"Just got the ""Supergo"" catalog and noticed a Chapel Hill, NC return address. Who are these people? Any connection to Performance, also in Chapel Hill? (Owned by? Started by ex-Perf. employees? Just a PO box?) All their stores are on the west coast, what gives?"
Supergo? Chapel Hill?
Perf owns all 3 I believe.
I thought Nashbar is in Ohio.
Performance owns all three
Performance, in North Carolina, bought out Nashbar, in Ohio, some years ago. They maintain separate brand names for marketing reasons, but if you call Nashbar these days, you're likely to get somebody with a North Carolina accent. I suspect it's all coming out of the same warehouse, from the same people, offering their newly-lousy attitude.
Or at least that was the case about a year ago. I had such an horrendous experience with Nashbar/Performance that I am not inclined to deal with them/it/whatever again.
"""but if you call Nashbar these days, you're likely to get somebody with a North Carolina accent.""
Nope. Nashbar moved their order center (not the warehouse) from Ohio to West Virginia a few years ago.
Supergo (now owned by Performance), once known as Bikeology, is in California.
""Chainwheel"""
What's Performance's strategy? Are these going to be different businesses with different markets or will they be merged with a single nationwide identity?
"""Are these going to be different businesses with different markets or will they be merged with a single nationwide identity?""
I think they will continue to keep them separate. Nashbar has been owned by Performance for several years now and is still run independently. They each seem to appeal to a slightly different market, and I'll bet a lot of their customers don't realize that Performance owns all three.
""Chainwheel"""
In the 1970s, and maybe earlier, in the '60s, there was a bike shop on Wilshire around 9th Street in Santa Monica named Bikecology owned, I believe, by a Goldsmith or Goldschmidt. Insofar as I know, he initiated mail order selling for bikes. He later used the name Supergo for that venture. Of late, the successors for that venture resuscitated the Weyless name, it's marque having expired.
Weyless was one of the earliest manufacturers to use titanium for the common cyclist and its components were extremely highly regarded. It was owned by Lester Tabb and the parts (hubs, I think headsets, and I don't know what else) were assembled in his garage in Connecticut. The assembly was done by his three very young children! Today the oldest of them is in Santa Cruz, having been on the ground floor as a developer of Netscape which morphed into Firefox and, as such, he became exceedingly wealthy. The middle child, a doctor, is, today, a child psychiatrist in North Carolina. The youngest has written a couple memoirs and was a punk rock critic.