Well, it's an ill wind that blows no one good. I'm thinking that the fact that the last few sizable European manufacturers who made lugged steel frames now seem to be rapidly phasing out those models may be a benefit for "Handmade Bikes" which seems to have entered the hobby's vocabulary after the recent Houston show. Even higher end Colnago lugged steel frames were massed produced to a much greater extent than a Weigle, Sachs, Baylis, Fattic, etc. so could be sold for a much lower price. It may be that the continued production of KOF-type models by some fairly large European manufacturers has kept a lid on prices and demand for true custom-built bikes by individual craftsmen.
It's kind of like the beer industry. It's massive consolidation after WWII seemed at first destined to exterminate small brewers and did indeed send many of them under. But after a time it became clear that the bean counters and Harvard MBA's replacing the brewmeisters at the head of the large megabrewers were incapable of producing anything other than millions of barrels of stuff that tasted like recycled dishwater, "quality" and "taste" being totally absent from the vocabulary at Harvard Business School. This opened an opportunity for microbrewers who actually stiil knew how to make real beer, and actually wanted to, to fill the demand from consumers who still actually wanted beer that tasted good. And the hand-crafted "real beer" movement was born. Now almost every US city worthy of the name has at least one microbrewery or brewpub. I personally drink almost exclusively microbrews and gladly pay twice the price of the mass-produced crap for something actually worth drinking.
In the same way I think the rapid disappearance of the last high-volume bikes with any semblance of craftsmanship is opening the market for the small hand-builders. Someday soon, maybe they can even make an income almost reasonable for their talents and efforts.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Houston, TX
Angel Garcia <veronaman@comcast.net> wrote: Colnago has issued a statement that low and mid-tier bikes carrying the Colnago name are going to begin to be built in Asia. I believe that none of these are destined to the USA market but rather to Europe, etc. But, the writing (or more writing) is on the wall. Maybe things will have to get worse before they can get better.
Angel Garcia Long Valley, NJ
Well, Faliero's got his son to carry on his name and some would argue he's doing a better job of it than Haro.
But my "depression" is not caused specifically by either the US or Italian Masi but rather the bike industry in general. Faliero came to this country and saw to it that the bikes that were built here met his standards of craftsmanship and his basic design philosophy (one tenet of which was never to make a "B" model, or "price-point" frame). And when he subcontracted work out it was to folks like Confente in the next city, folks he always kept a close eye on , not a huge factory halfway around the world that makes bikes for them and a dozen other companies at the same time.
Everybody does it now (including Alberto) and the situation's probably never
going to change, but it still makes me sad. The bit of warm fuzzy I feel when I see something like Alberto's Nuovo Prestige with Sachs lugs, nice pai nt and a bit of chrome, or Pegoretti's beautiful lugged frame with the twin pla te crown is just not enough to counteract the blue funk I descend into every ti me I walk into a modern bike shop.
Which is why I am here.
Bob Hovey
Columbus, GA