Word has it that ActionBent trike company is no longer in business. I attempted to visit the site, and am taken to a GoDaddy domain page instead. I found another website by Gary Olsen that states:
“ActionBENT Bicycle Company is no longer in business in the US but when I bought the bike, it was located in Redmond, Washington. The company was run by these two very dedicated and enthusiastic guys who possessed a great connection with Asian bicycle manufacturers. But alas, the party for them is over. For reasons behond my comprehension, Actionbent as a US importer of bikes and trikes is officially out of business.”
That website may be visited HERE. This may have been known for a while, but it took me by surprise only moments ago. Well, I guess I can’t say you heard it first at Trike Asylum, ha ha. Leave a comment to this post to let us know when you heard about it. Let us know how far behind the times TA really is!
I ordered my ActionBent T1 2011-01-17 and took delivery a few days later, but tech support from Steve & Randy and the enclosed written/pictured assembly instructions (JC-20) fell considerably short of my hopes. This performance had been reported by many buyers prior to my purchase, so my expectations were low to begin with. Also documented beforehand was the good value per dollar of the trike itself, which actually ended up exceeding my expectations. It was reported to me in a couple of early phone conversations that the partnership was pretty much on the rocks, but I expected a ‘buyout’ from one of the partners; this never materialized and I halted further communication attempts within about 30-dsys.
From about the middle of February for this first time triker, I managed 2000 miles during the rest of 2011, including a century on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 7.5 hrs. Not bad for a (happy) 69 year old! YouTube: LogNotching
aside from reports i’d heard about substandard service, what contributed to putting me off purchasing an actionbent (happily, i ultimately opted for a catrike expedition) was this response to my inquiry:
— On Sun, 3/1/09, Eric wrote:
From: Eric
Subject: touring tadpole
To: ride@actionbent.com
Date: Sunday, March 1, 2009, 7:50 PM
Gentlemen:
Did I overlook something while perusing your website?
I was unable to determine which of your tadpoles are designed with touring in
mind.
Please advise.
And thanks!
Eric
their response:
You can “tour” on any cycle we sell.
—
while, technically, that could have been so, i didn’t feel it was the response my inquiry deserved…was i wrong?
i leave it to you to conclude this exchange’s significance
p.s.:
that was their response, in its entirety
Such a brief response is not conducive to long term sales productivity. I’ve suspected issues with the company for the past year and a half based on my own interactions with them via telephone and email, so this news comes as little surprise to me. I am sure that attempting to compete with dedicated world leaders in trikes would be a tough road to hoe!