“Rabbit,” “Louie,” and a whole range of other affectionately delivered but less flattering nicknames, they’d call and ask for Jeff. At some point, any call that wasn’t for a staff person I knew, I would just transfer to him. I mean even if it was a wrong number there was a decent chance he’d sell them a bike. 

Three separate test rides at a time on a busy Saturday if that’s what it took. Multi-bike package deals being negotiated on the trail on his day off. Custom builds for short people, tall people, wealthy people, and, well, less-financially-endowed people. I had never, I have never, witnessed someone move bikes like him. And I don’t mean that in an unflattering way folks often paint “salespeople.” A lot of these riders had been riding for years and had never purchased a mountain bike that didn’t come from Jeff Carr going back to his first days working at Cove Bikes. Special orders were special ordered and we turned around quotes for custom metal tout suite. 

And looking back at all those years selling bikes – right back to the heydays of the Cove – I doubt there was a time in the bike industry that belonged more to Jeff than the year 2009. He managed to come into the season light on inventory, cash-in-hand, and ready to grind suppliers so he could comfortably make his margins while at the same time cementing a reputation as the best value wheeler-dealer in town. 

The first half of the noughties was a great time to be selling bikes. The North Shore was projecting an outsized influence over mountain biking everywhere, manufacturing and design were evolving at an epic rate and there were actual, notable, year-over-year performance improvements. And bike companies just kept churning out more-and-more bikes every year while shops booked bigger-and-bolder. Then the recession hit in 2008, high-end bike sales dropped, and suddenly it took a lot more work to peddle performance pedaling. 

As with, I suspect, 2022, the hottest mountain machines models, the best value rigs, the most unique or niche mountain bikes, those all kept rolling out the door just fine. As with, I suspect, 2022, the suppliers who stocked shops hard and early at least managed to make their points – well, at least once shops moved the models and paid their bills. As with, I suspect, 2022, the chaff was stagnant and riders who didn’t need the best of the new-new or who got creative with swapping-and-flipping framesets were rolling away with bicycle-value that they haven’t touched since. 

Among many over-produced bicycles, I don’t think any single machine better sums up the epoch than the 2008 Norco Faze One. It was an absolute piece of shit to ride, work on, or look at, but it also happened to be covered in Shimano’s awesome XTR M970 groupset, available by the truckload, and priced so low you could recycle the frame and still come out looking pretty selling parts.

I started really thinking about it again a few weeks ago when I saw a fully-Fazed 2009 Knolly Endorphin. White powder coat, subtle logo-ing, and a full XTR build with Stan’s Olympic wheels and a QR Fox 32 150mm fork. Zero doubts it was a Jeff-special. The original purchaser got a killer deal on a loaded bike, Jeff got to be a hero and make money, and then some other rider got a great deal on a brand new Fox RP23 rear shock that just happened to be hanging from the ceiling with a Faze frame bolted to it. 

I’m not saying that there are going to be warehouses full of static stock in super-desirable, fully loaded, Tallboys, Altitudes, or SB-170s. But, there are certainly going to be deals had on less trendy machines whether due to shops over-committing and needing to free up some cash or suppliers desperate to unburden some warehouse space in a just-in-time world. And yeah, there really aren’t truly-bad bikes anymore – just bad values – but that’s not saying that building up that new Forbidden or Geometron isn’t going to become much more affordable when buying a heavily discounted something-else and flipping the frameset. 

We can all, hopefully, see a light at the end of the tunnel but I’m not hearing too many folks in the industry expressing confidence that shops or suppliers are prepared for sales to slow down in the post-Covid world. Put another way, even if you can get a new bike you want to ride this year if you don’t ‘need’ one, I’m predicting that it probably isn’t a bad idea for your pocketbook to limp your current machine along for one more season and see how things shake out. Oh, and probably a good idea to also find your personal Jeff.