[Doug Fattic]

I have no emotional connection to Serotta bicycles so whether they get bigger or smaller doesn't matter to me. Both Ben and I went to Europe to learn how to build frames and we competed for some of the same top US racers to ride our bicycles back in the 70's (for me it was only Midwestern riders) when it was a niche sport. I wish him well. I have often thought about what completely different trajectories we have gone since we were one and two man shops (i still am). What does interest me is how the choices of those of us that started making frames during the 70's bike boom have played out. Their business model sells more bicycles by going through bike shops. The bike shop does the interviewing and fitting and someone somewhere designs the frame from those numbers and the factory makes a frame just for them. The good news is that one can go to a fairly local store to get fitted and they don't have to wait forever to get their bicycle because of factory efficiencies. The bad news is that the bike store people may not get it right and something could be off a bit. And there are added costs in all those layers.

With my knowledge there is no way I would ever want to buy a new Serotta. I'd want to find a good local builder (David Wages is within reasonable driving distance) where I would talk to and be fit by the master himself. I believe this way I would get a superior product at a somewhat cheaper price. This doesn't mean I think getting a Serotta is a bad choice for someone else, it just would never be my choice (if I wasn't a framebuilder already). Besides the kind of custom steel bicycles most people are buying now is nothing like the ones we were making 30 years ago. And there is nothing in the Serotta line that looks like the kind of custom steel bicycles the majority are wanting today.