Would you guys please stop trying to expound upon what I should charge for MY product until you've tried to make a living doing it. Here's a deal I'll build either of you a built-to-measure custom lugged frame and fork using modern or classic lugs, dropouts, and tubes for $1650. This is a price right about where I think someone of my experience should be paid. The deposit price is $750 and it's due when you return my questionnaire. Are you ready to put your money where your mouth is?
Being a bike builder is a tough gig and all the old timers I told that that I was going to start building asked "Are you stupid or just a masochist?" I build frames for reasons most other folks don't and that reason is freedom. After almost 20 years of working as a master mechanic I could continue to do that or move into management if I just wanted to be in the bike industry. I want to be able to set my own schedule and be my own boss. I also enjoy being a househusband so working in my garage is a benefit there too. I've worked my ass of for the past 10 years so my lovely wife can have Dr. before here name and Ph.D after it. My reward is being about to build bikes until I retire. Most builders I know build because it's their job skill and they need to keep a roof over their family's heads. I don't envy those guys and would only build as a hobby if that was the case.
I've read a lot of talk about supporting builders, but has it made anyone actually put money down on a frame? I doubt it. Has anybody even called up their local builder and asked if that wanted to go have a beer or burrito? I doubt that to. Has anyone tried to see what they can do to help a local builder? Until people start doing these things it's all talk, and talk doesn't pay the bills or keep the lights on. best, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives filing fillets on my porch in Vancouver, B.C.
On Saturday, Mar 11, 2006, at 11:40 US/Pacific, Don Wilson wrote:
> 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
>
> --- Bianca Pratorius <biankita@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> 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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>
>
> D.C. Wilson dcwilson3@yahoo.com
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