Quote:
Originally Posted by Fixed
Ben had a name and face
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They haven't taken his face yet...
This is how it goes with frame builders. There is a gap between custom builder and the big production companies like Trek and Specialized, that gap is almost certain death to cross. Outsiders of the bike industry don't see that, which along with optimistic goals on Ben's part lead to the downfall of the company. It's not like this sort of thing has never happened before, but each case is different, with something to learn from. The two interesting cases to me are Moots and Parlee. Moots was purchased, there was a huge investment in equipment, but their goals and backing have not changed. Their RSL is the evolution of the Compact SL. Their market is custom titanium, something Trek and Specialized have no interest in. Parlee is another interesting case, started from a home version of carbon production, they now outsource a number of their frames to span the gap between small american made production and less expensive asian production.
The failures have mostly followed a common theme - someone from outside of the bike industry sees a bunch of frame builders putting together a scant number of frames per year, looks at the market and thinks "I can do this much better", and doesn't. Both Serotta and Fat City were bought decades ago, how well did that work out? It did give birth to Independent Fabrications, which has also been bought and moved. Merlin was purchased by a large footwear company and moved south, which gave rise to Seven Cycles.
OK, one more very interesting case - Seven. Seven really started at Merlin, in the years it was run as a toy store. Design freedom gave Rob the ability to make the bikes that made Merlin the magic company it was. As that freedom was taken away (by outsiders who thought they knew the bike industry) key members formed Seven. Seven started out in titanium bikes and moved into carbon/titanium bikes, their competition was Serotta. As Serotta moved to all carbon, so did Seven. There are two reasons Seven is still around: First, their carbon frame program was quick to fail - this was actually an advantage. Second, Rob was still at the helm, and smart enough to return to what they knew. That step back is unique in the industry, and yet somehow they make it work, perhaps because the people who built all the bikes in the past are still with them. A few weeks ago they had the release of the 2014 Honey bikes. I can't say what the sales numbers have been, but I can tell you that the reaction of the cycling community was very positive.