Hey Scott,
Thanks for the well thought out questions. I’ll do my best to give you answers that are as well considered.
The Framebuilders’ Collective is truly a group of individuals and while we inevitably speak for the group by virtue of our being members I can only speak for myself. While Smoked out room isn’t an official TFC action it certainly helps the group in its mission. Smoked out is a great place for one and all to ask questions of those in the hot seat and to learn a good bit about how the builders build and conduct their businesses. I’ve been a bit surprised that more new builders aren’t asking questions. I like to think that if I were in their shoes I’d be bothering the shit out of every builder who puts themselves out for all to see.
I personally feel no duty to make sure the torch is passed on. I realize that sounds cold but the way I see it is that it is market driven. If there is market need for the type of work that I do there will be others that want to meet that need and they will (and do) come to me for advice. If on the other hand the market is fine with my craft dying with me then that is fine too. Passing on the torch only to have the receiver stand at a bench with nothing to build is pointless. I think of it this way. The reason Mr. Sachs has a 6 (?) year wait isn’t because there is a lack of supply of well crafted lugs bikes – it’s because there is a shortage of “Sachs” bikes. Regardless of how many other builders the torch is passed onto none of them will be Richard so very few of them will get work. In other words they don’t want a lugged bike – they want a Sachs and there is no substitute. So if the market demands the passing on of the torch I feel it will happen. IMO the Collective is there to encourage that and help it along. I don’t really see TFC passing on knowledge will in anyway impact any of the builder’s bottom lines for the reason stated above. People that want a Kirk will know where to go and my phone will ring.
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I wish we would have tracks in every community but I don’t see that happening. In my mind it all comes down to money and even if one can use modern social media to raise the funding needed to build a velodrome that same social media won’t fill the track for a weekly race series. The energy needs to be sustained over years to keep the money rolling in to cover costs.
Being a skateboarder I understand the lack of places to play. What is happening now with skateboard parks might be a good model for track cyclists to follow and that it the city owned public park idea. Here in Bozeman we have a small but nice public skateboard park for all to use at no cost. There is no liability release to sign and no safety gear is required. Use it at your own risk (falls under the ‘extreme sport’ law) and respect others and life is good. The skaters raised money through a variety of means to build the park and the city donated the land. It’s doing so well that a second park will be built soon. If tracks were the same way I think they might stand a chance. But if they are closed and locked and a ‘pay to play’ deal then I don’t see it working regardless of how nice the track is. Have you heard of any of the DC cycling clubs approaching local government with the public track idea?
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I have never been approached to support a professional team and doubt I ever will. The reason is simple – I don’t have enough money. Times have changed since I was building Serottas for the Coors Light Pro team and I’m sure the numbers have gotten bigger but they will do a good job at illustrating the issue. When Serotta supplied the Coors team with bikes the contract was for all the bikes they could use, money, and the lining up of co-sponsors. So Serotta gave the team a good 40 bikes a year, about $100,000 and had to line up component/tire/pedal…etc sponsors. This is of course the mid 1990’s and the dollar was worth less then. As you can see this was a big nut to crack and the bikes were the small part of the equation. What a bike company does really is give bikes to the team and then pay them very large money to get them to use them. As an aside – bikes are not chosen by the team because they are the best, fastest bikes. They are chosen because the company can pay the most to have the team use the bikes and the quality of the bikes is for the most part irrelevant. So anytime you read online that a certain bike must be good because a certain team has ‘chosen’ them you are reading BS. The team chose the money and the bikes were just part of the deal. But back on task – even if a pro team wanted to use my bikes and not charge me money to use them it still wouldn’t make sense unless I wanted to grow the brand beyond me – which I do not. If the team racing my bikes generated lots of interest in my bikes and it got me a lot of deposits it would not mean more money in my pocket and therefore would not be worth the trouble. My income is based on how many bikes I put into boxes and not how many I sell. As long as I have a backlog it will be this way. I can only build as many as I can build and more sales just make the wait longer which does no one any good. One could argue that it would allow me to raise my prices due to increased demand but that price increase would need to pay for all the bikes I gave to the team and I doubt regular paying customers would want to pay $10K for a frameset just because some powerbar team is riding my bikes. So in my mind it just doesn’t add up.
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Thanks again for the questions – I hope I answered them!
Dave
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