Maybe if you can't beat them, you should join them. Markets change and if you don't change with them you will fail. I think this is true in any business. Seen any "record" stores lately? I would happily pay "extra" over a Surly or Soma for a Taiwanese built, Bruce Gordon designed touring frame. I know it isn't the direction Bruce wants to go, but a guy has to eat. Seems to me the Rock-n-Road and BLT are perfectly suited to being built overseas.
Please don't hate me Bruce, I need a couple of racks!
cheers, kudos and success to all you framebuilders!!!!! Rod Kronenberg Fort Collins, CO
> (I wish E-Richie would rejoin the CR list so I don't have to relay
\r?\n> stuff, but I still am glad everyone is kicking this around...I really
\r?\n> love what these guys make...)
\r?\n>
\r?\n> << Bruce wrote:
\r?\n> "I have sold 3 frames in the last 16 years."....and ...."Most of my
\r?\n> business for the last 16 years has been making more utilitarian TIG
\r?\n> welded touring frames and racks."
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Richard replys:
\r?\n> << At least 16 years ago you decide to go price-point and compete with
\r?\n> the very companies that would eventually give the consumer,
\r?\n> consumer, a choice. Had you not done this, perhaps you would have made
\r?\n> and sold more "custom" frames. But you gave your market an option, and
\r?\n> that option became your cash cow, enabling you to (also) make (only)
\r?\n> one frame every 5 years. Now you say even the cash cow isn't producing
\r?\n> milk.
\r?\n> I came away from the '05 Houston show and from the San Jose show from
\r?\n> last weekend pleasantly amazed at the enthusiasm and zeal that all the
\r?\n> builders - particularly the newer guys - brought to their work.
\r?\n> I feel that this is what carries them and gives them a reason to come
\r?\n> in to work every day. We all felt that way once. Some of us still do.
\r?\n> Maybe you should infect yourself with a shot of what's out there. Let
\r?\n> it be contagious. The sky is not falling, ya' know.
\r?\n> e-RICHIE©T® >>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Dale Brown
\r?\n> Greensboro, NC USA
\r?\n> http://www.classicrendezvous.com
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> -----Original Message-----
\r?\n> From: Bruce Gordon
\r?\n> Subject: RE: [BOB] NAHBS Thoughts (late and long and opinionated)
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Someone asked my purpose in writing about this.
\r?\n> I'm writing to expose "the dirty little secret of the bike biz", that
\r?\n> no one
\r?\n> wants to talk about.
\r?\n> First I want to commend Don for the show. It was the most unique
\r?\n> gathering
\r?\n> I have been to in my 35 years in the bike business, it was also the most
\r?\n> troubling.
\r?\n> I write this because I think most of the visitors are totally unaware
\r?\n> of the
\r?\n> plight of the small builder.
\r?\n> First - I really like bikes, I like making them, I like thinking about
\r?\n> them,
\r?\n> I like riding them - I hate the bike business. Like many of you - I
\r?\n> might
\r?\n> say that I am passionate about bikes.
\r?\n> One of the most disturbing moments of the weekend was when I was having
\r?\n> dinner at the hotel after spending an exhausting day at the show
\r?\n> talking to
\r?\n> people. A builder whom I really respect, who has been building about as
\r?\n> long as I have, quietly ordered a bowl of soup. I could tell it was not
\r?\n> because he was not hungry - it was because entrees were $15 to $20.
\r?\n> In the last 18 months I have been to 5 shows like the NAHBS. Don's
\r?\n> show in
\r?\n> San Jose was the biggest. I have been to the Velo Rendezvous in
\r?\n> Pasadena 2
\r?\n> times, the Cirque in North Carolina, and the Handmade Bike Fair in Tokyo
\r?\n> Japan. In each show except the NAHBS I have won first place awards for
\r?\n> my
\r?\n> bikes. I am humbled and honored by the awards. However, it has cost
\r?\n> over
\r?\n> $20,000 with almost no sales. I have sold 3 frames in the last 16
\r?\n> years. I
\r?\n> was hoping to sell some of the prize winners at the NAHBS show to recoup
\r?\n> some of my expenses. No luck (they are still all for sale) and I spent
\r?\n> $2000 to attend and display.
\r?\n> Making the fancy lugged frames bikes is very therapeutic for me. It
\r?\n> gets me
\r?\n> back to my roots.
\r?\n> At the NAHBS I got to talk to some builders I have known and admired
\r?\n> for 30+
\r?\n> years. We talked bikes, but we also talked business. I handed out an
\r?\n> anonymous questionnaire I had printed up about the business. Some of
\r?\n> the
\r?\n> answers might shock you. The first question was "what should a
\r?\n> competent
\r?\n> frame builder earn a year?" The most common answer was $40,000 to
\r?\n> $50,000
\r?\n> per year - certainly not Greedy. I have a 30 year old friend who is a
\r?\n> Union
\r?\n> Plumber who just turned Journeyman. He just started a job in San
\r?\n> Francisco
\r?\n> doing copper piping in a new Condominium at $43 per hour + health
\r?\n> coverage +
\r?\n> retirement. I should have been a plumber. I could have afforded to go
\r?\n> the
\r?\n> Plumbing Shows and show off my fancy edged carved Copper plumbing
\r?\n> fittings.
