I was thinking about the luxury end of the mountain bike market and how much focus there is on warranties, guarantees, and freebies-please, when it comes to the highest-priced products. Carbon frames, electronic drivetrains, carbon wheelsets, boutique suspension. There’s an almost universal entitlement to a new this-or-that that comes with the upfront entry cost, even if it’s written off due to rider error or neglect.
And yes, this is solidly a case of ‘It is what it is,‘ but in turn, it makes me wonder how overbuilt and up-priced many of these products become in order to increase survivability. Both of the products themselves and the brands’ bottom lines. At the end of the day, these products just end up being flashier versions of what we grunts are pedaling. XTR is materially and functionally fancy Deore.
Where are the super-light, you-break-it-you-buy-another-one products? The forks with crazy super-low-friction seals that need to be replaced every 20 hours of use? The shocks with the magnetorheological damper fluid that costs $1000/Litre?
*{Title photo: Julien555/VitalMTB // Check out JujuTheCollector}
{Above photo: Arares}
{Above photo: Zubbolea1}
And if some bicycle brand, any bicycle brand, was bold enough to launch so boutique, rarefied, and cost-no-object-replacement-cost-also-no-object mountain bike – Bicycle or MTeeB – with epically light frames, and rims made from the most expensive raw carbon materials, and a warranty that’s literally-literally thirty feet or thirty seconds? Well, let’s be honest, there’s only one model name that fits:
Nouveau Riche.
And in turn, there’s only one problem with that name: someone, some company, already owns it. But who?
{Above photo: Julien555/VitalMTB}
Balfa, the legendary Quebec bicycle maker famous for combining aluminum front triangles to steel back ends, popularizing high pivot DH race rigs {the first time}, and just generally, genuinely, making awesome {for their time} and interesting {forever} machines, was purchased, along with their IP, by Procycle in November of 2001.
Yes, the same Procycle that purchased Rocky Mountain in 1997, renamed itself Rocky Mountain in 2018, and was bought out of bankruptcy in 2025 with all their model names, designs, and that legendary www.bikes.com domain now belonging to, also Quebec-based, Chaos Sports.
{Above photo: Nikitoy}
{Above photo: Balfa.Wooyek}
So, there’s the BB7, Wooly Bully, Belair, 2Step, Minuteman, Bobonum, and Nouveau Riche (NR) out in the hinterland, not to mention the Balfa brand itself, and one has to wonder whose shelf that’s all sitting on. It’s all Chaos now, I presume?
And maybe Balfa is so far removed from production {what, twenty years now?} that the name has no more cache to the average rider than whatever branding you’d pull out of a hat. Although, regardless of time and space, ‘Bobonum’ and ‘Wooly Bully’ would both make fantastic fat bike names.
Or, maybe, if the history and brand are available, the next upstart French-Canadian frame shop could hit the trail rolling with the iconic tire-eating logo, metals mix, and unique nomenclature?
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