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British company BETD carries on the Middleburn crank brand and line

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middleburn-rs8-arm-colors

Not long ago we had heard rumors that long time British crankset and chainring producer Middleburn was in financial straits, and soon after they announced that they would have to completely cease operations. Being a proud owner of a set of RS-8 cranks on my singlespeed, I was especially sad to hear the news, as they clearly had built some great, classic products over the years. Well, just a few days ago now, we got news that fellow British component producer BETD stepped in to buy out Middleburn and continue on their production. If you haven’t heard of them or want to know more on how the brand will carry on, join us after the break…

middlebrun-betd

If you’re unfamiliar with BETD, they are a relatively small division of a bigger precision engineering and metal production shop. Over the years they have established themselves in cycling, both by developing a catalog of suspension maintenance & rebuild offerings, as well as by making some of their own design hubs, cogs, and modified suspension components.

middleburn-rs8-road-compact-double

The Middleburn brand will live on through BETD, and still produce their components in the UK. Its hasn’t yet been said what changes will be made to the new Middleburn line-up, but the goal is to carry on their most iconic products, and provide a steady stream of new components for those already riding them. So for example, don’t worry about wearing out the direct mount rings on your Middleburn cranks or even swapping out to a new spider, BETD will have you covered.

middleburn-thick-thin-ring middleburn-thick-thin-ring-black

BETD also hopes to make the Middleburn products even more accessible with consumer-direct online sales through their own e-shop expected in the near future, as well as through their broad network of shops and distributors. BETD says that they are excited to be able to keep the brand going and promise to keep producing the Middleburn products to the “same exacting standards” that have made the cranks sought after. They also look forward to the “opportunity to add new products to the portfolio backed up by [their own] first class customer service.”

It will be interesting to see where that takes Middleburn.

BETD.co.uk

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Lars Danner
Lars Danner
7 years ago

Good news. I have four of their cranksets.

JNH
JNH
7 years ago

It’s amazing how Middleburn managed to be so on point with some technologies (spline fit spiders/chainrings, single ring friendly deep tooth chainrings) yet miss the coming of external bearing BBs so thoroughly. RS7s used to be part of the uniform for single speed riding and tandems, but then they suddenly got left behind.
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Direct sales seems the right way to go. Provided they can get a new crankset with a decent 24 or 30mm axle there will be a market for those cranks, they look so much better in the flesh than photos. Maybe not a huge market, but it’s there.

Umberto
Umberto
7 years ago
Reply to  JNH

I am wondering what you are talking about. With the RS8 is an excelent crank with 24mm Axle that runs on external bearings. I love mine!

I hope for some good looking directmount chainrings! The previously available ones are just bulky and don´t fit the elegant lines of the crank. Please make that happen!

Oliver
Oliver
7 years ago
Reply to  JNH

They did the RS8 X-Type for MTB with a 24mm axle. They go good reviews but were pricey and not very well advertised.

myke2241
myke2241
7 years ago

Personally I have never understood their market.

Morten Knudsen
Morten Knudsen
7 years ago

Their X02 supercompact road with 46/30t and low Q factor, reasonable wight and überfinnish is still on my wishlist – almost bought one in the spring but settled with (another – now ive got 3) lightly used Chorus 2015 50/34 crank.

phaty
7 years ago

the real good news is the online sale. Middleburn sucked in everything that comes after production. Website never up to date, parts nowhere to be found, emails not answered for weeks. Sadly they really brought themselves into this position.

Pedro Gomez III
Pedro Gomez III
7 years ago

Whew! I just snagged my RS8’s back in January, and figured my lifetime warranty with them was kaput! I’m glad BETD picked up the slack.

Bobby-TheDemolitionMan
Bobby-TheDemolitionMan
7 years ago

I’m with you there, I’ve got several sets of the Trial Versions and I tend to break a lot cranks.Extremely psyched there back in the game again and now they might look into making a Front Free-Wheel Crank Arm Set.

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