Watch or read – CEO Bryan Wachs is back with a company update!
Transcript of Video Update by Bryan Wachs, CEO, January 13, 2026
Hello everybody and happy new year. This is Bryan, CEO of QuikrStuff and it’s time for a little update.
I just want to thank you all for your ongoing support. I use this word almost in every video, but it is truly humbling. If you all could read the emails that we get and the phone calls that we take, it means a lot. So, thank you.
In true QuikrStuff fashion, it’s time for a periodic update for all of our stakeholders, and that means you.
2025 Stats
So, quick stats on 2025. We were 4% down compared to last year in 2024. So, adjusted for inflation, let’s call it 7% down. And compared to the industry average, that’s a big win hearing that the bike industry is down 25%, RVs are down 80%. So, we consider that a big win.
We’re pushing forward and it’s all we know how to do is go forward. The current industry, like I said, is down. The uncertainty in the economy – we’re hearing it from customers. Obviously, we are a high-end, high-quality product, so we’re not for everybody. We wish we were for everybody, but there are certain choices that you can go to of our competitors that are made in Asia. And because of the arbitrage of currency and labor rates, we don’t try to compete with them. We try to just be the best we can, the safest we can to make sure that we’re ensuring your bike, ensuring your family, and ensuring the guy driving behind you on the highway at 85-miles-an-hour. Um, maybe that’s only in Montana, but around here at 75-miles-an-hour.
It’s amazing what happens when you make a really good product. You hear about it and people buy and they tell their friends. So, we’re really thankful for that and the fact that we solve a problem for people. We make it easy, no tools needed. You know, our easy very heavy duty ramp to put it on. Whether you have a 75-pound eBike or a 30-pound carbon fiber bike or a gravel bike, whatever it is, we can handle it all with one rack with no accessories, with no tools and integrated locks. We’re really proud of that simplicity, but yet a highly engineered product.
Production and Shipping
As far as production goes and shipping, we’ve gotten to the point now after moving into our factory fully last year, last October of 2024 by the way, and having a full year now in this factory, a little over a full year, we have product on the shelves now. We are shipping usually same day, if not, the next day. When it came to our Black Friday/Cyber Monday orders, we got them out within two weeks as opposed to taking us four weeks to get them out right before Christmas. You know, we’re getting more efficient, we’re getting better. It’s nice to see and it’s nice to see the team all working toward the same goals and laughing at the same time, which is always a positive in my mind.
We’re still very bullish on our relationship with FedEx. We are very lucky that we have the rates that we have with FedEx and we can pass them on to you and they’ve been a great partner locally and nationally. We’ve had very few issues with FedEx. So, if you work for FedEx out there, we just want to thank you all because you’ve been a great partner.
Newsletters
We’ve been putting out newsletters and hopefully you’re getting them in your inbox amongst the other hundreds of emails you get. We try to give little updates about what we’re doing–about customers, about employees, about rides that we do locally around here–just to give you a little flavor of who we are and what we do and what we care about. And we care about manufacturing in Grand Junction, Colorado, and providing good jobs so that we can make decent livings. And manufacturing is important. Newsletters went out in April, May, June, October, and November of last year. If you missed them, you can always check your email and search for QuikrStuff, or you can go to our Blog page on the website. A lot of the individual articles that make up the newsletters are on the blog page.
Aluminum and Tariffs
Let’s talk about aluminum and tariffs right now. So, you can go to our website and look at the blog about aluminum and why we’re getting tariffs on it. Long story short is if you’re a military producer or a government producer, you possibly have access to U.S.-forged aluminum. But otherwise, for most of us in this country, there’s not too much production of raw aluminum left in this country and it comes through Canada. And before that, a lot of it gets smelted in Iceland because of their infrastructure of geothermal energy. So read that blog post. But that’s why the tariffs are affecting us because whether we like it or not, we cannot get–just like a lot of our fellow manufacturers–we cannot get U.S. aluminum. So this affects us in pricing and to put out a quality product with American-priced labor and American-priced rent and all these things costs money. So we’re trying to put out the best product we can, best value, so that you will never have to throw away this product and you can always get replacement parts for it. And another beautiful thing about producing parts that are aluminum and steel is we can recycle things. So remember, the next time you drink that beer or that Coca-Cola, recycle it because that’s how we get our aluminum cheaper is through recycling.
American Jobs and Teamwork
Just keeping up with staff and where we are. We have JT, our COO, who runs all the manufacturing operations; you’ve got me; you’ve got Chuck in charge of purchasing and logistics; Nick, our designer engineer; Eric who does marketing; Zane who does customer service, and he does some manufacturing in the machining side. You’ve got Duke, Kevin, and Brody on the assembly side. We’ve got Jonathan and Alex; you’ve got Lex. We have some key contractors – Randee, Angie, Tina, Paul, Tray. We have our agency who does our advertising and marketing and website, MySalesButler. Right there, the people that we’re involved with on a daily basis, that’s
25 people right there. So, this little company is affecting 25 lives. And that’s really important to me that we are humans making product for other humans.
These humans have some fun, too. If you’ve gone to our website and you’ve seen the blog and you’ve gone to our YouTube channel, you saw the team put together the Hot Ones challenge, which was crazy to me watching them turn red. I could have never done it. And putting together our employee chili cookoff, which was really impressive and fun because I couldn’t believe how good every chili was. I think all of us were really surprised how well all of us could cook. That was a fun little Christmas party we did. Check out that blog, that video.
