The Story of No Fear

Gus
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Gus 5/14/2019 4:22am
5/14/2019 4:22am
yamaharider471 wrote:
Travis passing up a band new corvette and huge salary from Fox to sign with no fear was pretty cool.
2stmark wrote:
It was his Dad
His dad sounds like someone I’d like to sit and have a beer with
Dougy1
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Dougy1 5/14/2019 6:04am
5/14/2019 6:04am
Tarz483 wrote:
I just Read it , great job Mathes I wonder what he means at the end of the story The very last paragraph when he says...
I just Read it , great job Mathes
I wonder what he means at the end of the story
The very last paragraph when he says the industry is gone?

What we got to really realize, stepping back, the entire industry that we were party to is gone. It’s not a little gone. It’s gone. If you look at the legacy and the country club of people we sat with—the Quicksilvers, the Billabongs—we brought the gears and oil to the action-sports industry. Although industries change and move on, the industry is gone. So no matter what we would have done, our ride was coming to an end.
Haven’t got to fully read the article but he probably means how billabong and quicksilver have gone. They both sell bugger all product really. Look at billabong, got sucked up buy quicksilver and probably make more money off other avenues then surf product and merchandise .
They have bugger all coin to even sponsor surfing events like they used too. Never mind the surfers contracts are hard to get these days .
Also just my opinion A lot of young crew dress differently now.. cheap white or black shirts tight black jeans Etc. They hate marketing and labels all over there clothes or they prefer niche labels like Former etc . Times change and maybe some of those companies didn’t read the changing market quick enough before it ran its course...
Also at first glance of that article Seems like it had a lot of owners... too many cooks in the kitchen maybe
Stuntman949
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Stuntman949 5/14/2019 7:17am
5/14/2019 7:17am
Finished the story. Extremely well put together!

As someone from Mission Viejo,I have to worry how many companies I've made uncool by Broc Glover's standard. Damnit.
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The Shop

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MOTORSPORTFOX
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MOTORSPORTFOX 5/14/2019 7:25am
5/14/2019 7:25am
Great article.. Got me looking up No Fear shoes, roller skates and gear. Who has pics of some of the gear? Maybe from old catalog?
dl117
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dl117 5/14/2019 12:43pm
5/14/2019 12:43pm
still have 8-10 sets of the gear, love it. That was a great read
MOTO732
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MOTO732 5/14/2019 2:10pm
5/14/2019 2:10pm
Me too. I have a few sets still in packages.
moto711
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moto711 5/14/2019 2:34pm
5/14/2019 2:34pm
MOTORSPORTFOX wrote:
Great article.. Got me looking up No Fear shoes, roller skates and gear. Who has pics of some of the gear? Maybe from old catalog?
Same I was looking for the Nac-Nac shoe but had no luck. Looks like the euro NO Fear is still around in a form with shoes and some Tees on their site.
NITRODOG
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NITRODOG 5/14/2019 4:12pm
5/14/2019 4:12pm
So these Simo brothers took two great brands, Life's a Beach, and No Fear. Both of which should have had "legs" for the long haul, and ran them both in to the ground, but had fun doing it. Ok, Cool.....
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ricko
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ricko 5/14/2019 4:14pm
5/14/2019 4:14pm Edited Date/Time 5/14/2019 4:15pm
No fear was my favorite gear back in the day. Mostly because McGrath is my idol so I wanted to wear no fear and white alpinestars just like him. I still have my old sets.
DonM
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DonM 5/14/2019 4:28pm
5/14/2019 4:28pm
NITRODOG wrote:
So these Simo brothers took two great brands, Life's a Beach, and No Fear. Both of which should have had "legs" for the long haul, and...
So these Simo brothers took two great brands, Life's a Beach, and No Fear. Both of which should have had "legs" for the long haul, and ran them both in to the ground, but had fun doing it. Ok, Cool.....
You may want to re-read the article...They created two brands... one was basically taken from them by their main investor and the other supported too many partners, a NASCAR team and a Tans-Am team...not to mention a Super Bowl ad and many paid high profile athletes...trust me they had fun..just spent more than they made...
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RichieW13
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RichieW13 5/14/2019 4:30pm
5/14/2019 4:30pm
Adam43 wrote:
It's a good story and there are some great pull quotes from the players. But the "oral history" style is a poor fit for what is...
It's a good story and there are some great pull quotes from the players.