\r?\n> I found in the questionnaire that no one including the well known small
\r?\n> builders even made $35,000. Most were about $20,000, which is where I
\r?\n> fit
\r?\n> in. I asked if they could ever retire on their current income -
\r?\n> everyone
\r?\n> replied NO. As for health insurance - 75% had no insurance, or if they
\r?\n> had
\r?\n> insurance - most had it through their spouse.
\r?\n> When I started building in 1974 with Albert Eisentraut he would say:
\r?\n> "You
\r?\n> won't get rich building frames, but, you can make a living."
\r?\n> For the first 28 years of my business I could always afford an employee,
\r?\n> that has not been the case for the last 4 years. Even working alone I
\r?\n> have
\r?\n> had to dip into my personal savings to pay the bills. If sales stay the
\r?\n> same, I have 1 or 2 more years left before my savings are gone.
\r?\n> Most of my business for the last 16 years has been making more
\r?\n> utilitarian
\r?\n> TIG welded touring frames and racks. But even those TIGed bike sales
\r?\n> have
\r?\n> dropped from 60 to 70 bikes a year to 25 last year. Is it because my
\r?\n> stuff
\r?\n> is lousy?? I don't think so. I think I make pretty good, reasonably
\r?\n> priced
\r?\n> touring stuff.
\r?\n> What has happened is that the business has been taken over by what I
\r?\n> call
\r?\n> "Marketers". People who have discovered that "Why make it yourself if
\r?\n> you
\r?\n> can have it made overseas for a lot less?". That way you can spend
\r?\n> more on
\r?\n> marketing, which seems to work better. Fine, some will say, THAT IS
\r?\n> CAPITALISM!. But, something to think about is this. Over the past 30
\r?\n> odd
\r?\n> years I have seen many innovations in the bike biz. Almost all were
\r?\n> from 1
\r?\n> to 3 person shops. A couple that come to mind are Merlin, the first
\r?\n> viable
\r?\n> Titanium frames (early TI attempts, Teledyne, etc. just did not work)
\r?\n> and
\r?\n> especially Mountain Bikes. Now, if you go into a bike shop - 90 to 95%
\r?\n> of
\r?\n> Mountain Bikes are made in Taiwan or China. If we were to wait for the
\r?\n> Taiwanese or Chinese to invent the Mountain Bike - we would still be
\r?\n> waiting.
\r?\n> One of my most vivid memories of my first trip to France in the late
\r?\n> 1980's
\r?\n> was that it was a country that almost everyone drove French cars. Not
\r?\n> because they were the best, they weren't (they have vastly improved
\r?\n> since),
\r?\n> but because they were built by French people, and they liked to support
\r?\n> their own industry.
\r?\n> What has hurt my business the most are the Rivendells, Surlys, Somas,
\r?\n> Kogswells, etc. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THEIR
\r?\n> PRODUCTS!!!!!
\r?\n> When Rivendell started - they were only going to be made in USA, then,
\r?\n> maybe
\r?\n> some made in Japan, then, OK maybe some from Taiwan. It is a slippery
\r?\n> slope, and there is NO chairlift back to the top of the mountain.
\r?\n> For me in California, I cannot compete with a $249 wholesale Surly
\r?\n> Touring
\r?\n> frame. I know the argument - we are better in the USA doing the
\r?\n> designing
\r?\n> and outsourcing the production. B.S. - People in India, Taiwan and
\r?\n> China
\r?\n> have the same computers we have. In fact, my Hewlett Packard computer
\r?\n> as
\r?\n> made in China. They also have people who can use them. The only jobs
\r?\n> that
\r?\n> can not be outsourced are the jobs pouring your coffee at Starbucks,
\r?\n> and the
\r?\n> job wearing an "Orange Apron" and saying - "Welcome to Home Depot".
\r?\n> That gets me back to the question of why I wrote the original post. If
\r?\n> we
\r?\n> want to have the passionate, small, innovative builders - we have to
\r?\n> start
\r?\n> buying from them. We need to buy from the people who are passionate
\r?\n> about
\r?\n> building them, NOT just from the passionate people who Market them. I
\r?\n> doubt
\r?\n> that the factory workers in Taiwan, or China, etc. are passionate about
\r?\n> bikes like you are.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> If you got this far - thanks for reading and letting me get this off my
\r?\n> chest.
\r?\n> Regards,
\r?\n> Bruce Gordon
\r?\n> Bruce Gordon Cycles
\r?\n> http://www.bgcycles.com