Foffa Bikes

i'm kind of with hammat on this. the kind of people who are gonna buy these want a bike they can ride to work now and then, and maybe to the park on the weekend. very very few of them are going to take them to cambridge or for circuits of richmond park. the bikes are cheap as fuck (in price and materials), so as long as they're mechanically sound and not stolen, it's sort of win-win.

But they are not "cheap as fuck" are they? £170-£250 would be fairly cheap, but these are nearly £400. The frames are powdercoated skip finds and the parts are either old or lowest quality. He seems to be continually trying to justify the price.

Coventry Eagle powder coated steel 55cm frame (£120+)
Sakae steel 46t crankset (£30)
Dicta 16t free wheel sprocket (£12)
KMC single speed chain (£13)
Tange bottom bracket (£20)
Schwalbe Blizzard puncture proof racing tires (£40)
Schwalbe inner tubes (£10)
Weinmann lightweight alloy rims laced to Quando (front)/Formula (rear) hubs (£100)
Weinmann vintage calipers (£10)
Tech3 2 finger brake levers (£15)
Ventura racing saddle (£20)
bullbars + tape (£30)
SR vintage 1 piece stem (£5)
metal pedals included (£10)

The components alone are worth over £430 and that's excluding the labour.

Ok, so lets enter the real world for a moment:

Coventry Eagle powder coated steel 55cm frame (£40 for paint job frame likely "cost"£20 so £60)
Sakae steel 46t crankset (utter trash, equivalent or better available at £20)
Dicta 16t free wheel sprocket (just googled £7)
KMC single speed chain (£5)
Tange bottom bracket (£15)
Schwalbe Blizzard puncture proof racing tires (£20)
Schwalbe inner tubes (£7)
Weinmann lightweight alloy rims laced to Quando (front)/Formula (rear) hubs (benefit of the doubt, except better wheels can be built for £80 from retail parts £100)
Weinmann vintage calipers (£10)
Tech3 2 finger brake levers (£15)
Ventura racing saddle (£10)
bullbars + tape (£20)
SR vintage 1 piece stem (£5)
metal pedals included (£10)

So that's around £300 for the "components" at retail price, as a bike shop I assume he's getting the new stuff at trade (around 50%) and the second hand stuff (a lot of it is) for very little or free. so cost of around £150-£170 the "labour" involved in making this kind of bike up, even if you build the wheels yourself, is no more than 1/2 to 3/4 of a day £100? so a price of £250 + vat* seems around what they should be asking, wether you think that's fair for the bikes in question is up to you.

A professional shop run by "experts" like this in London's trendy London must surely have trade accounts and be vat registered?