But the "oral history" style is a poor fit for what is essentially a business story. We could have used more narrative to better show the facts and timeline - it's still quite muddy on what actually happened and this is a giant article.
Agreed. I haven't read this one yet, but I generally find "oral histories" a little difficult to follow, with a lot of repetition. They usually need a little more narrative.
mauidex
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mauidex 5/14/2019 4:38pm
5/14/2019 4:38pm
Needed to be smart enough to know when their talents and skills were way below what the company needed. should have brought in guys that knew how to run a 200 million dollar business. Shoulda woulda coulda but yep sure seems for them they had hell of a ride and didn’t worry too much about building a long term sustainable brand and business
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Rhody
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Rhody 5/14/2019 7:05pm
5/14/2019 7:05pm
mauidex wrote:
Needed to be smart enough to know when their talents and skills were way below what the company needed. should have brought in guys that knew...
Needed to be smart enough to know when their talents and skills were way below what the company needed. should have brought in guys that knew how to run a 200 million dollar business. Shoulda woulda coulda but yep sure seems for them they had hell of a ride and didn’t worry too much about building a long term sustainable brand and business
Yeah, that would be fun, bring in a couple of Harvard MBA's and make the company suck. Look at Oakley since they got bought out by Luxottica. I can't get my favorite fireproof underwear any more because that was not part of the profitable, long term sustainable business model.
1
mauidex
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mauidex 5/14/2019 7:19pm
5/14/2019 7:19pm
Rhody wrote:
Yeah, that would be fun, bring in a couple of Harvard MBA's and make the company suck. Look at Oakley since they got bought out by...
Yeah, that would be fun, bring in a couple of Harvard MBA's and make the company suck. Look at Oakley since they got bought out by Luxottica. I can't get my favorite fireproof underwear any more because that was not part of the profitable, long term sustainable business model.
Guess it all depends on what your plan is and whether you want to create a legacy or crash and burn. Lots of companies keep a balance. Pretty sure all those people that took it in the ass when the rodeo was over would have chosen another option
Luke_Martin 5/14/2019 7:56pm
5/14/2019 7:56pm
As someone who grew up around the moto but is now in the fashion industry, I think the industry needs a whole lesson in branding/marketing. People gave roczen so much shit about doing a supreme-fox crossover but I would put money on it that no other rider in the last 5-10 years has brought moto that much fashion exposure.

Moto isn’t cool anymore, it’s very much a niche sport with not much of an arts or culture side to it like the 90s were. Industry heavy weights such as fox or Thor need to start doing crossover works with other brands to push exposure to different demographics.

Unfortunately this is just one of the categories of problems our industry is facing, let’s not even get into sponsorship or the affordability of racing.

As a whole AMA needs to recruit some A1 marketing teams and rethink their grassroots approach.

Sorry for the rant.
5
Tonynz
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Tonynz 5/14/2019 11:49pm
5/14/2019 11:49pm
2005 Catalog I have, also have quite a a lot of pants and jerseys from back in the day.
4
presto170 5/15/2019 4:56am
5/15/2019 4:56am
They ran a line of no fear motocross gear In England either last year or the year before & it was 100% the worst gear I’ve seen in my life. They did it for the skepta (uk grime artist) line that he had in a popular UK sports shop.
Look at it ?? had a hard job telling my friends that this stuff used to be the shit back In the day after seeing this monstrosity.

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FWYT
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FWYT 5/15/2019 7:55am
5/15/2019 7:55am Edited Date/Time 5/15/2019 7:56am
Luke_Martin wrote:
As someone who grew up around the moto but is now in the fashion industry, I think the industry needs a whole lesson in branding/marketing. People...
As someone who grew up around the moto but is now in the fashion industry, I think the industry needs a whole lesson in branding/marketing. People gave roczen so much shit about doing a supreme-fox crossover but I would put money on it that no other rider in the last 5-10 years has brought moto that much fashion exposure.

Moto isn’t cool anymore, it’s very much a niche sport with not much of an arts or culture side to it like the 90s were. Industry heavy weights such as fox or Thor need to start doing crossover works with other brands to push exposure to different demographics.

Unfortunately this is just one of the categories of problems our industry is facing, let’s not even get into sponsorship or the affordability of racing.

As a whole AMA needs to recruit some A1 marketing teams and rethink their grassroots approach.

