Mountain bikes for unbridled adventure

Esker is a rider-owned mountain bike company fueled by the combined experience of industry veterans, an unwavering commitment to quality, and the desire to challenge traditional methods.

We assemble our bikes to order right here in Montana, enabling us to create custom combinations of top-performing frame designs, spec levels, and colors at an excellent price, giving our customers the choice to pick it up at a dealer or have it shipped to their door. 

As greater numbers of people hit the trails, Esker has become more than just a brand—our customers meet and ride with the people that design, assemble, and produce their bikes, forming a community of adventurers and dedicated promoters. 

The cycling industry has been slow to adapt

The “great bicycle boom” has driven a huge surge in recreational cycling, with a dramatic global increase in bicycle sales - yet the cycling industry has remained slow to adapt to a more modern, consumer-facing sales strategy. 

(Source | Source) 

Legacy mountain bike brands continue to default to a dealer-only model within their existing networks, while a handful of newcomers are concentrating their spending on high-dollar DTC marketing rather than focusing on product design. This gap in the cycling market gives us an opportunity to cater our products to both online and in-person customers, hybridizing the best of DTC sales with the advantages of dealers and demo events to reach as many cyclists as possible.

Ready to ride, wherever you choose to roll

Unlike companies that cater exclusively to either dealers or online customers, Esker combines the best of both worlds, allowing us to connect with and cater to a broader demographic. 

As a small and nimble company, Esker is poised to respond efficiently to the demands of the moment while still concentrating on ride quality and performance. We thrive on being close to our product, overseeing every step of the process—from our in-house proprietary designs and prototyping, to negotiating with the best industry suppliers and assembling our frames into the final product. 

Our full suspension bikes are built with Orion suspension, licensed from industry veteran Dave Weagle, and our hardtails are known for having highly refined geometries and ride qualities. 

Esker currently makes four bicycles which cater to different riders and terrains, with four additional models preparing to launch in 2022.

Responding to the "Bicycle Boom"

The global bicycle market size experienced an unprecedented boom during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching a value of over $54B in 2020 (source). Mountain bike demand in particular remains at a high level, with sales of front-suspension mountain bikes up 150% in spring 2020 (source) and an estimated 1M units of high-end bikes sold annually in the US (estimate based on information found here). 

This upward trend in popularity is predicted to grow with a CAGR of 10% between now and 2027, catalyzed by broader lifestyle and demographic trends (source). Further still, the sport has benefited from an explosion in trail building, with trail counts increasing between 100% to 500% since 2019, primarily on free-to-use public land (source). 

(Source | Source)

(US high-end bike sales statistic is an estimate. This estimate is based on information found here.) 

Esker stands out from competitors by offering a 5–7% better price on similar products. We also present more choice and quality to our customers, with our built-to-order bikes resulting in better performance for riders. Unlike DTC-only companies, Esker can introduce our bikes to customers in-person, concentrating our focus on innovative product design rather than high marketing spend. 

By selling our product through multiple channels, we’re able to adjust each channel’s volume to maximize our margins. This results in a blended margin of about 40% - around 10% above the industry average. Once we reach 2,000 units, we’ll arrive at a 15–18% net margin. As we capitalize and grow, the addition of new models and customization choices will help further increase these unit sales and profit margins simultaneously.

Selling out, gaining clout, and ready to scale

We launched Esker in 2018, pre-selling 100 units and bringing in $300K in revenue that first year. We’ve now sold 450 units in 2021 (and are on track to sell 550 total pieces by the end of the year) for a total of $1.7M in revenue. 

Currently the product planning, engineering, production coordination, and dealer demand are in place and in progress to hit our projection of 2,000 units in 2024, but so far, our only constraint has been inventory. Our sales channels are repeatedly requesting more product than we have available. Having self-funded up to this point, we’re recognizing the critical need for capital in order to keep pace with demand as the Esker brand gains momentum.

Thanks to excellent press on our first two models, we’ve been able to place reviews in almost all prominent mountain biking publications. By the launch of our third and fourth models, industry insiders were actively coming our way. We’re preparing for a spring 2022 launch of our Titanium Hayduke and Japhy, followed by two new (and undisclosed) Titanium models in the fall. 

In 2023 and 2024, we plan to launch three new steel models as well as three new suspension models, all of which are already in the engineering and design phase. Between an established product line and continued customer demand, we’re poised for a unique stage of hypergrowth.

Bikes built for disruption

Esker was born under big skies, rooted in late-night campfire conversations, and fueled by long rides into the hills. It’s this collective experience that drives our work, and as we continue to grow, community, quality, and innovation will remain at the core of what we do. 

This new round of capital will help us reach 2000 units by 2024, with additional models currently in the process of development and engineering that are set to be released by then. 

We expect our footprint to rapidly expand as we’re able to provide inventory to the large volume of dealers who have applied, continuing our trajectory of establishing Esker as a primary player in the high-end mountain bike market. 

For 2025 and beyond, we have explored strategies to continue our growth, such as selling to or merging with other companies in the cycling industry that need our flexible sales methods and/or the consumer-facing channels.

We’d love for you to join us for this ride of a lifetime.