> Quite frankly, a hand-tailored bicycle at $1500 - $2500 is a better
> deal than most hand-tailored suits, which won't last half as long !!
Better value than a suit, probably. But frankly, I had no idea a suit cost
anywhere *near* that much. Ouch! Fortunately I only need them for the
occasional wedding or funeral (and as you get older, unfortunately it's the
latter that's more common).
> I think that the main reason to get a custom bicycle is that you can
> get something of much higher quality and durability. Your desire
> might be aesthetic, e.g. if you have an eye for artistry, or a sense
> of mojo developed in your brain by marketing when you were very young.
>
> A lot of people feel left out in the cold by the recent trend towards
> fast-food / mcdonalds bicycle frames (e.g. eat them up, then pitch
> them out, gotta get a new one every 5-10 years, we are under the spell
> of the greedy marketeers from bicycle companies! ! !)
I'm not sure why you feel this is the case. Yes, you can get something new
every few years if you wish, but that's a choice, not a requirement. Road
bikes have the advantage of being relatively-durable goods, vs mountain
bikes, where it's obsolete when it first hits the trail because it doesn't
have the latest fork or rear suspension.
Besides, for many people, 5-10 years represents 50-100k miles. That's not an
unreasonable lifespan for a frame; high-quality steel frames of the past
(the ones everyone looks to and says "Why don't they build them like that
anymore?") would often fail prior to 50k miles, typically either at the
right rear dropout (broken) or on the seat tube, opposite the chainrings,
between the bottom bracket and the front derailleur clamp (where you'd get a
tear in the metal). Some would last much longer, some would die more
quickly. But by the time you got that many miles on it, you could make a
case that it had a reasonable life.
Custom frames are no less susceptible to such failures as production bikes;
we see the same sort of thing from time to time. You *could* make a frame
that would be virtually bomb-proof and last for 500,000 miles, but you'd
give up ride quality and add weight to do so.
This is a long way of getting to my main point- the modern carbon frames
that have come out of Waterloo (Trek) have proven to be as durable as
anything I've seen elsewhere. Yes, something happens now and then, as it
does in the real world, but we've got a number of them out there with a
whole lot of miles piled up on them, still going strong. What, exactly, is
it supposed to do beyond that?
>
> I found that in the early 1990's the big corporations decided that
> america no longer cared about high-quality $100-$200 radios, and
> suddenly the USA got only low-cost 3rd-world $10-$30 products from
> malaysia and singapore. I never stopped buying quality radios, but
> the USA got much poorer around me. If I could I'd order an all-steel
> and glass radio made in Japan in the $150-$300 range, i would. I'm
> not talking boombox, i'm talking about just a 2-band or 3-band high
> quality radio.
You're preaching to the choir here. There are many things I'd willingly pay
more money for if they were built better *and* repairable. I used to work
for Heathkit Electronics in a prior life. You actually paid *more* to build
many (most?) of the items we sold than what it would cost already assembled
from other manufacturers... but the stuff was both bomb-proof and easy to
repair.
> IMHO the same thing has happened with bicycles. The bike companies
> have managed to change the perceptions of customers to make more
> profits for themselves. My values are not TREK's values, any more,
> hence, I am a fish out of water.
And that's where we're in disagreement, if I understand you correctly. Trek
is still building bikes that are, to some people's way of thinking,
excessively durable (meaning that they could be made lighter) and also
repairable. They could make them less-expensively if they used techniques
that would require you toss a carbon frame if there was a problem, but they
don't. It's expected to be durable and last a great many years.
Further, Trek doesn't come out with radically different models every single
year, or even every other year. The product cycle is generally about 6
years, sometimes much more, for a given frame platform. Contrast that to
what others do, where it's not about function but rather style, and they
come out with something that's new & better & cooler every year (sometimes
every other year) and say the old one was obsolete, time to move on. Trek is
much more a product company than a marketing company, for good and bad.
But Trek is also a forward-moving company, so if you find yourself
comfortable with bikes that represented a certain time and technology, then
yes, times have changed, Trek has moved on. But for me, I can go back to my
first OCLV carbon road bike, a 1992 5200, and fast-forward to my 2006 Madone
SSL... and it's basically an evolution, not a revolution. More of the same,
only better.
Of course, I own a bike shop, so I must get a new bike every year? The
reality is that I go about 5 years between bikes. From a practical
standpoint, I should probably update more often (might help me sell more
bikes), but dang, why? I find something I really like, why should I change
until there's a real need to? Plus, I probably sell more, not fewer bikes,
because I can point to their long-term durability and the fact that it's an
investment where you don't have to worry that next year you'll wish you'd
waited for the new models.
That's just my take on things, and obviously it benefits me to suggest that
Trek has done an exceptional job and has all the answers. The truth? I've
worked with them for 20 years, known many of the same people there for that
long (they keep employees for a very long time), and have been impressed
with how they stand behind their product, and what goes into the design and
implementation. When they screw up, they don't run away from it, they fix
it. It's easy (and profitable, for me) to work with a company like that.
There may be other similar companies out there, but my guess is that there
aren't enough of them. Most are more interested in contracting overseas for
the cheapest vendor for a given spec, and I'm not just talking bicycles. The
WalMart mentality has taken hold in a big way.
> - Don Gillies
--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA