13 Oct 2010

I’ll preface this post by saying I like Cannondale. Their Hollowgram SL cranks and Lefty forks are unbeliveable pieces of gear, and given my druthers I’d be all over them. Bizarre from a company that along with Klein pioneered the use of Aluminium primarily in the road scene in the late 1980’s to produce a set of cranks that are lighter and stiffer than anything, and a fork that looks like it shouldn’t work terribly well but turns out to be not only plush as hell but also lighter than anything out there by a not insignificant margin. They’ve triumphed with these components where others have failled - or like Specialized - co-opted (think Lightning cranks.)

Unfortunately, where they have failled from where I’m sitting is aftermarket sales and service. Essentially, there isn’t any. With masses of apologies for my customer Phill who has been waiting 4 months for any sign of a fork, I’m now told there essentially isn’t any 2010 forks to be had, and 2011 forks will be available in……January. WTF?

This is just such rubbish. The custom bike industry doesn’t impact on the sales of off-the-shelf bike businesses largely because those interested in custom bikes are of the exact opposite mindset of those interested in Tupperware. They want individualism, and they generally want the good stuff, regardless of where it is or who makes it….generally. Nobody has ever posted on an internet forum “Help! I can’t decide between a Thylacine, IndyFab, or Cannondale!”.

So why not embrace us custom dudes and sell us your damn forks already?  It will make you look much sexier than you are, it will elevate even further your cache, you’ll sell more forks and cranks…..where’s the downside?

Okay so recently I got into a spot of bother for telling companies how they should conduct their business, which I guess is fair enough in some respects because generally I consider myself pretty crap at running them myself. However, being impeded when all you want to do is keep customers happy and sell the good stuff gets really, really tiring, really really fast. If it was an isolated incident you’d probably be happy to go “Yeah whatever, you’re a bunch of dicks” and move on, but sometimes running a custom bike business seem more like being in a war (where you can’t actually buy any bullets - sorry, out of stock) than doing something that is fun and - you know, because bikes are freewheeling, happy-go-lucky things - free and happy. Perhaps it’s just like any other job then? 10% excitement, 90% dealing with other peoples’ shit?

Regardless, I shalt continue fighting the good fight and waving my money in the air in the hope that some people might actually want to trade it for some forks. Or cranks. Or headsets.

*EDIT* Son of a Motherless Goat! I just spend an hour bagging out on Crack’n'fail, and now they’ve gone and nicked my graphics! ;o)

Posted by warwick @ 1:27 am