Carbondale’s innovative Revel mountain bikes are built for excelling at both the up and down. The company — born in 2019 with two carbon-fiber models — has been enduring a prolonged descent, with the private equity company that bought the bike maker in 2021 announcing a month ago that it was ending the Revel run, citing a debt of more than $8 million.
Now the company’s founder — Adam Miller, who first designed the carbon-fiber Revel rides in 2015 and spent four years dialing in production before launching — has bought the company back and he’s pedaling up. Plans are underway to relaunch Revel in less than two weeks.
Miller announced the Revel revival Wednesday and said he’s been inundated with support from cyclists who love his bikes.
“I was not really expecting this. The outpouring of love and positivity has been overwhelming,” he said Wednesday afternoon. “I mean I knew I loved the bikes and I knew some people were fans, but I never expected this.”
The Sun: Congratulations, Adam. What prompted you to get back in after selling?
Miller: Things were going great for the industry when I sold to private equity. I stayed on to run the company but I was not really seeing eye-to-eye with the private equity firm and I had to make the difficult decision to leave in 2024. I didn’t really want to, but it was the right thing to do. I was gutted when I heard they were closing. I didn’t expect that. I immediately knew I had to buy it back. I really didn’t think my next venture would be Revel Bikes, but when I heard the news of the shut down, there really was no other decision I could make.
The Sun: The bike industry has been in a bit of a slump coming out of the pandemic. Why get back in?
Miller: Yeah, the industry is in a really difficult time but I think we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. This year might not be amazing but next year should be better. To me, that’s OK and we are going to scale back to accommodate a softer industry and kind of build for the long haul. Every industry has its ups and downs and everything is cyclical. Sure this is a bit of a gamble, but it’s one I’m willing to take. I’m confident we can make this work. I feel really lucky to have a second chance to build the company the right way and build it for the long run.
The Sun: The new bikes look amazing. It was kinda wild to see an email on April 8 with news of three new Revel models — including a brand-new enduro bike and e-bike — and then a week later there was an email announcing the company was closing.
Miller: Yeah those new designs are projects I started in ’21-22 with the private equity owners. They were very willing to fund new product development and those are the best of the best Revel has ever made. We moved production to the best bike factory in the world in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, we partnered with (e-bike motor manufacturer) Bosch for the e-bike and it was so cool to see them finally launch into the world. My guess is that they launched those bikes in a hurry because they knew the company was going to fold and I bet it was a last-ditch attempt to find a new buyer before the bank took over. It was so brutal.
The Sun: Did you not amass that kind of debt when you owned the company?
Miller: We never got into that position. If we needed to, we just said “Let’s grow slower.” Instead of trying to hit financial targets, we focused on growing within our means, staying small and growing the right way. In my mind, a company should never get into a position where the lenders are controlling decisions. This is a prime example of what happens when a company is not run responsibly from a financial perspective.
The Sun: Are you worried about production in Asia and all this tariff turmoil?
Miller: I think the tariffs may have been what pushed this company over the edge a month ago. A couple years ago I set up a branch office in Taichung, Taiwan. It’s a small facility with six employees. It’s the best possible setup to be able to sell bikes globally amid this whole tariff disaster. We will be shipping bikes directly from Taiwan. Right now, with these tariffs, there is no way we can ship a bike from Colorado to Canada and have it make any kind of financial sense to the customer. And we have a lot of customers in Canada. Now that bike can ship from Taiwan and that customer gets a financially reasonable bike. I have to be optimistic that reasonable minds will prevail here and support good global trade.