Juan Foote

...or did they never really go away?

The last I heard they were closing up shop. I know the local stores here in Atl closed some couple of years ago IIRC. I just started receiving a daily mail from them with specials.

Are they 'really' Performance Bike? Like, someone bought them and is resurrecting the brand?
I actually enjoyed some of their products, in particular their branded riding shorts.

Darth Lefty 

The name was bought by an existing mail order company (A-Main Hobbies) and made into a new online store front. It happened pretty quickly, they've been going for a few years now. They also are using the Performance house brand name Forte. The same company also picked up Dan's Comp, the BMX outlet. They don't have much connection to the legacy companies but they are a legitimate and successful business.

Juan Foote

Ah that's (sort of) a shame. I really liked Performance. Being a bit larger guy even when I was in shape, their riding shorts and jerseys fit me well and were notably less expensive than elsewhere. I have since come to find that Dick's Sporting carries stuff for clydes...
I purchased a few bikes from them and was constantly impressed with the level of service. I picked up the GT in my sig for significantly less than MSRP through them and they even had it shipped to the local location for me. One of the (good) mechanics I worked with at a place called Epic Bikes went on to be the head mechanic at my closest brick and mortar for a year or so before they closed.
Unfortunately, without them having a store I have one option for a "non branded" store which is still a long drive away. My closest real shop is a Trek store that in spite of offering really good service and being good folks, everything they have is Trek/Bontrager.

huffman 

I think the company that bought Performance got Nashbar too. West coast company now so as a Carolina resident shipping time is longer. Performance & Nashbar seem to have become outlets for leftover product in odd sizes. I tried numerous times and either sizing was real big and/or small or the constant Backordered. I've totally given up on both. I hate we lost Price Point a while back. I have had good success with Universal Cycles. If in stock in Lancaster PA warehouse their stuff gets to NC pretty quick.

Juan Foote

You just described my experience with EVERY local shop around. I ride between a 58-61 according to geometry (even been known to ride 56) and those are the bikes you can be assured won't be in stock, anywhere.

As far as clothing is concerned, shops just don't pay as close attention to the heavy set. I used to mess with people at Epic when I worked there in that I could basically barely put some of the spandex shorts on my arms, much less my legs.

delbiker1 

In name only. Not anything like the Performance Bike I used to purchase from quite a bit. Some of the prices are ok, the selection so so, flat fee for shipping for low cost items is good. The website could use a lot of work.

Lazyass

I still can't believe they died. They were the only actual bike shops I still liked going to, they had a huge selection of stuff. My regular shops today don't carry many cool things anymore, been like that for years now. The nearest shop to me may as well be called Bontrager. It's filled with that brand and little else and they're a Trek dealer obviously. My days of hanging out and just browsing the store are long gone. The few occasions I find something I might want to buy the price markup vs internet just isn't worth it.

In the 80's and '90's I would spend hours just drooling over stuff and hanging out.

2old

Really enjoyed their closeout since everything was 95% off and even though I loaded up, still didn't get enough consumables. If they could have survived another year, they would have really thrived (IMO).

Chuckles1

Still have the first cycling jersey I ever bought from Performance, probably twenty years old, still wearable and superior to anything I've bought since. Ditto on MTB shorts I still wear on most rides. Ditto on my Nashbar shoes. Unparallelled value, in my experience.

Kobe 

I have a pair of Performance mountain bike shorts that have the perfect amount of padding, not overly done like some. they are still my main pair after 15 years.

I was getting the Nashbar email's for awhile but unsubscribed recently, even their emails we not well done as far as sales.

Squeeze

Agreed. I liked them very much. Forte brand tires were a particular bargain and they had lots of cheap bags for commuting.

mstateglfr 

There may be a lot of leftover stock, but Nashbar consistently sells a lot of replenished stock items too. Their selection of POC is good and they have frequent helmet sales where POC helmets from Nashbar are $50 less than anywhere else online.

Charliekeet

Good to know. That also (in my opinion) explains why I haven’t been finding the same breadth of offerings the last two times I looked at both DansComp (from which I’ve bought stuff for both my kids and me a number of times in recent years) and Nashbar (from which I haven’t bought anything in a long time, but which used to be the first online outlet I’d look to). Too bad.

