Foffa Bikes

Right, here is my answers to all the points you have raised:

Furious tiles, the only reason we keep persevering at protecting our brand is that people keep insinuating that we are ripping people off while we are not. Actually I will reiterate that we seem the only brand out there to offer not off-the-peg bikes at off-the-peg prices. The price for EACH COMPONENT that I have quoted on the 3 grand bike comes from the RRP of the UK distributors for those brands, so yes I can appreciate that on CRC you can get them for cheaper, but we don't have the buying power at this stage to get OEM accounts, so these are the average prices that you would expect from an independent bike shop that's been around for just over 3 years, and I certainly don't appreciate people suggesting that we are massively inflating the 'RRP' prices as you are suggesting. If you check the RRP prices for the Chorus group set and Bullet 80 wheel set check out the Chicken Cycles website yourself and you'll see that they match.

über_grüber, I need to clarify a very important point here. If our bikes were for the fashion conscious people only then we would be using hi-ten steel and the cheapest components China can produce, but that s not our case. So seeing that our frames are made from the same guys that Surly and BLB use (and I would really like to know where you can find a Cromoly 4130 double butted steel frame set for £240), our rims from the same guys that H+Son use (but ours are a lot cheaper) I think you ll appreciate why I appear to be giving a lot less credit to some of the people in the forum than they are due.

Also I just had a play around with the Condor bike builder and the same specced bike with a Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL which is £300 inferior than the Campag Bullet Ultra 80 is going for the same price as ours, so we are still £300 more affordable!

MDCC_ tester, the fact that we offer on our bike builder the option for an entry level Zaffiro tyre doesnt mean that people using some common sense and choosing a good wheel set won't go for some Continental Gatorskin (which are also on our bike builder), so asking me whether I 'have actually done the maths' is irrelevant since I am not the one that does the math but the people that bespoke their bikes.

Mechanical_vandal, you took the time to quote every single components using CRC prices and it works out as £2835.90, add a bit for labour and you get the same price we would charge you for the same bike but on top you'd get full warranty and a free service, so that's still better than buying the bits yourself (which would only work if you already had the tools and knowledge to put the bike together).
Also not sure why you are saying we are buying anything at "full retail"? We have never suggested this, and if we didn't buy at trade where would our profits be?

D-goods, yes like many of the posts on this forum this is another one of those 'have a go at the bike guy' cases, but I actually don't mind it because although it is a shame that some people seem to get so frustrated at the people that are actually working hard for something they are passionate about and are willing to admit when they are wrong and learn from their mistakes, we are still getting some very valuable feedback from this, which can only make ours a better brand on the long run.

RPM, in 3 years we have improved every single component on our bikes, changed our mechanics 3 times, launched 3 new ranges of bikes, grown our business by 300%, and got over 50 resellers of our bikes around Europe, so not really sure why you would say we haven't learned anything.

Kingcutter, if you think you know where we could improve our brand, then we'd love to hear from you. As I said many times before, we are a cooperative business and always listen to what the community has to say on any matter.

christianSpaceman, thank you for being one of the few people realising that we do try to run a genuine business and acknowledge our mistakes, which I don't think it is something that you ll find very common in this industry.

To conclude, 4 years ago we started offering basic bikes which we have improved dramatically over the years after listening and reacting to feedback from customers and discussions like the one on this forum, and it's a shame that some people here still associate us with the first bikes that we built. We have stopped 2 years ago reconditioning vintage bikes like we used to in the very beginning. We have even changed our mechanic three times in order to keep trying to raise our standards. We have always been willing to listen and discuss constructive feedback with everyone in and out of the industry. We have added many top of the range brands like Brooks, Cinelli, Fizik, San Marco, Miche (which I can appreciate not all of you might be too fond of but some people still like them and end of the day it's about giving people choice. But if you do have other options you d like to see on our bike builders let us know!). We understand that in life nobody can please everybody and Foffa Bikes might not be to everyone's liking, but we are just trying to run a genuine business and keep constantly improving our range of products and services, so I hope we can now move on and go out riding our bikes more!

All the best,

dani