On Wednesday, February 26, 2003, at 07:16AM, Brian Baylis <rocklube@adnc.com> wrote:
>All it takes to distract most people from the actual details of a frame is a "pretty face".
I believe those jackbooted thugs from the Bicycle Retailers Association should be at your door within the hour. This is the not so big secret of the bicycle industry. When oversized tubes started appearing on production bikes I hear many product designers jump up and down with joy. It's the same thing with bright or neon colors. . . it draws the attention and sells the bike. I'll give a real world example even though it's not about a classic bike company.
As most of you know I worked for Bike Friday for a couple of years. The founders Alan and Hanz are really classic bike guys at heart. They figured that the bikes were unique in their design and didn't need big flashy decals, and would allow people to buy bikes without decals even. At some point they consulted with an person on how to build brand recognition and their first bit of advice was "Use bigger decals." This is just the way it works so that companies can stay afloat.
>It's a fact of life; back in the day, chrome and paint sold bikes in MOST cases. Period.
Well said. It's just that simple and folks seem to hate to admit that they bought and collect classic bikes because of the looks. The most important thing is to get bikes sold, period. If they don't look nice they're not going to sell no matter how well built they are.
ciao,
Brandon"monkeyman"Ives
SB, CA