Foffa Bikes

I'll give premium advice for monies if anyone's interested. Will donate to forum when sold.

I was being slightly facetious with that last comment, for effect.

However, that's not to say that the feedback that Foffa is valuable to the growth of the business. When engaging with Dani, I would ask myself "is this a business I want to help grow?"

I would really like to know where you can find a Cromoly 4130 double butted steel frame set for £240),

On-One pompetamine, £99-factor in another £30 quid for a steel fork or go to town with the money saved and buy carbon. (you're welcome)

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!

I thought we already established that your price on the Campag wheels and groupset are far above the going rates available elsewhere? However, ignoring this, and taking with a pinch of salt your claim that they come out at the same price (to be fair, the cheapest condor frame comes in at £549 and includes the fork, which you are charging an extra £120 for on top of your bargainous £300 cromo butted frame...)

Regardless. Campag Bullet 80's are on sale elsewhere for in the region of £850. You quote £1317.99. That's a difference of £467.99.

Condor quotes £849 for the Mavic Carbone SL's, and they can be purchased elsewhere for £764.99. A difference of £85.

Condor is still over £100 cheaper for the groupset, you are charging for the chain separate to this at £41.99.

That's quite an honest comparison of margins, isn't it?

And bear in mind that Condor has a heritage behind it built up since 1950, and puts a lot of money into sponsoring race teams and developing the sport. I still consider them to be at the very expensive end of the spectrum but then I imagine the costs associated with maintaining their profile and sponsorship/advertising are very high too, not to mention the number of staff they employ.

So, ignoring your creative accounting for a moment, i still fail to see where you are £300 'more affordable' or what that gets the customer by way of service or expertise?

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.

No, not really.

And I don't really see a difference between the high-ten frames you talk about and the gaspipe 'vintage' frames you used to pump out with shit components on at comedy prices.

Fair enough, businesses evolve, people learn and a lot of shops can try to get away with charging silly prices, but why is it yours still seem sillier than most and why do your persist in trying to persuade us that you're offering a great deal?

Or another 'yeah, but I still built a cheaper / better / prettier bike from something I found in Classifieds'...

I've just looked at your webpage. Your mixte bikes are pretty good looking - they must sell well?

Thank you christianSpaceman, we are doing pretty well on the Mixte frames. There don't seem to be many manufacturers doing decent bikes for ladies out there.

I clicked a pair of shoes to the checkout but I can't get to the checkout? I can't be bothered to sign up just to check if you have them in stock or not. Really bugs me when companies do that.

.A. if you are able to click on the item it means we have them in stock.

Well, I'm following suit and setting up my own business. 'Olympic Cycling Commemorative Coin Emporium'. Contemporary antique coins for the man about town.

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...

To be fair, 4 years ago Scoble couldn't change a tyre in less than 3 hours without posting a thread on here asking for advice, and losing his temper and two fingernails. And now they let him loose in a bike shop...

Put in context, I think Foffa are doing pretty well.

The problem you'll have here is that people here do have specialist knowledge, and they do remember those early bikes. I know you think that you need to win the PR war on places like LFGSS but I'm not sure you need to, really. The mainstream coverage you've been getting seems to have been very positive.

We are really happy with the positive mainstream coverage we are getting but we also appreciate the good feedback we managed to receive from some of the expert guys in this forum, so as JackC puts it, it is up to you to decide whether you are willing to support a genuine brand dedicated to improving its products and services to promote the cycling industry and community.

Rapha?

I kid, I kid.

But I'm interested to know what you mean by 'genuine brand'. What's a fake brand?

Binarello.

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.

That build was bespoken by you. If you're building a show bike, don't put shit tyres on £1300 race wheels, it makes you look clueless. Don't put a crappy hipster seat post on what purports to be a performance bike, ditto. Even the idiots you're hoping to fleece aren't that stupid, they'll look at your show bike and then at what's on the other stands and they won't be coming back to Foffa.

On-One pompetamine, £99-factor in another £30 quid for a steel fork or go to town with the money saved and buy carbon. (you're welcome)

It's too easy if you quote parts which are discounted. The frame alone would normally retail at £200, the On-one Pompino forks £50 so still more than ours.

And I already said that I quoted the prices which are on the UK distributor catalogue, I am certainly not "massively inflated 'RRP' prices on EVERY COMPONENT" as you are implying.