Supporting Local Trails
Another thing that’s close to our hearts is getting involved in our local trails network through COPMOBA. They’re the trail maintenance organization that’s been innovative up and down the Western Slope of Colorado. So remember, whether it’s here and you’re visiting us or back home, volunteer and contribute dollars to trail maintenance organizations because we all know the lack of funding that’s happening through state and federal resources right now. We’ve got to start paying for our hobbies. If you go golf, you pay. If you go skiing, you pay. We’ve got to start paying for our trails. So everybody, come on. We’ve got to contribute.
Mentoring
Another thing that’s close to my heart is mentoring not only young entrepreneurs and CEOs that I mentor, but also students. We’re proud to say we’ve had over 40 students from Colorado Mesa University go through this program and we’ve made some amazing relationships and hopefully we’ve touched some lives and we’re really proud about that.
Events
In 2025, we went to a bunch of events, met a lot of people, started meeting a lot of customers who came back to us to thank us. For 2026, you can go to our Events page on our website and there’s several new ones that we’re going to this year. Check that out so you can go and find us and actually get your hands on the rack if you don’t have somebody in your neighborhood who has one. And the easiest way to get around that is just tell 10,000 of your friends that they need a QuikrStuff rack and then you can… you can touch it.
Mach2 Bike Rack Giveaways
We did a bunch of bike rack giveaways this year at different events with different marketing partners. I just want to say congratulations to Angela who won a rack at Roam Fest; Dustin who won a rack through RokForm; Caitlyn through Scratch Labs; Thomas from Outerbike Moab; Daniel who won one at Hotdogger; Teresa who won one at The Ride Collective; and Brian (not me) was the overall 2025 winner of a bike rack. So, congrats to all of you. Hopefully, you’re liking your product. Chime in, get back to us, tell us how you like it.
Future Products
You know, we’re constantly getting feedback from customers about changes in products and accessories they like and would like, I should say. It’s that time now that we’re looking into it. Nick and the team, we’re diving heavily into what we can do with our limited resources right now. What’s the highest priority from customers? What about the next version of a rack or a rack with functions that this rack doesn’t have? You know, things like that. So, that’s what we’re working on. These things take six months to a year to design and prototype and test. We’re happy to say we’re working on those now, not at the speed we’d like to, but it is what it is, and we’re just trying to watch our P’s and Q’s, especially with cash flow.
Why to Buy American-Made
In closing, I want to talk about why to buy in the USA. Why to buy from companies that are local and produce a local product? Because generally to survive against worldwide competition, you have to have a very high quality product. And through that high quality product, you’re paying people a good wage. You’re supporting local labor. And that money gets circulated through your local economy. Another thing that I don’t think people think about is product safety is tightly regulated in the U.S., unlike in other places in the world. So we are testing testing testing testing, whether it’s through software that does a lot of mathematical testing for us or just out in the desert through rocks because we live in a rocky place. So think about that next time you’re looking at the product and where it’s manufactured and where it’s been tested.
Another thing is we pay taxes and taxes go back into our community and they build roads and they build schools and they take care of our community. So again, that circular economy is important. So remember, if it’s not us, spend your money wisely locally.
Another thing that producing locally does and in the U.S. is you save on carbon footprint, on pollution costs, and you save resources, especially if we’re using recycled aluminum and recycled steel. So, that’s another plus to making products close to home. And it also makes returns and replacements and fixes easy. And I know a lot of you have gone through that because somebody hit your car or you backed into a light pole or something and you need a replacement part and it was easy to get that part. So, that’s another positive.
Another thing it does is it decreases our dependency on things and nations outside of our control. We enjoy–and hope you enjoy–the pride of ownership and the fact that we’re providing jobs and building a company for future generations.
Thank You, Customers, for Communicating with Us
And lastly, I just want to say that we really enjoy you reaching out and talking to us, emailing us, picking up the phone because that’s what makes it human for us. We get to talk to people. We get to debate with them, argue with them, laugh with them, take their ideas, get their feedback. It’s all good because if you took the time to pick up the phone or email us about a complaint or feedback, whatever, we know you care enough to take that time and that’s a good thing. So, thank you for that. And, you know, we love the fact that, you know, Randee–who’s my partner by the way–she’s doing customer service whenever she feels like it. Sometimes it’s on a holiday and sometimes it’s 2 in the morning when she wakes up. So, we like that fact that we can try to get back to customers with questions and answers as soon as we can. It’s also helpful to have somebody to answer questions because let’s face it, this is a big purchase and we want to make sure this is the right product for you because we are not the right product for everybody and we know that. So, we’d rather turn you away and answer your questions than sell you a product that doesn’t fit your needs. And of course, we’re always there for questions after you buy it. Little tips, you know, we create videos on tips on YouTube, so go check those out. So, thank you all again.
Our incredible made-in-the-USA product and our excellent service that you tell us that we give are here and it makes QuikrStuff so unique and thank you to our QuikrStuff family. Keep in touch with us, read those newsletters, give us feedback.Thank you very much.
And don’t forget – get outside.
