Bankruptcy leads to closure of all three Performance Bicycle stores in Portland region

Some people hoped a bankruptcy filing last month by the parent company of the Performance Bicycle might not result in the closure of all stores across the country.

But today the list is out and the news isn’t good: Advanced Sports Enterprises says it will close all 102 of its stores in the United States. That includes locations in Portland (Mall 205, 9988 SE Washington St.), Tualatin (7690 Montgomery Rd.) and Beaverton (3850 SW Hall Blvd.). The closure leaves Portland with just one bike shop (Outer Rim Bicycles) east of I-205.

Performance is a well-known retailer in the bike industry that was founded as a mail-order catalog in 1981.

According to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (BRAIN) magazine their parent company filed for bankruptcy on November 16th. Here’s more from BRAIN:

Patrick Cunnane, the CEO of ASE, said… the company was unable to turn around the retail business, which has seen sales declines for the last six years. “We were undercapitalized from the start.”

… “We tried to be more local and less national,” he said. Stores raised some retail prices to match the market and improve margins, and developed procedures to turn inventory better.

ASE was able to integrate the Performance and Nashbar back end systems and warehousing, but was unable to fully integrate the retail and wholesale back ends. “Sometimes you have to spend money to save money, and we didn’t have the money to invest to achieve the savings we wanted,” he said.”

When BRAIN first reported the story, leaders of ASE made it seem like some of the stores would survive the re-organization.

But an email sent today from Gordon Brothers, a company hired to liquidate Performance’s inventory, made it clear that all the store will be closed.

“The Company has made the strategic decision to close all 102 Performance Bicycle stores,” the email says. “Today marks the first day of a major sale at all Performance locations.”

Discounts will start at 40 percent. And as they say, everything must go.

Beaverton resident Andy Kutansky will miss the Beaverton store. “The employees were always friendly and hosted shop rides on the weekends,” he shared with us in an email today. “Someone in the store said it had been open 30+ years or so! Today they seemed sad and I was sad with them.”

This news comes on the same day that the bicycle industry’s (once) largest annual trade show, Interbike, has called it quits.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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