US Continental team Canyon Bicycles will make its UCI Tour of Utah debut next week as Hangar 15 after the team's title sponsor, a chain of bike shops in Utah, reached an agreement with Canyon Bicycles of Germany to give up US rights to the name.
Hangar 15 announced the name change on July 4 in a Facebook post titled 'Independence Day,' saying the US company wanted to remove the confusion between the Utah shops and US team versus the German bicycle brand, which sponsors the Canyon-SRAM women's team and is expanding into the US market.
"They would announce they were coming in and then it would stall a little bit, and I think some of that had to do with problems with the Canyon properties that we already owned, the trademarks and things like that, the URLs and those sorts of things," team director Alan Schmitz told Cyclingnews.
ADVERTISEMENT
"There was a lot of back and forth, probably a couple years of discussions before they finally got to an agreement that works. I saw a Canyon bike in here the other day, so I think they're coming in hot," Schmitz said. "So we went with the new name Hangar 15. The owner was in the Marines previously, and I think it has some special meaning for him."
The team debuted the new Hangar 15 kits last week at the Cascade Cycling Classic in Oregon, and now team staff are busy re-wrapping the fleet of vehicles.
"I think we've used up all the red wrap in the valley," Schmitz said. "They stalled yesterday but they're back at it today. Everyone gets a little excited with the name change, though. It seems like spirits are a little higher, maybe because everyone gets new clothing and hats. But it's basically business as usual for the team. It's not affecting us in any way. Hopefully, it's just a little more motivation to get the name out there."
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2vdxUcO
No comments:
Post a Comment