Foffa Bikes

Lots of good interesting info.. Thank you

Should I be excited by this?

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/eddy-merckx/umx-s-2013-singlespeed-bike-ec060468

Or maybe learn a lesson to not read too much in to original selling prices.... Hmmm

Fuji track or feather?

Giant bowery?

Specialized langster?

I'd probably go for the langster.

Langster
Buy a second hand bike
Build one

Lots of good interesting info.. Thank you

Should I be excited by this?

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/eddy-merckx/umx-s-2013-singlespeed-bike-ec060468

Or maybe learn a lesson to not read too much in to original selling prices.... Hmmm

Seems to have vertical dropouts?

^^ that "merckz" looks like the HHSB thread had it's period...

Used Surly Steamroller? Very happy with mine. There's a hideous 53cm one on eBay at the moment, could be a nice project to pretty it up.
This. Or build up a Steamroller frameset, with the components/parts you want: http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/surly-steamroller-frameset-947-p.asp

Where are you based? Brixton Cycles are a UK Surly seller and are well worth paying a visit anyway.

And yeah, it's a bit crap having this thread dredged up AGAIN.

Lots of good interesting info.. Thank you

Should I be excited by this?

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/eddy-merckx/umx-s-2013-singlespeed-bike-ec060468

Or maybe learn a lesson to not read too much in to original selling prices.... Hmmm

The white looks horrible and the dropouts seem cack

Apologies to all that this got dragged up again... 'Twas only because I am in quarantine, just in case I am a spammer/scanner that I latched my query on...

Good info though, thank you all :)

dredging up the foffa thread = shit stirring

I feel dirty repping James for that.

^ Nerged, for balance.

;)

Since this thread is still in the first page on Google and keeps misdirecting people that don’t know enough about bikes to make the right judgement call, I think it is only fair that I raise a few important points.

Fibblesnork, it is amazing how brand perception makes people look at products in one way even if the facts show the opposite way. A few people keep referring to the Charge Plug as an alternative but clearly these people didn’t even bother checking the spec of the Plug compared to our new Single Speed range, otherwise they would probably realise they have very little idea as to what they are talking about. To demonstrate:

• Charge Plug frame made of Cromoly with Hi-ten forks, while the Foffa has a full Cromoly frame set
  
• Wheelset, basic branded double wall rims, while ours are triple wall and deeper
  
• Crankset, a standard track one, as good as the one we use
  
• Tyres, their branded Coaster which are not even puncture protection while ours are
  
• Bottom bracket, a Tange sealed unit which is not much difference than the sealed unit we use.
  
• Above all, price point, Charge Plug £450 VS Foffa Single speed £350.
  
  

The only thing that some of you might have a few objections about is the sealed bearings which we dont use on our hubs but will introduce in our next year’s range. Other than this the brakes are exactly the same, all parts (stem, bars, seat post, etc..) are alloy just like on the Charge Plug, so I am seriously curious to know how people will be able to justify the additional £100 on a bike which is heavier than ours, is specced just about the same (with the difference that some of the parts we use are actually better) and simply comes from a brand which has a lot more budget to spend on marketing than us so some of you can believe that they are actually selling a better bike when this is not the case.

This thread has been going on since our early beginnings where we clearly made some mistakes (which we have fully acknowledged a number of times), and the comment ‘Because they're over priced and shit’ refers to the custom bikes we have been building up to last year. I appreciate that nobody should be expected to go through 60 pages of posts to shed some light on everything that happened since 2009, so to sum up:

• we stopped doing vintage bikes 4 years ago because they were not 100% reliable
  
• we sacked one of our previous mechanics that caused some issues to us (which we always fully rectified) and made some of the people in the forum believe that we dont know how to build bikes properly
  
• we now even stopped doing our ‘non pre-built’ bikes (I am not allowed to use the word ‘bespoke’ here because this implies that you can also customise the frame and apparently choosing your bars, tape, wheelset, tyres, saddle, crankset and other parts (and not just colours but actually different brands and types) is not enough:)
  
• we even closed our London shop as that was the only way to cut down our overheads and start to make decent quality bikes at affordable prices.
  
  

And some people here on this thread still advise you to go for a Charge Plug? I think you can appreciate how someone like myself could feel about this.

