{"id":22564,"date":"2025-04-21T17:58:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T23:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-outdoor-businesses-buckling-in-trump-trade-war\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:15:09","slug":"colorados-outdoor-businesses-buckling-in-trump-trade-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-outdoor-businesses-buckling-in-trump-trade-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s outdoor businesses buckling in Trump trade war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jonathan
Jonathan Jourdane practices surfing in the Durango White Water Park on June 3, 2023, during Animas River Days. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Since 2012, Lane Willson\u2019s bikepacking business in Salida has handcrafted some of the best bike bags in cycling. Last week she had 16 workers \u2013 she calls them \u201cstitch witches\u201d working 20 machines \u2013 in downtown Salida, churning out all sorts of Oveja Negra frame bags and backpacks for long-haul cyclists.<\/p>\n

This week Willson and her partners \u2013 husband, Monte, and co-owner Stephanie Perko \u2013 had to lay off seven trained sewists and move two workers into part-time contracting. She spent years teaching those workers how to design and sew Oveja Negra bags.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American dream is being destroyed by this administration,\u201d Willson says.<\/p>\n

Down the street in Salida, Mike Harvey had a container of his Badfish river boards shipped from China. He\u2019s been working on the new board designs for a year with trusted manufacturing partners.<\/p>\n

So he\u2019s importing them under a 155% tariff imposed by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a margin-killer,\u201d says Harvey, who cofounded Badfish with Salida surfboard designer Zach Hughes in 2010, pioneering the then-nascent sport of river stand-up paddling. \u201cWe\u2019re now facing only bad choices \u2013 either eat the cost and make little to no profit, raise prices on our customers, or some painful combination of both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bike shops in Mexico, Canada, Australia, the U.K. and South Africa have canceled orders for Oveja Negra bags.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are saying \u2018Nope, we don\u2019t buy anything from the U.S. anymore,\u2019\u201d Willson says.<\/p>\n

Dozens of bike shops in more than 35 states are not placing new orders for the coming season as owners brace for trade-war tariffs that will spike bicycle prices by several hundred dollars.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Oveja Negra got a $99,350 grant from the Colorado outdoor recreation office\u2019s federally funded Outdoor Recreation Industry Impact Fund, which helps outdoor businesses hire and retain workers. That helped Willson keep her workers on board through the post-pandemic slowdown. For 13 years, business has climbed more than 10% a year, often surpassing the owners\u2019 projections.<\/p>\n

Now Oveja Negra, which sources 98% of its materials from the U.S. and manufactures everything but metal buckles in Salida, is in a freefall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the U.S. manufacturer using U.S.-made materials and Trump is putting me out of business,\u201d she says. \u201cWe figured out U.S. manufacturing and we figured out how to take care of our people and it came crashing down. I\u2019m doing everything Trump wants but we are being punished by this tariff (expletive).\u201d<\/p>\n

Fabric costs for Oveja Negra have soared 30% in the past three years. Wages have climbed 25%. To return to profitability, Willson says she will need to sell $50 bags for $200.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut no one will buy that,\u201d she says. \u201cSo that\u2019s not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvey wonders about the seemingly arbitrary nature of Trump\u2019s tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Trump administration wants to see more goods made in the U.S., where\u2019s the road map? Why not phase tariffs in over time with a clear schedule, giving small businesses a chance to adapt? We can\u2019t just uproot our supply chain overnight,\u201d Harvey says. \u201cI understand the logic of targeting sensitive sectors like semiconductors for strategic reasons. But what exactly is the strategic value of making inflatable stand-up paddleboards domestically?<\/p>\n

\u201cChina has the infrastructure, components and expertise in place. Rebuilding that here would take years, maybe decades. And without a real plan to stimulate that kind of capital investment, we\u2019re just being punished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manufacturers have started adding tariff surcharges<\/div>\n

Last week bicycle-maker Specialized said it was adding a 10% additional tariff surcharge to mountain bikes it was selling to retailers, telling shop owners it should pass the cost on to buyers. U.S. bike manufacturers who rely on products and materials made in Asia \u2013 especially China and Vietnam \u2013 have long paid high tariffs and the trade war has added 10% more and higher tariffs, while temporarily suspended, seem likely.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo really the compounding of tariffs is problematic and the on-again, off-again nature of this thing is incredibly frustrating,\u201d said Chris Conroy, the co-owner of Yeti Cycles in Golden. \u201cIt\u2019s soul-crushing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conroy had been managing Yeti Cycles when he and another employee, Steve Hoogendoorn, bought the bike company in 2001.<\/p>\n

The business has tinkered with domestic manufacturing \u2013 it assembles its high-end, carbon-fiber mountain bikes in Golden \u2013 but relies largely on bikes made in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were one of the last bike companies to manufacture in the U.S., but we eventually had to move overseas because all our suppliers moved over there,\u201d Conroy says.<\/p>\n

The bike industry boomed for a minute during the pandemic but quickly cooled. Shops in 2022 and 2023 watched bikes remain unsold, forcing discounting to make room for the new rides. Last year there were signs of a rebound and people were buying again. But the new tariffs and stormy trade war has darkened horizons.<\/p>\n

Conroy, who employs 75 workers at his Golden facility, is struggling to minimize impacts to Yeti Cycle\u2019s retailers and buyers.<\/p>\n

On April 17, Carbondale-based Revel Bikes emailed its dealers that it was closing, citing $8 million debt and \u201csignificant payments coming due and a very soft market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Revel Bikes was founded in 2019 with a unique suspension design and carbon-fiber frames. Last summer, another Colorado-based mountain bike maker with an innovative design \u2013 Guerrilla Gravity \u2013 shut down after 12 years of making bikes in Denver.<\/p>\n

Ben Coates, the chief executive of Revel Bikes, declined to discuss what he called \u201can orderly wind down process\u201d or say if the shuttering was connected to tariffs or trade war. Two days before the announcement the company trumpeted the release of two new models of bikes, including its first electric mountain bike.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a deal cannot be made to save Revel, the process will end in Revel being out of business,\u201d Coates said in an email.<\/p>\n

Like Harvey, Conroy wishes there was clarity. Returning bike manufacturing to the U.S. will take decades and huge investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the question is, do we really want that?\u201d Conroy says. \u201cAll the manufacturing left because of Americans\u2019 desire for quality, less-expensive products. That is very difficult to have with U.S. manufacturing. The cost implications are pretty substantial for small businesses and consumers right now, and we as a country need to decide what\u2019s most important and balance that with a long-term approach that will allow businesses to see what\u2019s coming and react and move forward rationally. This uncertainty and insecurity is the hardest thing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘We can\u2019t just uproot our supply chain overnight,\u2019 business cofounder says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,28,315],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-headlines","tag-president-donald-trump"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77766,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22564\/revisions\/77766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22564"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}