ABG Owner Peter Hurley Passes Away
Peter Hurley, the owner of American Bicycle Group (ABG), under which are the brands Quintana Roo, Litespeed and OBED, passed away this morning from a heart attack at the age of 67. He had just finished a run with his wife Lorraine.
Peter came to the bike and triathlon industry from a career in investment banking, specializing in mergers & acquisitions. He was a cultured, erudite New Englander who began as a minor investor in ABG, thrust into sole ownership when his business partners tired of the idea of owning a bicycle company. Peter did not tire of this business and has owned and led it for 18 years.
Peter did not take the route of so many who entered the business from a “higher” industry. While he was more business educated than many or most of his contemporaries, he took himself to school on exactly how the bike business worked. To my reckoning somewhere between his 2nd and his 8th year of ABG ownership Peter Hurley learned bikes, learned triathlon, caught up to his industry contemporaries and rode right past them in knowledge and acumen.
I believe he tired of my writing about this. Peter would have wished me to write about the strength of his products and strong products his company did (and continues to) make. But what made Peter Hurley’s brands stand apart was the skill of the ownership and the management. He was very simply the smartest executive in the bicycle business and not just retrospectively on this occasion. I wrote it in these pages, while he was able to read the words himself and, I think, to his chagrin.
Peter became a much more avid cyclist and triathlete as a part of his self-mandate to learn his industry. He finished several full and 70.3 IRONMAN races and was a gravel rider as well, annually at Unbound Gravel, SBT and elsewhere. His interest in outdoor athletics stemmed in part from a quadruple bypass surgery at the age of 45, so he was in one sense living on borrowed time and by my reckoning he made the most of it. In the image below I’m riding behind Peter in Kona. The occasion was the launch of a new Quintana Roo bike. I wasn’t riding 2nd wheel out of deference – I was happy to keep up.
Peter and I are weeks apart in age so he and I often spoke of life in this business, mortality, and what the future may hold for us both. Even in the post-COVID industry doldrums Peter seemed to me at peace with what he had achieved, his legacy, and where his business stood. I think it’s because, while everyone struggled during the pandemic, his brands weathered COVID better than most and I think that’s partly because of the way he sagely reconstructed his business, and also because of the man he was. Peter was among the smartest, most interesting, transparent, principled people I knew and his agile mind, sense of humor and ability to foster and animate his friendships very simply meant that tie went to Peter if you were a pandemic-era supplier. You wanted to do business with him. You rooted for him to win.
Peter Hurley leaves behind his wife Lorraine Hurley, daughter Bryanna, son Branden, stepdaughter Naomi and brother Dennis; also the 80 employees to whom he was a great employer, and many heartbroken friends.
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