How often do you find a company that impresses you these days?
For me it's as rare as hen's teeth. During my nearly 50 years, most companies have done one or more of the following:
1. Reduced the quality of their products
2. Raised prices
3. Moved their manufacturing to China or some other sweatshop country
4. Discontinued iconic products for which there's still plenty of demand, driving the prices of those products on the second-hand market through the roof
I'll use bicycle parts companies as examples because that's what I've been dealing with recently.
As an example of #4, Shimano (Japanese company) discontinued their DX pedals ages ago, which are probably the most iconic and most copied BMX pedals of all time, which results in this sort of horseshit:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/175340503481
There are several pairs of NOS ones on eBay right now, and the cheapest asking price is $1,043.13. They sold for about $15 or $20 a pair in the '80s.
Araya (Japanese company) is another example of #4. Why do they refuse to make the 7X rim these days, which is probably the most iconic BMX rim of all time? If you want some new ones, which cost around $12 each in the '80s, it's more of the same shit:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/314614244828
I'll give credit to Sugino and Dia-Compe (they are both Japanese companies) for reissuing some of their iconic BMX products, but with Sugino, their prices are too high:
https://www.suginoltd.co.jp/store/products/detail.php?product_id=115
$70 for one chain ring (plus I don't like that the writing on it isn't roll-stamped like on their old ones), and the same price for their reissued spider:
https://www.suginoltd.co.jp/store/products/detail.php?product_id=30
And with Dia-Compe, most, if not all, of their reissued products are now made in Taiwan rather than Japan. At least Taiwan is way better than mainland China though, so there's that.
Profile Racing (American company) is still good (which is extremely rare). Their products are top quality like they've always been, they are still made in the USA, and their prices can be on the high side, but not as bad as Sugino. For example, their reissued spider is only $38:
https://www.profileracing.com/product/retro-spider/
And then there's MKS (Japanese company), and they are wicked impressive. For example, they reissued their iconic BM-7 pedals in 2012 (and are still making them), and they are still made in Japan:
https://www.mkspedal.com/?q=en/product/node/94
And in a stunning, practically unheard of move, they actually increased the quality:
While the original BM-7 has a black plastic dust cap, our updated version has an alloy cap.
Going from a plastic part to metal? It's almost always the other way around.
And what about the price? Around $30, which is incredible. That's what cheap, made-in-Taiwan Wellgo brand (which is mainly a copycat company; they have no iconic designs of their own) pedals sell for, which have a crude finish and bearings that might as well have been adjusted by a monkey. Plus they have no keyed washer, nor even a slot in the spindle to accommodate one, which makes it next to impossible to adjust the bearings correctly yourself. share