#16
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Quote:
At NAHBS in Denver, as I walked through the CK booth my path took me by a Cielo frame on display, going past from back to front. Glancing at it, I had to make a sudden stop, back up and do a double take. My fleeting impression was correct...the welds where the seatstays connected to the seat tube were easily some of the most unattractive that I had ever seen on a high end frame. I wish that I had taken a pic but I didn't. A couple of years later I was at NAHBS Sacramento and I made it a point to check out that same area on the Cielos present there. While they didn't look as bad as the one I saw in Denver I can't say they looked all that great to me. Maybe those were the exception rather than the rule, but given that they were display bikes I was very unimpressed.
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"I am just a blacksmith" - Dario Pegoretti
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#17
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#18
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not surprising that they would halt production. their core business is small stuff, headsets, hubs, BB's. the expense ratio to produce very high quality steel frames relative to how many they are probably selling likely does not justify keeping them in the lineup.
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http://less-than-epic.blogspot.com/ |
#19
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still, it was cool to have a steel manufacturer with stock geos and reasonable wait times. |
#20
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Not surprising. Even at $2500+ for a steel frameset, I doubt they were able to do it profitably. Cielo always seemed like a passion project and loss leader for someone in-house at CK.
Why sell one $2500 frame when you can sell 17 $159 headsets for the same money? |
#21
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I trained their painter in one of my painting classes. They paint their frames in house. He started as their prep guy doing the sanding and applying decals and eventually became their main guy.
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#22
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And only compete against 4-6 headset manufacturers as opposed to competing against 100 frame builders.
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#23
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who were also their biggest advocates and customers... go figure.
Last edited by nicrump; 08-16-2017 at 03:40 PM. |
#24
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Smart business move. CK sells headset spacers too!
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#25
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Yeah, I think there was a line in their PR about how this was one reason they were stopping this...don't antagonize your core market
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#26
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and I bet they aren't cheap
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#27
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Is Jay Sycip still with CK? If so I wonder what this means for him?
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#28
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This implies he's staying on with the company. https://bikeportland.org/2017/08/16/...-frames-239074 |
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