Foffa Bikes

While I don't like the look of Foffa bikes nor do I like the logo. I do respect the effort that Dani makes responding to crticisim here and he also makes a good point (like velocio) that many who comment havn't ridden one.

For that reason I plan to take one for a spin and form my own opinion since up to now I have, like a sheep, always said they're cap whenever I have been asked my view.

(I did have a pleasant chat with someone at the Foffa stand at the bikeshow 2012 who seemed to believe in the bikes as a starter FG/SS)

Maybe they are a good starter, but in my opinion, they're not priced in line with the quality of kit on them.

attempt to defame our company

I just read your admission that the rims you are selling as 'basically H + Son' in your most recent sale thread, have nothing to do with H + Son.
You don't seem to have edited the sale thread to reflect this error.

You seem to be doing quite a good job of defaming your own company.

^^^ This.

Skydancer, I really appreciate your fair response and you are more than welcome to pop by the shop at some point to take a few bikes for a spin and judge for yourself.

As for the price point of our products, we have always listened to the people saying that they thoughts they were too high (not sure then what these people would think about at least 90% of the other bike brands out there, but these are the same people that look for bargains on Ebay and have the tools and expertise to put their bikes together, so clearly not everyone can be pleased in this world), but I dont think these people have ever really bothered to step into our shoes and take into account the overheads associated with renting a warehouse in London, London salaries (rest assured that we pay our staff more than what Evans or Halfords do) as well as marketing costs, etc.. Personally I have not taken any money out of the business in the first 2 years and now I am just taking enough to live a modest life, and I must admit it is a bit frustrating that we still get people slagging off our brand without knowing the facts.

Having said this the reason we are having our clearance sale is that we have decided to close down the shop to start selling only pre-built bikes based on our best selling designs and sell strictly online which will allow us to cut costs and take the prices down considerably. Our single speed range revolved around a cromoly frame set and a set of triple wall deep Vs with picture protection tyres will retail at £360 and I am very curious to hear what some of you will have to say on these bikes.

Here is an image of one of the models to give you an idea:

Maybe they are a good starter, but in my opinion, they're not priced in line with the quality of kit on them.

What bike is?

Put any product through a retail channel and you need to factor in a significant amount of the purchase price to the channel.

Then, on the dealer price you still need to make your profit.

Did you see the recent analysis about laptops? Even on a $1,300 laptop Apple is only making $40 per unit. Other companies had it a lot worse with an average of $16 per unit. In that slice, you've then got to pay for R&D, marketing, storage, general overheads.

Wonder why you can't get the LCC discount at Condor on Campagnolo? The margin for the retail channel is squeezed too.

Every step of the way, in every market, everyone is getting sliced.

Yet... going back to laptops... the costs to a business in offering a $300 laptop aren't different from the costs of offering a $2k laptop, only the market you're targeting changes. Meaning to achieve a $15 per unit revenue from a $300 laptop they've got to cut far more corners to achieve the same $15 per unit revenue from a high-end laptop.

The same basic market economics apply to bicycles too.

The lower end of the market feels disproportionately cheaper as the revenue per unit needed to sustain a business remain the same even though the target market has changed. So the revenue required to sustain a business forms a higher percentage of the retail price.

What both amuses and irks about the continued trolling of Foffa is that the vast majority of people doing so are riding around on bikes well over a grand. You're just not his target market, and the vast majority of people who aren't cyclists have it in their mind that £300 is the price of a bike. Not the entry price, but the whole price.

Frankly, there are a lot of bikes (and bike shaped objects) at that level of the market and whilst they are definitely crap relative to the multi-£k machines sitting in our halls, they do provide access to cycling. Are they fundamentally not fit for purpose? Someone I worked with at Yell bought a Create and uses it to cycle less than 1 mile, every weekend or two, to the local village centre. He really enjoys it. For the way he uses a bike, it's fine. It's little more than a pub bike in effect but is perfect for his use-case.

I think the trolling has got old, and says less about the quality of Foffa's products and far more about the vicious spitefulness, naivety and persistent trolling of a minority of people on here.

And for worse, it ceased to even be funny a very long time ago.

No-one is going to stop you guys trolling (except Dani if he wants to pursue a defamation case, but that's unlikely), but it's tiresome and speaks volumes about the trolls and far less about Foffa bikes.

Thank you Velocio for taking the time to speak your mind, I am glad to see that there are still very reasonable people in this supposedly supportive cycle community.

Actually David, I'm not trolling, I'm expressing my opinion, that foffa bikes, are over priced for what they are.

