Farewell Saracen, hello Saracen

Madison has bought the Saracen brand and “all related intellectual property”, the company has announced. Madison has been one of the biggest importers and distributors in the UK for many years and more recently has been building up its own bike brands, revamping Ridgeback and launching Genesis. Saracen Cycles was one of the pioneering MTB brands in the UK, but more recently has had troubled times – the company ceased trading in 2006 but was reborn as Saracen Bikes.

Saracen, the company, will continue to trade as normul until the end of March 2009, at which point it will close and Madison will take up the reins with the aim of launching an all-new Saracen range for 2010. Madison says that it “aims to recapture the essence of the earlier pioneering days of Saracen and develop a strongly recognised brand for the independent bicycle retailer.” To that end, Madison will be putting together a new design team. Madison already operates its bicycle business as a separate entity, managed independently from its core component and accessories business with separate management, marketing and design and field sales team which will now be grown to accommodate the Saracen brand.

Dominic Langan, CEO of Madison, said: “We’ve been looking to acquire a bike brand for some time and Saracen presents us with the best opportunity. With the energy, focus and investment that Madison brings we expect the brand to go from strength to strength.”

Rick Stanforth, chairman of Saracen, commented: “23 years and over a million bikes is a phenomenal achievement. What pleases us most is that we are handing Saracen over to an organisation that is incredibly well placed to further
develop the brand. It’s been a huge part of our lives and we’re looking forward to watching the brand continue to grow during the next stages of the brand’s ongoing development.”

Exactly where the new incarnation of Saracen will end up in the market will be interesting to see. With the bulk of Ridgeback’s range being vaguely utility or family oriented and Genesis focussing on more enthusiast/niche bikes there’s a reasonably clear kind of mainstream/recreational gap between them. Whether the existing Ridgeback and Genesis portfolios will be rejigged to accommodate the newcomer remains to be seen.