Don Wilson began a post with:
"Let me start by saying my bonafides regarding bike making and market are zero..."
And then the rest of what Wilson wrote about selling bicycles -- to rich people -- is an embarrassment to humanity.
Bruce Gordon wrote:
<snipped here & there>
"...Most of my business for the last 16 years has been making more utilitarian TIG welded touring frames and racks. But even those TIGed bike sales have dropped from 60 to 70 bikes a year to 25 last year. Is it because my stuff is lousy?? I don't think so. I think I make pretty good, reasonably priced touring stuff. What has happened is that the business has been taken over by what I call "Marketers". People who have discovered that "Why make it yourself if you can have it made overseas for a lot less?"....What has hurt my business the most are the Rivendells, Surlys, Somas,Kogswells, etc. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THEIR PRODUCTS!!!!! When Rivendell started - they were only going to be made in USA, then, maybe some made in Japan, then, OK maybe some from Taiwan. It is a slippery slope, and there is NO chairlift back to the top of the mountain. For me in California, I cannot compete with a $249 wholesale Surly Touring frame...If we want to have the passionate, small, innovative builders - we have to start buying from them. We need to buy from the people who are passionate about building them, NOT just from the passionate people who Market them. I doubt that the factory workers in Taiwan, or China, etc. are passionate about bikes like you are."
Gordon mentions Rivendell and Surly twice as market rivals. Bruce Gordon Cycles should fold, or find internal genius to compete, or find genius-help to compete. If Bruce Gordon Cycles has the right stuff, and if Gordon and/or a potential consultant sized up Bruce Gordon Cycles as worthy of the market, then Bruce Gordon Cycles takes its best shot: THAT is capitalism, no matter the number of honorable -- or bloodsucking -- rivals.
Joe Starck Madison, Wisconsin
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