Name: Trek built a $2B business. Now Tariffs are jeopardizing its future.
Uploaded: 2025-05-07
Duration: 10 min 36 s

Trek CEO, John Burke, takes us inside the company’s high-stakes race to stay ahead in a rapidly shifting cycling industry. As e-bikes surge in popularity, supply chains evolve, and consumer habits change, Burke shares how Trek is adapting its strategy to lead the pack. From innovation and sustainability to manufacturing and tariff trouble, Burke sheds light on the challenges and opportunities of the billion-dollar family business.

Trek built a $2B business. Now Tariffs are jeopardizing its future.

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Trek CEO, John Burke, takes us inside the company’s high-stakes race to stay ahead in a rapidly shifting cycling industry.

Bikes might just have pedals, but they're powering an industry worth over $60 billion globally. High-end cycling has seen a renaissance in the past decade, fueled by a surge in e-bike popularity and a wave of amateur road racers investing in pro-level gear. Few companies have ridden that wave more successfully than Trek. Trek has doubled in size over the past decade, taking its $1 billion revenue in 2016 to $2 billion in 2024. But now the company faces global economic headwinds. Tariffs, how have they affected track? Huge. You know, we're an international business. Put in the chat GPT, chances of a successful 49-year-old company lasting 100 years, and the answer came back 8%. And so I play against that number every day. So with the increased economic uncertainty, how will Trek maneuver to stay relevant in a volatile landscape? The bicycle has always had a boom and bust relationship with American consumers from explosive growth in the 1890s and 1970s to sharp crashes just years after those. The industry has had to recover countless times, and out of the ashes, Preck was born in 1976. My first day at Trek, the training program was one day. I graduated from school, went home, got my wisdom teeth pulled, and the next day I was at Trek, and I remember my first boss, Joel Holden, he told me, he said all the great salespeople drive on Sunday, and I lived in the Rocky Mountains. And I had like 12 states and so I would always drive on Sunday um just to get be in position for Monday morning. John Burke took over as CEO in 1997 from his father, who founded the company in 1976 in Waterloo, Wisconsin. 1982 I was in college and my dad, he wanted to go on a bike trip and so we went out to Colorado. He always loved challenges. He thought it'd be super cool if we could climb Independence Pass. and so early one morning he and I climbed up Independence Pass, and that's been a famous photo. We have a saying, a track called Think Bigger Than the Barn. Tell me about the Red Barn. Well, this is where it all started. Red Barn downtown Waterloo, Wis. 1976, I think the first year there were 6 employees and they made about 700 bikes and you know, a lot of times during the day I'll just walk down to the red barn and back and I feel something when I go down there and it keeps me focused. So I love the red barn. As you were a kid, the company was rising. The day you start, it crashes. What facilitates that crash? I think it was arrogant. I think it was not focusing on the customer. It was kind of focused Trek focused on Trek and Trek didn't take care of the customer and then they got into some product issues and it kind of went downhill from there. My father came in and he took over running the business, and he studied the business for 2 or 3 months and said we're gonna have a quality product at a competitive value and we're going to deliver it on time and that's it. And it sounds so boring today, but at that time Trek was doing none of those things. Now imagine, say theoretically you're someone like me who has not ridden a bike in a while. Where would you recommend I start? If you haven't ridden a bike and you want to get into biking? One of the things I'd really recommend is an e-bike. Can I show you my favorite e-bike? Yes, I love this bike, and the reason I love it is because I have one. And the one thing about e-bikes is anyone who rides one has a huge smile on their face every single time. I mean, you get on a bike, it's unbelievable. You can do 2 X, 3 X 4X, where you could usually do. Once considered a niche product, e-bikes are now one of the fastest growing segments in cycling, projected to top $50 billion worldwide by 2030. Trek has leaned into the electric surge, expanding its e-bike lineup across mountain, road, and city models. E-bikes have been a big part of Trek's growth. It's a big part of our sales right now, but if you take a look at racing bikes, We do really well in racing bikes. The unit volume isn't that high. The dollar volume is really high, and we have a really strong brand there. When Lance Armstrong, a trek athlete, rose to fame after multiple Tour de France wins, his celebrity status had a huge impact. Not only did the bike industry see a boost in interest, Trek specifically saw an increase in sales and cultural interest, dubbing it the Lance effect. The global racing bike market is now valued at $7 billion. Tell me a little bit about Trek's customer. Some of these bikes are thousands of dollars. Who is a Trek customer? Well, you know, just a quote that it's always stuck into my head is, you can judge the greatness of a person not at one extremity, but by their ability to touch both at the same time. We saw a lot of kids' bikes, really cool kids' bikes. But then we sell a lot of $15,000 Project one custom bikes. We touch both extremities and everything in between. Are you looking to expand in those categories, or are you still right sizing after the pandemic? Oh, we're always looking to expand. