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Mmm, this is the kind of reaction that means we're not going to be doing many more custom builds...
We're just a small firm and have to buy a large proportion of the parts at retail (inc. respray and wheelbuild) - with an ornate build like this the costs soon mount up, as you can see in the breakdown here:
http://freshtripe.co.uk/Freshtripe/Images/Custom%20Build%20Scorcher.pdf
We're lucky if we make 10% on a project like this, so accusations of 'profiteering' are pretty painful - the reality is its just not worth us doing stuff like this for the cash, we just do it 'cos we enjoy it!
I thought the price of £1000 although high for someone like myself and most here who enjoy doing up a bike is pretty reasonable for a carefully put together custom build.
As a boutique/designer kinda item, for the kind of people who spend the full £140 for a pair of diesel/levi's then why not?
But at that price I would have been expecting you to make at least 60% profit including labour costs.
I mean you spent £140 on paint? thats insane. I take a few bits to the powder coater every now & again and they are happy to charge me £15 per frame + £5 each extra item.
I thought you were the kind of business that stockpiled loads of old leftover stock that you bought in bulk for next to nothing. Clearly not.
If you need me to work for you let me know, your selling prices will fall and your profits will rise.
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I mean you spent £140 on paint? thats insane. I take a few bits to the powder coater every now & again and they are happy to charge me £15 per frame + £5 each extra item.
Yeah, but powdercoating and a decent stove enamelled paint job aren't really in the same league. Powder coating is an industrial finish, great for covering up a multitude of sins, which is why it's often used on mass produced bikes - stove enamelling, especially with a number of coats to get a deep gloss finish, costs money - £140 isn't way out. Having said that, if you put a fair number of frames the way of a particular painter, they should give a decent discount (you'd think). Try Dave Yates in Lincolnshire - I think he charges from £90 for a single colour for a top notch job. I've got two frames being painted there at the moment.
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Ive got an old galaxy with the sliding drop outs, and i want to fixed gear it! Suggestions?
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yea that the same as i have! : ) Cheers
DFP
pajamas
ralph.pickering
CAMBRIDGE-CULT
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About
Dawes Galaxy conversion
Posted by
@treflip
hey I'm sorry freshtripe. I reread my comment and it is a bit harsh if you're a one or two man outfit - I've waded in not knowing your background and as someone who has looked at your site for a while now I am familiar with your efforts to get the tasty stuff to the geeks - for that I have always given you massive props.
However, the problem remains the same - a build like the Dawes here is way overpriced. Even if this doesn't arise out of a "here's one for the mugs" ethic, the finished product simply doesn't match up in "value-for-money" to the retail set. All around (at least southern) England there are retail businesses passing the unfeasibilty of their ideas onto the customer in overinflated prices - London is host to a rash of enterprises like this (an example might be a "wrap bar", which tries to bring the world of Spud-U-Like to the tortilla - someone's muddled dream being made reality at upwards of five pounds a pop) and that's something I always find bewildering.
I know you may well have already sold the Dawes and other bikes to people willing to pay the price you ask, but in a broader sense your pricetags will at some point contribute to the distorting of (fixed gear) bikes' real value. Some of us will carry on as we were as we enjoy building our own, but I'm trying to think about the general picture.
If you could get your pricing right and your margins feasible you may lock down the South West in the upcoming fixed feeding frenzy we are all hearing about.. and you would be welcome because you've established yourself long before the chancers pitch in.
Good luck anyway, my throwaway derision was borne out of genuine disappointment at the price and the notion you were joining the growing trend of mughunters - it was not a personal attack just for the sake of it.