Thanks for the lesson in economics, but you're reading my post, not taking it in. foffa bikes, are overpriced, that is it. people without knowledge will buy them, but there are other bikes in the market they'd be better off spending their hard earned on.

Foffa mixte thing. Quando hubs, own brand taiwanese cranks, own brand finishing kit, normal retail price, £605.

Compare that to a charge hob

Some own brand, some branded, generally better parts, probably very similar frame RRP £499

or even a viking fixed from ebay for £150 comes with sealed hubs rather than open bearing, although would need some attention to make it really road worthy.

Sure, foffa has London overheads, but accounting for these doesn't make the bikes better value.

There's no denying they've come a long way, I guess without buying powers of a larger company, or a more unique product, they will struggle to stand out.

At the current sale prices, they make great starter fixed/ss bikes.

Thank you Velocio for taking the time to speak your mind, I am glad to see that there are still very reasonable people in this supposedly supportive cycle community.

You're full of it.

Just like the 'basically H+' comment, every time you come on here you make extremely dubious claims about how you price or source components to try and justify your products. Last time a shit storm started it was you selling a cromor framed foffa for £3500 or something stupid and giving what can only be described as a comic price breakdown to try and dispel the laughter that was rightfully being directed at it.

The irony is that H+ actually built up their brand with interesting, worthwhile components with proper quality control and manufacturing, regardless of where they choose to do this, and you're trying to cash in on their endeavour so why not can the wounded entrepreneur schtick?

And Velocio-you're pretty fucking contrary about what arguments you choose to either provoke or purse your lips at so why not be consistent about it and either shut them down or not play with popcorn at all?

Dani thanks I will come to the shop and take some for a spin

Regarding starter bikes, As a cycle trainer I see people buying halfods £99 starter (MT or BMX) bikes for them selves or more often for their kids "To see if they like riding a bike"

They probably won't. These bike are heavy, gears and brakes poorly tuned, Cheap soft nuts and bolts, they are inappropriate bikes for the function they intend to use them for and also inappropriate for the function it claims to be built for (Don't go mountain biking on a halfords MTB!). Makes riding difficult and not at all fun.

I suppose the judgement call for a cheap starter bike is that it feels fun and is easy to ride (and adjust). I will be trialling a Foffa with that in mind.

Actually David, I'm not trolling, I'm expressing my opinion, that foffa bikes, are over priced for what they are.

Thanks for the lesson in economics, but you're reading my post, not taking it in. foffa bikes, are overpriced, that is it. people without knowledge will buy them, but there are other bikes in the market they'd be better off spending their hard earned on.

Foffa mixte thing. Quando hubs, own brand taiwanese cranks, own brand finishing kit, normal retail price, £605.

Isn't Foffy bike around £300? price seemed spot on for what it have, compared to that step-thru.

http://urbanvelo.org/oury-grips/
http://foffabikes.com/index?pid=116&cid=19&act=shp&lnk=7
wonder if they will be around in 27 years time like the grip firm he copied?
sort the seat angles out too.

And they're more expensive than their original counterparts.

WAC.

Dear all,

it looks like the Foffa post is one of the most entertaining of the LFGSS forum for some, however since a lot of people are viewing this and get biased by the users that don't get the full picture, I feel obliged to clarify a few points:

Apollo, you seem to be very surprised to see one of our bikes going for almost £3000, but you have failed to acknowledge the components that went on this bike (image here http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gallery/article/london-bike-show-2013-big-gallery-ii-36243/16)

Here is a breakdown of all the parts that went on there. If you can find a bike with the same parts for less then please let us know:

• Foffa Columbus tubing lugged DB frame RRP £300 (if anybody knows of anybody that offers a Columbus tubing lugged DB frame for that money let us know!)
  
• Tifosi 1" Carbon Road forks RRP £119.99
  
• Miche 1'' headset RRP £19.99
  
• Deda UltraCarbon stem RRP £43.99
  
• Cinelli Vai XL Shadow handlebar RRP £29.99
  
• Deda bar tape RRP 5.99
  
• Campag Chorus groupset RRP £1254.99
  
• Campag Chorus chain RRP £41.99
  
• Miche SuperType seatpost RRP £55.99
  
• Fizik Antares Braided saddle RRP 269.99
  
• standard Foffa pedals RRP £19.99
  
• Campag Bullet Ultra 80 wheel set RRP £1317.99
  
• rim tape + inner tubes RRP 5.99 x 2
  
• Vittoria Zaffiro tyres RRP 14.99 x 2
  
  

So the total would be £3522.85 and this doesn't even include labour costs! So I am really curious to hear (using your words) how can Foffa 'infuriate you' so much if all we are trying to do is make high quality custom built bikes affordable?
I appreciate our first bikes were not at the highest standards but that was over 3 years ago, things have changed a lot since and we would appreciate that people started to recognise that rather than keep slagging off genuine and passionate brands on forums.