And regardless of the fact that we stopped doing vintage bikes up 2 years ago (so not really sure why you keep going in circles with the same thing) we actually built up some amazing 531 Reynolds tubing, including some Legnano, Viner, Benotto, to name a few, so you should see the difference between the high-ten frames I talk about and the gaspipe 'vintage' frames we did ages ago.

As for the Condor comparison, our geared frame is actually made of Columbus lugged steel, whereas the cheapest Condor frame is TIG welded and made of a basic Dedacciai tubing. Then the Mavic wheelset usually retails at £850, the Campag Bullet 80's recommended retail price is £1317.99 although we actually sell them at £1199.00, so the wheelset is still far superior than the Mavic Carbone.

Why does anyone care this much about foffa? You don't see an entire thread devoted to why chumps shouldn't spend their money at Halfords or Argos. Admittedly the price tag is bigger for chumps with bigger pay checks but who really cares one way or another?

Why does anyone care this much about foffa?

He got everybody's backs up by describing as 'vintage' some piles of shit none of us would bother to pull out of a skip, and we have long memories.

People have done far worse things, I literally couldn't care less about foffa one way or the other, they're not really hurting anyone. The people who buy the bikes are happy, even though its not the way you or I (or most people who have a basic understanding of how bicycles work) would spend that money on a bike, but so what?

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.

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 Foffa 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?

You quoted full rrp to show that you were selling a bike worth £3500 and some change for £3000. Making it look like the punter saves over £500 by going through you.

I quoted prices for just a few components that are available to anyone, without any trade accounts that gave a full bike cost of £2835.90 meaning that your warranty and service will be costing the punter £164.10.

As far your warranty goes, do you actually offer a warranty on a bike? Or do you offer warranty on the components of that bike? A warranty which is available whether you bought those items assembled into a bike or individually? So really, your punter pays £164.10 for a 1st service? I've worked in bike shops, I know what a first service entails. £164.10 worth of work it aint.

I never said you were buying anything at full retail, merely questioned why you kept referring to RRP prices when I expect you are getting trade prices and building the bike for much much less than the £3.5k you say it's worth.

^ this. Bottom line is that Foffa's margin is far above what that sort of business usually makes, which screams rip-off to me.

It's too easy if you quote parts which are discounted. The frame alone would normally retail at £200, the On-one Pompino forks £50 so still more than ours.

And I already said that I quoted the prices which are on the UK distributor catalogue, I am certainly not "massively inflated 'RRP' prices on EVERY COMPONENT" as you are implying.

And regardless of the fact that we stopped doing vintage bikes up 2 years ago (so not really sure why you keep going in circles with the same thing) we actually built up some amazing 531 Reynolds tubing, including some Legnano, Viner, Benotto, to name a few, so you should see the difference between the high-ten frames I talk about and the gaspipe 'vintage' frames we did ages ago.

As for the Foffa - Condor comparison our geared frame is actually made of Columbus lugged steel, whereas the cheapest Condor frame is TIG welded and made of a basic Dedacciai tubing. Then the Mavic wheelset usually retails at £850, the Campag Bullet 80's recommended retail price is £1317.99 although we actually sell them at £1199.00, so the wheelset is still far superior than the Mavic Carbone.

Right. So you're now saying that your actual prices are cheaper than the RRP trade prices you yourself used to justify the pricing on that build? Why wouldn't you just use the actual prices you charge? You and Fat Pat should get together and do a UCI limited edition 'Fixed Figures' build.

And I'm not implying anything-most all the prices you quoted for the items on your flagship build can be found for less elsewhere without any sweat. But despite quoting them they're apparently they're not the prices you actually use so I suppose the real price you would charge for that build is considerably less to reflect this also? But maybe you would have mentioned that.

Campag Bullets may indeed be superior to Carbones, but even with your revised pricing you still charge £350 more than they can be sourced elsewhere? I think that was the point more than the relative merits of campag vs mavic.

And for every legnano or 531 you cite I suspect there's a fair few more awful resprayed carlton or raleigh hatchet jobs with a foffa sticker on it flogged to hipsters riding the great fixeh wave of 2009 so again, drop the incredulity-folks didn't take such a strong aversion to your 'brand' for no reason.

Finally 'The Foffa-Condor comparison' is a bit of a joke, you're not in the same league by a long shot even if your prices are even more 'aspirational' than theirs.

But you're a genuine brand so I'm sure there's value added there somewhere.

Christ Dani let it die.

^^ That's the picture I was looking for.

Foffa is still a crap name though.

£900 of genuine brand.

It would almost be £900 worth of entertainment to order that.

Starting a raffle thread, brb