I advocated KOF producers tripling prices and
retargeting their marketing exclusively to the
extremely wealthy in order to help them make enough
money to stay in business and train their kids to take
over the family business. Garth Libre responded this
would create "outrageous pre fix." He favors current
prices for these custom bikes based on spiritual,
moral, philosophical, and historical grounds. As a
consumer, I applaud his reasoning. It gets me a great
custom made bike for less than a new, mass produced
Charles and Rae Eames easy chair and ottoman. But in
fact I was trying to address the economic problem
faced by KOF producers, not consumers. Garth says a
bike is like a knife or shoe. Well, there are
fabulously high priced custom made knives and shoes.
Still, if the KOF guys are willing to keep doing this
for their current customers at these prices, then I
say buy as many as you can. My worry is, however, that
since the net income is so small for these fellas,
they maybe the last of their breed and that would be a
great loss to cycling. Again, if you don't see
nepotism in a business, its a good sign that it is a
dying business. Maybe there is alot of nepotism among
the KOF builders, but it certainly does not seem
rampant to me.
Sincerely,
Don Wilson
Los Olivos, CA
> There is a difference between hand made bicycles
> and all other high
> end items. The bicycle was and is the most
> minimalist of machines,
> designed for the one thing that has always facinated
> human kind since
> the beginning of human time. From the time that
> humans first found
> themselves on this earth there was the need and the
> desire to move
> around a little faster, always a little faster. How
> can I travel from
> one village to another in less time? How can I reach
> out across the
> earth and see a little more of it? The bicycle is
> somewhat on par with
> the shoe in that it seeks to make the process of
> speed possible with
> the least effort and the least baggage. The bicycle
> is always in the
> process of refinement, of minimalization, of paring
> away what is
> superfluous. The process of eliminating what is not
> needed is art. The
> art of less is more, is at once a discipline, a
> religion and a device
> for the common man. We can never tear away the root
> of what something
> is just to make it a plaything for the idle rich.
> The bicycle stands as
> a machine on par with the knife, the shoe, and the
> loincloth. No matter
> how perfectly the lugs are brazed and filed, the
> bicycle will always be
> the tool of the common man.
>
> As far as I can see, the price of the finest bicycle
> has always stood
> in proportion to what it cost to manufacture it,
> plus either a minimal
> profit or a healthy profit. A 3 speed Rudge
> commanded a minimal profit,
> and a Colnago commanded a healthy one. The bicycle
> should never command
> an other worldly profit, even if the spirit that
> makes it has its roots
> in the most Godly aspirations that man is capable
> of.
>
> Garth Libre in Miami Fl.
>
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>
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