Howard, the reason why on the bike builder it works out as a bit less is that on our bike builder we haven't yet added the Carbon forks and stem option. The bike was built for the show to show what is possible.

Edscoble, just so you know we do listen to customers and have changed our mechanics after feedback from this forum as well. We let our previous one go after he damaged one of our customers's beautiful Donohue custom builds without letting us (and the customer) know, for which we paid for the full repair and re-paint job of the frame and gave the customer a full service free of charge. The customer is more than happy with the way we dealt with this situation.
Our new chief mechanic has 12 years of experience in the industry, Cytech and weldtech certificates, and was even one of the mechanics for the Team GB Triathlon guys.

The team at Foffa Bikes always listens to constructive feedback from anyone in the bike community. So if anyone has suggestions that will help Foffa Bikes become a better brand, feel free to contact any of us directly rather than hiding behind made up usernames on forums like this one.

All the best,

Dani

I think quoting off the shelf RRP prices to justify the cost of that build is a bit disingenuous.

For example: the Campag Bullet wheels-you quote £1317.99 but you can readily buy them for £975

the chorus groupset you quote £1254.99 but you can easily score for £825 so I've already saved your customer nigh on £500 just using google. Is the margin on top of that the price of your 'brand passion'?

If you are a trader you should have access to trade prices, if you don't, I find that very strange. If I'm buying a full bike from a shop and getting worse prices than I could get per component from somewhere like CRC or Wiggle (which aren't even that cheap) then I'd be a bit of a tool.

So, RRP issues aside, you're also saying you're 'not even charging labour'? Constructive feedback: it's not a custom build, you're charging RRP on every component on it (3 grand of trade?) and you want to act a martyr for the sake of what any reasonable shop would charge less than £100 to do if you just brought a bag of components in to them?

Point is, for £3,000 you can and should be buying a totally different animal from the one you're selling-personally I'd rather go to Mercian or Chas Roberts and get a genuinely custom specced frame in my choice of tubing from a renowned artisan frame builder's, finished in my own colour way, and I'm pretty sure it would cost a damn sight less even with equivalent group, and most importantly it would ride better than a £300 cromor frame too.

tl:dr more than welcome to put your response out there but i don't see why we should be criticised for raising very valid points about the cost of your builds (which ultimately is as much a feature of your branding as anything else).
It's a competitive market out there and people have a right to discuss what represents a good buy or not.

Again, Danni, you give people a lot less credit than they are due.

It seems you market bikes for fashion conscious people who don't know arse from elbow and that coming on here to 'get feedback' is really about being very conscious that this thread is no.3 on a google search for foffa, but the point I was making is that the price tag on that bike is fucking stupid from any angle you look at it, and that in attempting to justify it you had to quote massively inflated 'RRP' prices on EVERY COMPONENT, which is not realistic when buying a complete bike from any other retailer be it Brixton Cycles or Evans.

So to simplify it: anyone who knows anything about bikes and has 3 grand burning a hole in their pocket would not buy that, and if you don't know this then there's an issue.

And also-you accuse me of killing independent retailers because I quote internet prices?
I accuse you of doing far better in that regard as you are selling a product at a 'bespoke' boutique price when (as I pointed out before but you chose to ignore) for the same cash you could get a fucking incredible custom build from any number of independent workshops based in the UK that I'd be happy to support and aren't just about spanking out colour co-ordinated builds to sell to card-happy junior architects. Every pound spent with you is a pound not spent elsewhere, be it independent retailer or no, and I daresay from what I've seen on your website that elsewhere the same pound would buy a lot more.

You can moan about workshop costs and yadda yadda but at the end of the day the world doesn't owe you a living and you are being quite fairly judged on the products and prices on your website, and if your business model won't allow you to be more competitive then you need to question how sound it is and change it accordingly.

I'm sorry if you find this incredibly unfair but I think you've got a nerve trying to come on here and play Mr Reasonable as if we're a bunch of mugs who can't recognise a shit deal when we see one.

Same argument, different day.

Lessons learned?

Isn't Foffy bike around £300? price seemed spot on for what it have, compared to that step-thru.

Aye that does sound fair, I was going off the prices listed on the Foffa website as "normal retail prices"...

Thank you Velocio for taking the time to speak your mind, I am glad to see that there are still very reasonable people in this supposedly supportive cycle community.

I wouldn't interpret my rant against those who troll out of habit for any type of endorsement.

