Some brands are so special they become elevated by their customers to iconic status. For women in cycling, the women’s cycling brand, Machines For Freedom, was one of those brands. Last week, after almost ten years in business, Machines For Freedom (MFF) was “dissolved.”
For folks outside of the cycling world, it might seem bizarre that so many people got as upset as they did about a clothing brand going away. To understand the impact of MFF’s closure, we have to take a look back at its beginning, and the cycling apparel marketplace into which it launched.
Cycling and cycling product design was male-dominated
In 2014, the year Machines For Freedom was founded and bootstrapped into existence by Jenn Kriske, the bike industry suffering from a massive inclusion problem (in many ways, it still is, but that's a whole other article). Most of its top-tier product design and the marketing that went with it was created for a narrow slice of the population: affluent, fit, caucasian, and male. If you didn’t fit within those parameters, the barriers to entry into cycling was much higher.
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When MFF blew into the industry like a gust of fresh air, the company made clear from the get-go who its target market was, and it was us: women.
All women. Not just thin, white ones.
“MFF led the way in showing that people of any size, age, gender or ethnicity deserved to have a well-fitting, beautiful, functional bike kit,” Marley Blonsky, founder of All Bodies On Bikes, told Bicycling.
Shut down by one of the biggest bike companies in the world
The dismay about the brand’s closure is compounded because of how the “dissolution” came to be. Machines For Freedom was shuttered by its parent company, Specialized Bicycle Components.
Specialized is one of the largest bicycle and cycling gear companies in the world, and had acquired MFF in 2018, with Kriske staying on to lead the brand, in what it said at the time was “a bold investment in women's leadership.” Shutting the brand down after just four years feels to many like Goliath won.
“Specialized shutting the incredibly popular brand down feels like a slap in the face to so many of us who finally felt seen and included by the bike industry,” said Blonsky.
No real answers as to why it happened
In response to the closure, the company released a vague, two-sentence statement: “Specialized will always be grateful to Machines For Freedom and the way it inspired the brand to reimagine how to better serve women riders. While dissolving the brand was a tough decision on both parties, the lessons learned during this partnership will continue to influence and guide the way Specialized makes women’s product for the years to come.”
In recent months, Specialized has also laid off 8 percent of its employees, abruptly terminated contracts with most of its brand ambassadors and many freelance contractors, while also announcing the purchase of a new office building previously owned by cycling clothing manufacturer Pearl Izumi, for $14.9 million.
Rosemary Sindt, who modeled for MFF, wrote on Instagram, “I guess at this point in history when women’s rights and our bodies are on the line, it just hurts more to see a cut like this happen.”
A brand that changed the cycling landscape
Some brands are remembered and mourned long after they’re gone, and MFF will be one of them.
“By leading the progressive revolution of size, inclusivity, representation, and diversity within the cycling space, and focusing on the underrepresented women’s category, Machines was a beacon of inspiration. I am saddened but hopeful that the legacy will live on,” Kriske shared in a statement and in a farewell message on the Machine For Freedom Instagram page.
We hope so, too.
Natascha Grief got her first bike shop job before she was old enough to drink. After a six-year stint as a mechanic, earning a couple pro-mechanic certifications and her USA Cycling Race Mechanics license, she became obsessed with framebuilding and decided she wanted to do that next. After Albert Eistentraut literally shooed her off his doorstep, admonishing that if she pursued framebuilding she will be poor forever, she landed an apprenticeship with framebuilder Brent Steelman in her hometown of Redwood City, CA. After that, she spent several years working for both large and not-so-large cycling brands. Somewhere in there she also became a certified bike fitter. Natascha then became a certified personal trainer and spent nine years honing her skills as a trainer and coach, while also teaching Spin. During the dumpster fire that was the year 2020, she opened a fitness studio and began contributing regularly to Runner’s World and Bicycling as a freelance writer. In 2022, she joined the staff of Bicycling as News Editor.