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, global supply chains ground to a halt, but bike demand exploded. With gyms closed and mass transit viewed as a health risk, people turned to bicycles and droves. For many, it was a safe solo way to stay active or simply get outside. For others, it became a critical form of urban transport. The explosion of interest made bike companies. Ramp up manufacturing. What was happening is a lot of retailers were placing just a ton of orders because they couldn't get everything they wanted, so they just kept placing orders and we're like, God, we're geniuses, and we were not geniuses. And so we kept producing more and more and then the music stopped and there were 5060 day lead times had grown to 500. lead times and so you had this massive amount of inventory. I was reading somewhere where you sort of said something to the effect of trek has to be an international business. That's part of what success looks like, but it is a very difficult time to be an international business. brutal. OK, so yeah, I love how we're we're already here. Yeah, tariffs, how have they affected trek? Huge. You know, we're an international business. We design products in the United States, we build products in the United States, we source products in Asia. We have a large factory in Europe. We do more than 50% of our business outside the United States. We're a global company. And we've got tariff policies that are changing on a constant basis. I'm just telling you, we just increased our prices last week 10%. Tariffs can have a massive impact on a company that potentially can have a huge impact on employment levels. Over 50% of Trek's business is done outside the United States. Why would it be difficult for Trek to move all of its manufacturing to the United States? Yeah, you know, we actually This goes back to the mid 90s. We actually had a manufacturing plant that built a lot of volume bikes in the US and it's really hard because the infrastructure doesn't exist. There are not frame manufacturers. There aren't parts manufacturers. Like you can't buy tires, you don't have rim suppliers. You don't have brake suppliers, you don't have crank suppliers. All that business is gone. It hasn't been in the US for 40 years. It doesn't exist. So to snap your fingers and go, let's reshore everything. By the time you resor stuff and started at that, you're 5 years down the road. And for people to think that you can just go like that, you can't. So what are we looking at here? This is one of the most famous moments in trek history. It was maybe 6 or 7 years ago somebody came back and they said, Do you really know what's going on with women's cycling? And I said, No. And they said, Well, they don't make any money. They stay in the worst hotels. They get the worst amount of support, and I was like, Oh, brutal. And I said well why don't we buy a team and we'll do it the right way. And so we started our own cycling team and there's a race called Perry Rubay and it's only for men and it is the most difficult roads in Belgium in that area and it's all cobbles and it's just really hard. They added a women's event. It was 2019 and that's Lizzie Begman and that's the year Lizzie won the first Perry Rube. What does the future of bicycling in the US look like and where does that intersect with the future of track? I think bicycling in the United States is important for a bunch of different reasons. Number one is just exercise. If you take a look at it today, 42% of Americans are obese. The government helped to bring smoking down. The government helped take care of drunk driving. I think the government can play a Bigger role with the health of the American people and the biggest aspect of that is getting people outside and getting people exercising. So I think that's one thing, you know, I just take a look at transportation, you know, a majority of car trips are 2 miles or less, and would you rather drive a car 2 miles or less, or would you rather be on a bike or would you rather be walking in the United States, if we define a car trip. And we say going to work, going to school, going to the restaurant, going to the market, 1.5% of trips are taken by bicycle. If you go to Holland, that number is 25%, and you have to say from a societal standpoint, do we want more and more people driving cars. or would it be really good if people rode their bikes or walked? And I think for physical health, mental health, healthcare costs, we need to get the country moving, and I think cycling is one way that you can do that.