Neon-colored banners in the Village Centre parking lot off Waters Rd. announce a closing sale at Performance Bicycle. Manager Luke Stevens says parent company American Sports Enterprises filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November. “It was hard for us, because we didn’t do anything wrong,” he says–the Ann xADArbor outlet was profitable.
Performance Bicycle was acquired by Advanced Sports International (a subset of ASE), its largest creditor, in 2016. ASI hoped to turn the chain around, but its flagship brand, Fuji, makes 90 percent of its bikes in China–and Chinese bikes are among the targets of President Trump’s tariff war.
In December, a bankruptcy judge approved closing all 102 Performance locations. Stevens says they’ll be increasing discounts until all of the inventory has been sold.