The fact is that we have worked very hard to get our bikes right (also thanks to a lot of good feedback we got as a result of this thread), so if some of the people here are not able to start being fair to a brand that has clearly always listened and taken on board what the community had to say about our bikes in 6 years, then I will only assume that these people have simply decided that, no matter what, we will always be the brand to slag off, and since this attitude is of a defamatory nature, if this carries on, even after all the transformations the company has gone through, I will need to request Velocio to remove this thread, something that I probably should have done years ago, but always decided not to thanks to a lot of the reasonable people reading this forum which have been very supportive and valuable to making our brand what it is today.

In fact Fibblesnork, I would be tempted to offer you a £100 discount on one of our new single speed bikes, so you can ride it heavily and give it your honest review on this forum so that people know whether our bikes are actually worth buying or not. Let me know if you would like to take advantage of this offer.

All the best for now,

Dani

pfff, do u even streisand effect, chuckles?

let us know how that works out for you. lord.

In the interest of balance I feel like saying that Dani's post might be the most reasoned and balanced hereabouts for a while. He's not ranting, threatening, having a crywank or making big claims on behalf of his product (something which may have happened i the past). It's just a bit of defence highlighting some changes he's made to his brand.

I'd suggest (for what it's worth) that it would be churlish to misread the tone of voice or to respond with malice to anything not actually included in his most recent post.

If this thread refuses to die it would be nice to see this discussion evolve.

Yeah, I like the way he slags off "shortcomings" on the branding of some of the charge's features, but plays down the same facts about the foffa.

Very reasoned.

Maybe the best way to put the shitty past behind you dani would be a re brand?

threatening to request having the thread closed down because he doesn't like its google ranking sounds pretty fkn threatey-fists to me.

fuck that, and fuck him.

^^You'd all chase him down if he did that too though right?

It's personal - it has been for years.

threatening to request having the thread closed down because he doesn't like its google ranking sounds pretty fkn threatey-fists to me.

fuck that, and fuck him.

I'd agree that this is a daft thing to threaten. Not that big a deal though. It won't happen.

I don't care in the slightest for foffa or his prosperity what pisses me off is his manner in slagging off the competition, this community, and anything else he can think of at the time. I think comparing his bikes and charge's offerings as he has done, in a one sided and quite childish way, is pathetic.

You should really just let it die, or at the very least just respond to direct questions rather than bringing up all the old stuff that you dislike everytime you post. Sell some of your more recent bikes, at what seems a better price and if they're alright then people will start writing good stuff about them. People recommend other brands stuff on all sorts of threads, Brant from on-one doesn't complain when people want a different fork to use with their pomps on the pomp thread. As for triple wall and deeper being better that's not really true, they probably just weigh a load more.

If he wants to be respected as a business, he should start acting in a respectable way.

I don't care in the slightest for foffa or his prosperity what pisses me off is his manner in slagging off the competition, this community, and anything else he can think of at the time. I think comparing his bikes and charge's offerings as he has done, in a one sided and quite childish way, is pathetic.

Why not make that comparison? Others have - as recently as the last week or two - while directly recommending the one over the other. He might not be right but I respect his right to respond.

Come on, everybody, it's Easter Sunday and he has every right to rise from the dead. :)

...

He responded and still seemed like a dick, just a little less than before. Still though, since when do you only have to be accountable for the very last thing you said (or posted)? Also his edit is a little sus.

I don't think it's personal for anyone. Most people only know that dude from what he posted here, but if you are going to buy a bike with a name on it, and the dude with that name is a dick who has a history of flogging shit and calling it champagne, that factors into your decision doesn't it?

If Dani Charge came in here talking about how his Plug was fully bespoke because you could choose which Charge saddle you wanted and was generally a dick, I bet opinions on Charge bikes would be a little more negative too.

In conclusion: These bikes suck, even if the very latest latest ones are better than the ones before. If you buy something with a name on it you are allowed to consider what or who is behind that name. Somebody who didn't know should be allowed to read this thread so that they can decide whether or not they want to be riding around with 'foffa' on their bike.

Even if you only read his posts with none of the negativity around it, I don't know how you could do that and not, at the very least, get your bike powdercoated directly after purchase.

Happy Easter,

Joe

I should probably say that I don't own a Foffa. I have no particular interest in them at all to be honest other than the phenomenon of this thread.

I don't either