailer’s perspective was that the bike cleaner had a habit of turning up in budget supermarkets at less than trade, which I think would likely make it an unlikely prospect for even the big online retailers.

Silverfish have indicated to us that there will be some new incentives for bike stores so we are hoping that this will mean that there is some scope to offer some good deals to our clients also.

Probably a bigger surprise was that Winwave have today announced that they will be parting company with Marzocchi after 22 years of partnership.

Peter Nisbet, Managing Director of Solent (UK) Ltd, said:

“The decision to end the distribution agreement after so long was not easy, but I feel now is the time to make some changes. I have enjoyed working with Marzocchi and made some great friends over the years. I am very proud of how my company and staff grew Marzocchi to become a market leading suspension brand in the UK. In 1997 we introduced the Bomber Z1 to the UK, the fork which revolutionised bicycle suspension as we know it today. I would also like to thank our customers and riders for their fantastic support.
Any outstanding warranty issues will be passed seamlessly to a new distributor to be announced shortly.”

We have always had a soft spot for Marzocchi, although opinion has been luke warm in more recent years to this day we are still servicing some of those early forks Peter mentions. Despite the fact that technology has moved on a long way from the 1990’s the build quality of those early Marzocchis was (and still is) pretty special. In more recent years spares availability has been quite sketchy but we are hoping that with the Fox aquisition in late 2015 we are going to see some great things once again from the big M in terms of a long term plan for the brand.

A new distributor has yet to be announced but as Marzocchi is now a Fox brand it would seem likely that Silverfish will pick up Marzocchi. As things stand we are full stocked with fork spares and so we are not anticipating any disruption to service.

****UPDATE**** Silverfish have now been appointed as the UK Distributor for Marzocchi.