Foffa Bikes

I've been slightly unfair to Prancer, as I did not give the background of the picture I posted yesterday, I did however fully intend to do it today. My own tuppence is this:

Yes pretty much the opening gambit of Mr Foffa's sales pitch was a question designed to point out that his bikes come in all manner of pretty colours and patterns. This actually concerns me quite a lot as I am pretty convinced that he simply is not bothered about establishing whether or not one of his bikes is going to be suitable for the person he is selling it to, preferring instead to look at his turnover and bottom line. I also find it surprising that he chose to approach us in this way as Prancer, as ever, was looking dapper in his Rapha and while I didn't look as smart I was similarly attired in addition to this we both had the lovely, pink dayglo ride leaders hi vis vest; it is difficult to judge someone's knowledge and ability as a cyclist by what they are wearing, however I think that there were enough visual clues to for Mr Foffa to at least try to establish what our experience was before going on to his USP; the colour. I cannot help but wonder if this is a sign of a lack of knowledge on his part.

The hi-pro I have to admit looked significantly better in the metal than the concept drawing that was posted up here a while back. Prancer has already pointed out that there was only a front brake on the bike however it was a prototype according to Mr Foffa so there is still time to remedy that, although I never actually checked to see if the frame was able to take a brake at the rear and would imagine that it would be tricky to route the cable without detracting from the line of the swoopy top tube. Apart from the twitchy handling, which would be easily remedied with a longer stem, it was quite nice to ride with a comfortable and very upright riding position however; I cannot help but wonder if the bike was designed to look unique and any other benefit was just a happy coincidence. I do have a big problem with this bike, namely that I do not see how it can ever be worth worth £700 - £800, I understand that the due to the frame design the manufacturing costs will be significantly higher than a standard shape frame, however not that much surely? Additionally when you consider that Foffa bikes sell directly to the customer I have to assume that there is a lot of hipster tax being levied. Surely this is not a great way to encourage repeat customers, I for one would be apoplectic if I splashed 700 beans on a bike only to discover a couple of months down the line that I could buy a similarly specced shopper with almost identical riding position for half that price.

I have in the past tried to defend Foffa (probably badly though) from some of the flaming he has received here I honestly do not think I could do this any more as the more I think about this the more I realise that Mr Foffa is trying to turn a mode of transport that I love and that has countless benefits both to the individual and to society into a trendy lifestyle accessory. I understand that for many years cars have been sold this way however underpinning all the marketing crap associated with cars is a deep seated fundamental understanding of the industry; Mr Foffa appears to be focusing on the former without possessing the latter.