IN BRIEF
Two familiar names in online bike retail have just disappeared for good. According to road.cc, which noticed it on 11 September 2026, the web addresses of Wiggle and Chain Reaction Cycles no longer lead to their own shops but redirect to the Evans Cycles site, the other cycling chain owned by Mike Ashley’s group. The British outlet recaps the timeline: 447 staff made redundant in February 2024 after the company went into administration, a takeover by Frasers Group for £3 million, and both sites relaunched the following month. The in-house brands inherited from Wiggle — dhb, Vitus, LifeLine, Fohn — are still being sold through Evans Cycles. road.cc says it approached Frasers Group; its article reports no reply.
For a whole generation of European cyclists, typing “wiggle.com” into a browser was second nature. A pair of tyres ordered on a Sunday evening, a discounted pair of bib shorts, a replacement cassette delivered with free shipping: the British online retailer, and then its rival Chain Reaction Cycles, were for years the reflex purchase. That reflex now leads somewhere else.
Wiggle and Chain Reaction: two addresses that lead to Evans Cycles
The finding comes from road.cc: “road.cc has discovered the URLs to both Wiggle and Chain Reaction now redirect to Evans Cycles, marking a formal end of the brand”. The British outlet adds that it then approached Frasers Group for comment and to find out when the decision had been taken; its article reports no reply.
Three million pounds for an empire
The price of this ending says a lot. According to road.cc, Mike Ashley’s group — owner of Sports Direct and Harvey Nichols — bought Wiggle Chain Reaction in March 2024. “Its stock value was subsequently estimated at £22 million whilst its intellectual property was estimated at £4.5 million. However after an offer made to administrators was withdrawn in the final stages, Frasers Group swept in to buy the business for £3 million “on a gone concern basis””, road.cc writes. Three million pounds, then, when road.cc reports a £22 million estimate for the stock alone.
Before that came the human cost: “All 447 of Wiggle CRC’s remaining employees were laid off by February 2024”, the outlet reports, adding that it later emerged the brand had made £10.4 million in profit during the administration period. The sites had reopened the following month, relaunched by Frasers Group “as a hollowed-out brands within the Frasers Group” — brands stripped of their substance, as road.cc puts it, which have stayed in that form until this year, according to road.cc.
What survives: the in-house brands
Part of the legacy survives the deal. “Among the brands once owned by Wiggle and included in the deal were Vitus Bikes, DhB clothing, Lifeline Tools, and outdoor clothing range, Fohn. Those brands are still sold through Evans Cycles, which was bought by Frasers Group in 2018”, road.cc notes. Vitus frames, dhb bib shorts and LifeLine tools therefore remain available — but now under a single banner.
That concentration has a visible effect on the accounts. Evans Cycles, now the group’s main cycling outlet, posted a £388,000 profit in its most recently published financial year, after a cumulative £34 million of losses since 2021, according to road.cc. A return to break-even achieved, as is often the case, by scaling back: the outlet points out that the chain has carried on closing stores.
Still, the story goes beyond the United Kingdom. The figures reported by road.cc trace a trajectory: high volumes, a structure built for continuous growth, then a market that turns — and a rescue value that falls to £3 million.