Sorry for the rant.
"Moto isn’t cool anymore, it’s very much a niche sport with not much of an arts or culture side to it like the 90s were."


What if racing IS the culture? How does that get packaged for the masses and what does it look like
to make racing seem cool?
dutch_rider 5/15/2019 8:01am
5/15/2019 8:01am
Here in Holland we have No Fear energy drink .
And really popular in the racing and other extreme sports over here.



Founded by ex MXGP rider Bas Verhoeven a few years ago.


freeh
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freeh 5/15/2019 9:00am
5/15/2019 9:00am
dutch_rider wrote:
Here in Holland we have No Fear energy drink . And really popular in the racing and other extreme sports over here. [img]https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/forums/2019/05/15/347481/s1200_Screenshot_20190515_165738_Google.jpg[/img] Founded by ex...
Here in Holland we have No Fear energy drink .
And really popular in the racing and other extreme sports over here.



Founded by ex MXGP rider Bas Verhoeven a few years ago.


That's my all time fave energy drink. Can't find it in the US anymore
2
motokiwi
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motokiwi 5/15/2019 10:48pm
5/15/2019 10:48pm
I remember when McGrath went to thor and they started AST (Action sports team?), lots of people on the boards were saying it was gonna flop. Cool to see how and why it existed.

Luke_Martin 5/15/2019 10:55pm
5/15/2019 10:55pm
Luke_Martin wrote:
As someone who grew up around the moto but is now in the fashion industry, I think the industry needs a whole lesson in branding/marketing. People...
As someone who grew up around the moto but is now in the fashion industry, I think the industry needs a whole lesson in branding/marketing. People gave roczen so much shit about doing a supreme-fox crossover but I would put money on it that no other rider in the last 5-10 years has brought moto that much fashion exposure.

Moto isn’t cool anymore, it’s very much a niche sport with not much of an arts or culture side to it like the 90s were. Industry heavy weights such as fox or Thor need to start doing crossover works with other brands to push exposure to different demographics.

Unfortunately this is just one of the categories of problems our industry is facing, let’s not even get into sponsorship or the affordability of racing.

As a whole AMA needs to recruit some A1 marketing teams and rethink their grassroots approach.

Sorry for the rant.
FWYT wrote:
"Moto isn’t cool anymore, it’s very much a niche sport with not much of an arts or culture side to it like the 90s were." What...
"Moto isn’t cool anymore, it’s very much a niche sport with not much of an arts or culture side to it like the 90s were."


What if racing IS the culture? How does that get packaged for the masses and what does it look like
to make racing seem cool?
If I had the answer to that I would have a successful moto gear company ?
1
MelonFan123
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MelonFan123 5/15/2019 11:40pm
5/15/2019 11:40pm
I'm most blown away by the fact that the Simo brothers walked away from the whole deal with very little personal wealth.

2
jerry atrick moto 5/16/2019 12:39pm
5/16/2019 12:39pm
No Fear was and still is very present in our home. All 5 of my kids have the same set of collectibles from MC cartoon toys , Smooth Industries blankets, pj’s and a signed NoFear McGrath jersey. Big part of 90s-00s moto history good read good ltimes for sure. Sorry pics are lil blurry



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philG
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philG 5/16/2019 2:12pm
5/16/2019 2:12pm
That was a bit of a journey.. enjoyable even though i was over it all after Bad Boy Club
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G-man
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G-man 5/16/2019 11:46pm
5/16/2019 11:46pm
Good read and did not know the LOP dude screwed them over like that.

I have a set of No Fear gear and like others have mentioned it was top quality stuff.
FWYT
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FWYT 5/17/2019 8:36am
5/17/2019 8:36am
What do Mark and Brian Simo do these days?
APLMAN99
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APLMAN99 5/17/2019 11:51am
5/17/2019 11:51am
G-man wrote:
Good read and did not know the LOP dude screwed them over like that. I have a set of No Fear gear and like others have...
Good read and did not know the LOP dude screwed them over like that.

I have a set of No Fear gear and like others have mentioned it was top quality stuff.
Apparently Offner attempted to screw over his siblings as well....

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1445795.html
peelout
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peelout 5/17/2019 2:40pm
5/17/2019 2:40pm
just finished reading it, great story.

i was running No Fear gear long after they shut the moto side of it down, the gear was some of the best quality and looking gear. the designs still hold up today.
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