Today I stopped by and spoke with Elite, and they’re done with KTM. A combination of slow KTM sales, unit economics, and customer/market sentiment made it impossible for them to keep going with the brand. They’re all seemingly bummed about it, because they’ve all been passionate about the brand forever, most own KTM bikes, race them, etc..
I guess the KTM fallout will be more glacial than tidal wave. It’s auch a bummer to have to deal with Denver and a team I don’t know or trust down there when I need service…
There are a bunch of 390s and a few dirt bikes left, and that 890 SM. I’m sure you could get a good deal on what’s left.
Yeah, I was wondering that as well. I wonder if it was either acquired by other dealers, or shipped back to KTM or something. Don’t have enough familiarity with how those logistics work.
Yeah, they’ve had my $500 since Feb. I think that’s long enough. I have a CFMoto so I’m gonna see if they’ll roll into to store credit if they hum and haw…
Just following up. I got a refund of my deposit no problem. The owner was very cool about it. He said they’ll be carrying a new brand soon but wouldn’t say what yet.
I don’t know the economics of a moto shop, ie do they make more of their nut off of bike sales or service, but it seems intuitive that they could leverage their (I’m assuming) deep bench of KTM mechanics to service KTM and other brand.
Though I don’t know what restrictions they may have with getting parts…though anything from RMATV is only 1-2 days away.
Anyway, I love giving business advice to businesses I know nothing about…
The sales manager (Carl) is an old buddy of mine - he was my sales manager at one of my bike shops back in 2011. A couple months ago he told me some of the background with KTM. I didn’t realize that the Elite shop on Eisenhower was closed because KTM sales could not pay the rent there anymore. So at that point they consolidated to Longmont. In April or May he sold 92 units (all brands) and made almost no margin overall thanks to what he had to do to move KTM’s. We who love the orange were salivating over 500 EXC-F’s at 8500 bucks, but the dealers were getting hosed. In cars and motorsports, the service department usually is the profit driver, but they do have to make SOME money on the new vehicle sales. In bicycles we used to do ok on the actual bike sales (25-ish% margin) but still needed service revenue to pay the rent.
Anyway, this is a bummer, but when I bought my Norden in 2022, I had a deposit with Elite and ended up getting mine from Fay Myers. At the time I had to ask for a store credit on my deposit too, and that worked because I do my service work with Elite.
