LA CRESCENTA, Calif. (BRAIN) — Specialist distributor Euro-Asia Imports is closing down after more than 50 years selling mostly high-end parts for road, touring and fixed gear bikes. The family-owned business is selling its remaining inventory, its house-brand fixed-gear cog business, and its three warehouses, said Dede Grajeda, who runs the business that her father, Bob Hansing, founded in the early 1970s.
Grajeda said Euro-Asia is closing for a number of reasons, including tariffs, a move toward dealer-direct and consumer-direct sales by many brands, and the realities of settling the family estate. Bob Hansing died in 2001 and Bob's wife Beverly Hansing, Grajeda’s mother, died last July. She said the business is currently operated as family trust.
She said selling the business as a whole would have been preferred, but in the end the trust decided to sell the real estate, inventory and the cog business separately. She said new owners of the inventory and cog business will be announced soon.
“It’ll all be revealed within the next, probably three or four weeks, but I just am not at liberty to say anything right now,” she told BRAIN on Thursday.
After serving in the Navy in the 1950s, Bob Hansing opened a bike shop in Montrose, California, in 1955. He later began importing Campagnolo parts through a separate business, Montrose Bike Imports. He retired from retail in 1971 and worked for the distributor West Coast Cycle before starting Euro-Asia Imports in 1973. The same year, Shimano hired him as president of Shimano American Corp., which he ran until 1976, when he left Shimano to focus on the import business full-time.
Euro-Asia was perhaps best known for its high-end road components, but it also was active selling touring products such as Nitto handlebars, and products for track bikes and fixies including its own EAI-brand of fixed-gear cogs.
Grajeda, who has worked in the business since she was a teenager, said it took a hit in the last decade or so when Shimano and Campagnolo reduced their distributor count and began dealer-direct sales. More recently, some smaller brands like Sugino have begun direct sales, as well.
She said Euro-Asia continues to sell repair parts from Campagnolo, Shimano, Suntour and other brands, as well as many hard to find new products — everything from MKS flat pedals to Christophe toe-clips and straps, to Regina freewheel bodies. Many retailers are eager to find out where that new old stock inventory will end up.
“I know everyone's freaking out. I just need them to be patient and the information will be forthcoming," she said. "I think it will make a lot of people happy.”
