Foffa Bikes

if you have skills in bike design and engineering rather than just slag off what DF is doing why not give him some constructive criticism?

The beauty of outsourcing is that the Chinese have all the engineering and manufacturing skills down, all you have to do is send them a sketch and they'll send back a price for something which will meet relevant standards. Bike design at this level is not something which needs much more than sticking reasonably close to established formulae anyway, tube diameters and wall thickness are well established, if you keep the geometry within a hand's width of what has gone before you'll end up with something which works, even if it's not actually lovely.

Dani, for your lowpro project just try to copy cannondale track (but with ahead 1" or 1 1/8). Not meny low priced cdale copies out there, and the demand (Leggenda, Low etc) seems to exist. Dont bother with weird aerothings or curved tubes.

why not just copy the hipro edit and give it a bendy seat tube? make sure clearances are tight and you've got the hipsters dream ride.

are you scared he actually will copy cdale? :)

I have no idea which one would sell more (well, in the boutique market it's the cdale), I just would like to have one myself.

speak to noca!

The beauty of outsourcing is that the Chinese have all the engineering and manufacturing skills down, all you have to do is send them a sketch and they'll send back a price for something which will meet relevant standards. Bike design at this level is not something which needs much more than sticking reasonably close to established formulae anyway, tube diameters and wall thickness are well established, if you keep the geometry within a hand's width of what has gone before you'll end up with something which works, even if it's not actually lovely.

Cool. Although if someone has expertise in this area then it wouldn't hurt them to help inform this process, before the rough sketches get to the Chinese for costing up. For example, I've been writing for donkey's years and if someone asked for some constructive criticism on something they'd written I'd be happy to take 10 minutes out to offer some. It's just about being nice instead of being deliberately unhelpful and a bit shitty.

Without wishing to sound like Mother Theresa's nephew once a month (or when time allows) I go along to an advertising college to crit student's work and offer advice for a day. I don't get paid for this but I do get a great sense of professional satisfaction. It's just a community/industry thing, which is one of the things I always liked about this place - the sense of community.

It just irritates me (mildly) when someone makes an effort and asks for feedback and the best some forum members can come up with is stuff like 'what a load of wank' or the slightly more eloquent 'that's shit'.

we would like to invite you to come down and help us produce a bike which you would trust to ride on the track or road at an affordable price.

RPM has an open invitation to help them create a new model.

This is all very flattering, however I am a busy man and have no particular wish to be involved in bike design.
If I had more time, I could probably do something for around £50 per hour + expenses and I'm sure quite a few other people on here with a bit of knowledge about such matters would offer a similar service.

So if Rob costs £50 an hour plus expenses, what price Squabbles?!

^ I'll do it for a tenner but the bikes will be shit, I personally guarantee it.

If I genuinely knew my stuff and had industry experience in bicycle design and manufacture I'd spend a day with them helping inform the process and later on once the bikes were built take a new bike of my design in return for my time. I think that sounds fair.

what price Squabbles?!

Your life....

.......people won't give the guy a chance after he's done his best to make amends....

This is true, and I have given up. It will never change.

comments like 'sad sap'

Sad Sack was better. :) This is where my previously used expression came from.
Yes, I am that old that I used to read this everyday in the newspapers.

A bit of background for the great unwashed:
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Sack[/ame]

2 Attachments

I haz dezind my own biek, do u fink Mr foffa wud mak it?

My biek is prety and haz lotz of colurs. Teh mane dezin points r:

1. The frame is mild steel, it is beter because it is not angry.
   
2. The weelz r arrowspok, like aerospok but the spokz r detachable arrows for killing bad men (they drive taxes and vans, some want to see my willy)
   
3. Their is a funcshunal front rack so that I can give nice ladeez hoo do not sycle a lift home from teh pub.
   
4. Teh lites r not just lites but also lazur guns and super loud hornz.
   

Shit man, are you really 30 and you think thats funny?

Scoble's already put one of those^^ together Bobbo.

Although I think it had more headset spacers.

I am wondering whether Mr.Foffa will soon get a superinjunction like Ryan Giggs...not entirely impossible, legally speaking

Although I think it had more headset spacers.

heh!

Shit man, are you really 30 and you think thats funny?

+1

FFS it's "you're a cunt"

Shit man, are you really 30 and you think thats funny?

Actually I was trying, obviously unsuccessfully in your opinion, to use humour to point out why I think all of the criticism on this thread is unnecessary. The guy has set up his own business, fair play to him. He has made mistakes, we all do that, he has also worked hard to try to turn his image around. From what I understand his bikes are getting better yet, some on here are not willing to forgive him his earlier mistakes, I find this attitude puerile which is what I was trying to reflect in my post. I also find it upsetting that people are criticising the guy because he is trying something different, with the high pro for example, just because you do not find it aesthetically pleasing does not make it wrong, if the frame geometry made the bike unsafe then yes point it out, but otherwise give the guy a break he is trying make his way in a market that is dominated by big names who don't really like competition and work hard to stifle it. You don't have to buy his bikes but it would be nice if people didn't slag him off and let him get on with it.

clever pun thats not very nice ;-) bunch of berkshire hunts

the grammar mix up of your and you're really boils my piss for some reason

The guy has set up his own business, fair play to him. He has made mistakes, we all do that, he has also worked hard to try to turn his image around.

You shouldn't run before you can walk.
Same goes for that clown from Caramel Bikes (which is actually worse, because has no idea whatsoever about bicycles and their components).

If I decide to become a surgeon, because people are willing to pay good money to have their tits enlarged or appendixes removed and I'd like a piece of action in the field of medicine, I am not going to set up surgery on Monday. Or am I?

boil's CPs piss

You shouldn't run before you can walk.
Same goes for that clown from Caramel Bikes (which is actually worse, because has no idea whatsoever about bicycles and their components).

If I decide to become a surgeon, because people are willing to pay good money to have their tits enlarged or appendixes removed and I'd like a piece of action in the field of medicine, I am not going to set up surgery on Monday. Or am I?

Have you ever seen how the number of avoidable, negligence related deaths in hospital spike every August; just when all the bright-eyed, eager newly qualified junior doctors leave medical school and take up paid positions in a hospital. Hell even consultant surgeons, with years of experience, who everyone expects to be faultless make mistakes. If you are using medicine as a metaphor for this then; really good doctors are not the ones who do not make mistakes, as there is no such thing, but the ones who make mistakes assess what they have done wrong and how they can prevent it from happening again.