And nowhere does it say that LFGSS is supportive of anything. Except each other as people, perhaps.

Except each, which is a fairly nebulous concept.

What does this mean?

And LFGSS is (generally) supportive of LFGSS

Isn't Foffy bike around £300? price seemed spot on for what it have, compared to that step-thru.

Yup, that's my perception on the pricepoint for the majority of his bikes sold.

Which is why that is the price I mentioned, and at that price, for the type of person who is buying it... it's probably as good as (as bad as) everything else you're going to find at that price.

My advice to anyone buying a bike first time is to start a little higher than £300, ideally around the £450 mark, and to look at Charge who do pretty awesome and solid bikes for the money across a range of styles.

But that didn't stop my ex-colleague buying the Create. And seriously, the thing he loved about that... the coloured chain!

Aye that does sound fair, I was going off the prices listed on the Foffa website as "normal retail prices"...

I suspect it's a marketing gimmick along the lines of Tesco saying "Now reduced" when they only had it at the higher price for 2 hours.

What does this mean?

And LFGSS is (generally) supportive of LFGSS

Clarified.

And I meant "We look our for each other's back", and the nebulous part comes from the occasional intra-community spats which show actually we just look out for ourselves and our mates first, the loose community second.

Basic human nature then
Rational beings where often self interest means cooperation and mutual support
(see prisoners dilemma or Reservoir Dogs)

TM, I dont think a pre-built bike like the Charge Hob can be compared to our Grazia which comes with millions of combinations, is built in the UK (with London salaries and overheads) and comes from a company has a completely different buying power than CSG. But hey, 5 years later we have learned this lesson, which is why it now makes sense to close down the London shop, and go down the fulfilment centre route.

über_grüber, how am I full of it?

What do you know about our QC processes that we apply these days?

What chances do I have to justify the 3k price of the geared bike we displayed at the London Bike Show when the sum of the parts (based on the standard RRPs) is still over 3k but some of you will keep saying how you can get a cheaper Campag bullet wheelsets and Chorus groupsets from the alike of CRC?

How can you justify H+Son charge what they charge for their Chinese made rims and have a go at us for doing something very similar made in Taiwan for half the price?

Why dont you come and grab a set of our wheels and then actually be in the position of making some of the accusations you are suggesting?

As for the Wiggle bikes this is exactly the point I am trying to make. Whenever the bikes are made in the Far East and shipped directly to the Wiggle warehouse then we have no overheads or UK salaries to pay whatsoever, which is the only reason why Wiggle is able to retail them at around £300 and we can still make a profit.

I suspect it's a marketing gimmick along the lines of Tesco saying "Now reduced" when they only had it at the higher price for 2 hours.

Which is actually illegal, and Tesco were recently fined for such activity.

How can you justify H+Son charge what they charge for their Chinese made rims and have a go at us for doing something very similar made in Taiwan for half the price?

Because you claim it's basically the same rims, when it's made in a completely different country.

What chances do I have to justify the 3k price of the geared bike we displayed at the London Bike Show when the sum of the parts (based on the standard RRPs) is still over 3k but some of you will keep saying how you can get a cheaper Campag bullet wheelsets and Chorus groupsets from the alike of CRC?

Danni, serious question. Did you actually sell a single one of those road bikes at those prices?

Danni-you're being-and have always been-judged on your words and actions and the point that has been repeatedly made is that yourr recourse to mendacious and highly questionable reasons and justifications for the products you are selling do you no service. Like citing labour costs and VAT inclusive prices on full builds with silly price tags.
Yet here you are acting the martyr again.

How Hplus justifies its products is for them and their customers to decide. my perception is that they were offering a well made, stylish bit of kit with some innovative design and branding that less imaginative opportunists are trying
to emulate. Hplus seems to be doing well regardless.

Edscoble, I do claim that they are similar rims, and the fact that they are made in Taiwan and not in China like H+Son should actually mean that they are potentially better made and certainly in better working conditions.

Edmundro, yes I can confirm we sold 2 of those 3k bikes to customers that were super pleased with them.

über_grüber, if you think that we are being judged on my words/actions and not on the history that we are still carrying forward 5 years later or the perception that people have of Foffa Bikes without knowing the facts, then I certainly feel we are being judged very unfairly, since nobody has yet come to our shop try our actual products and since we have admitted the issues we had in the past and have rectified EACH one of them over the years.

Edscoble, I do claim that they are similar rims, and the fact that they are made in Taiwan and not in China like H+Son should actually mean that they are potentially better made and certainly in better working conditions.

Another brilliant reply, you racist tits.