I’ve only ever bought a repair stand from Performance, but I’ll still check them out. Hopefully they don’t wither.

2old

AFAICT, Performance and Nashbar are gone. As above, I still have clothing items from one or both that were priced well below their competitors and better quality. Also, Nashbar used to occasionally have frames that other manufacturers kept as replacements, then sold to them when the term expired (or whatever). The companies are like Schwinn and others now; the name was sold, but that's about all.

OkFine

I still buy from Performance and have even had good customer service when I had an issue. I don't know the older Performance Bike, but I have no complaints with the current.

drlogik 

https://www.performancebike.com/abou...e-bicycle/i415

DaveSSS 

I bought my two Cinelli superstar disc frames from Nashbar for just over $1000 each, with free shipping and no sales tax. A 2021 model runs about $2200. They sometimes have the best price on some parts, with discount coupon. Nashbar and Performance list the same parts,

2old

Performance purchased Nashbar before their demise. Then (as reported above) a company purchased both of the names (reportedly the company (which included other bike brands like Fuji) was $25 million in debt when they had dissolved. Haven't been back to the new site, but maybe they'll revive some products.

Maelochs

Nashbar was The place to buy cycling goods for reasonable prices. Like many here I still have Nashbar gear that I use regularly after many, many years.

They always had the cheapest, ugliest, decent-quality store-brand stuff---$15 and $25 jerseys when everyone else wanted $55 and all that. I spent a Ton of money there just because each individual item was so cheap---and always looking for one more thing to get to the free shipping limit. Buy last year's stuff at closeout prices and feel like a smart-consumer hero----- shopping there was actually Fun.

Now their stuff is the same price as everyone else's so I don't buy any of it.

Higher markup, but lower sales ..... someone went with a standard business model to replace a unique business model which was really successful and it is crap now.

Performance used to be my second stop. When they absorbed Nashbar things were still okay. They still offered decent-quality store-brand stuff at a sensible price. When they crashed---probably because some stockholders said "Why sell stuff cheap? Everyone else is robbing cyclists blind, why don't we?" And then they found out why .... The rich rider market was saturated, and they rejected the low-budget riders, and had no customers.

I guess I might go through the closeout bins and such once more just for nostalgia---but I used to go there every couple days to see what ridiculous deals I could find---always the 2XL and 3XL stuff which had been sitting around for two years, marked down by two-thirds----I spent a ton of money because once I found one item and got excited, I'd have motivation to look at every page.

last several times I was there .... no real deals, no quality store-brand stuff, no reason to buy the first item which always seemed to lead to six or twelve more.

The past is gone. oh, well. Luckily I bought way too much back in the day.

Mark Stone

Good information, thanks for the post.

I loved Performance when I lived in Denver in the 1990s - I even rode a Performance brand mountain bike for some time. The original company is gone, but it looks like their name may be in good hands.

Darth Lefty 

Well, their creditors probably would disagree

2old

AFAICT, Nashbar was the first bike company with a catalog which I used to absorb when it arrived and viable until they were sold. Unfortunately, the too much I purchased from them and Performance when it was inexpensive is nearly gone except for some clothing which doesn't seem to wear out.

BikingViking793 

Whenever I check their site now nothing seems to be in stock and the pricing all pretty high. Would be nice to have them back.

Harhir

I loved their store in my town. They had a great mechanic who actually was an expert on internal gear hubs which is rarity nowadays here in the US. He helped me to fix one of my old trusty bikes and motivated me to learn how to work on internal gear hubs myself.
Prices for accessories were good too. And unfortunately a second bike store closed as well around the same time. This was a family run business and the guy retired. No one wanted to continue the store. Besides the big box stores we now have only 1 bike store and 1 bike repair store left in a city with a population of 300K. Fortunately I can fix most stuff myself and hardly ever need a store.
However I have not come across a bike store which carries clothing for tall riders and I have given up long time ago to purchase cycling clothes in bike stores.

msu2001la

I bought a ton of stuff from Performance and Nashbar back in the early 2000's. I remember looking at my LBS for really basic things like bottle cages, gloves or arm warmers, where I didn't really care about brand, and being frustrated that everything they stocked was super high-end/high-price.

I think Amazon killed their business model. If I want cheap arm warmers or something like that now, I'd probably just start there.