Foffa Bikes

Wow, this is immense. No pm's received here.
I'm a little confused about him PM'ing after he was banned, or perhaps it was before?
I think it's for the best, thanks very much Velocio.
I might be being slated on the gfgss thread now, but never mind. They all had some good points in their thread apart from saying we talk bollocks. Or maybe that is a good point.

Foffa Bikes apparently have a PR man according to their website. If this is the case then Dani I would suggest you get him to work to restore the damage that Ian and son have done. (is the son still on here?).
Again I think it's a real shame that they did just come on here and defend themselves as they did in some PM's. It would have saved their business as well as not contributing to the demise of a colleagues business.
Having said that, Ian seems to think that any publicity is good publicity so we'll see how he handles this.
Thanks for the support guys and encouraging PMs.
Now, back to bikes.
Damn that was amusing!

it's the work of the glasgow lot, just trying to drum up some internet traffic.

^haha!

spoke with Dani

he is fed up with Ian's attitude

the macphersons are still employed by Dani

Dani is not pleased with their actions

he is unsure if he should carry on working with Ian

I have told him if I get any abuse from Ian, I will be calling the police

he has apologised to me for Ian's behaviour

Wicksie, no hard feelings i hope for what i said to 'you' on the Glasgow forum?

As naive as this Danni guy seems to be about pricing i do feel sorry for him that he/his company has been involved in this.

Dani is not pleased with their actions

he is unsure if he should carry on working with Ian

has he not read this thread?

Im sure someone on here is looking for work as a bike mechanic and/or is up to the task, albeit tall order, of bringing up the quality (edit: and reputation) of Foffa Bikes. Im sure Dani could use a knowledgeable person to work for/with him.
Someone might get a job, Dani might have a reliable person for building up and the buyers might get better value for their bikes. Seems like a win-win-win situation.
Hows that Dani? Do You have an opening? All others, anybody looking for a job?

Wicksie, no hard feelings i hope for what i said to 'you' on the Glasgow forum?

As naive as this Danni guy seems to be about pricing i do feel sorry for him that he/his company has been involved in this.

No worries Vandal, the fake me was a Ahole. I'd have ripped him to shreds for sure.
I still can't believe a grown man has behaved like this.
Keep us posted with what's posted on the gfgss thread.

Can I just point out that Fixei (is this a typo? Fixie?) is still on here. To his credit he's kept his head down.

Be interesting to see what becomes of the company and the mechanics.

I've been cloned on the jock site!!!

Wowsers!!!! Just had a catch up. Mind-blowing thread/s.
2010, year of the popcorn and i'm stuffed already.

After we figured out that GFGSS Wicksie was a fake there was a couple pages of incoherent posts from in the region of a dozen or so fake accounts pretending to be people from this forum.

Whether admins shut down accounts and banned ip addresses or the people responsible got so excited they jizzed themselves n went to sleep i'm not too sure but it seems it's all gone quiet now.

I'm looking forward to seeing Foffa frames become the latest ironic forumenger fashion accessory!

Allright guys,

this has gone way out of control!
I have had a serious word with Ian and he promised me that he is not responsible for any of the rubbish that has been posted on the Glasgow forum. He was in fact pretty annoyed because of people assuming that it was him.
None of our mates have come forward to say that it was them, so I can only apologise (again) for anyone that has been offended as a result of all this.
I have in fact come on this forum as myself, Dani Foffa, the only and original Dani F0ffa and I will not change the name of the company (or my surname!) as a result of all this since I don't believe in hiding behind fake names.

I will be the first one to admit that our first bikes have had issues which have been rectified, and we have built hundreds of bikes since so it would be very nice that some of the people that are doubting my mechanical skills would be a bit more reasonable or justify their negative comments.
For those that have defended and liked our bikes, thank you. If you feel there is still room for improvements as I mentioned earlier you are more than welcome to contact me directly via email or phone from my site for some more constructive criticisms.

For those that have bought a bike from me and have had issues with it, I will repeat myself, you need to come and see me so I can sort it out rather than slagging it off the forums without contacting me. Fair play if I am the kind of business that doesn't respond to previous clients or takes care of post-sales services like some companies do!!! But those that know me are aware that I always go out of my way to provide the best service possible. This includes riding out to a customer's house in the middle of the night to investigate a repeat flat tire problem which turned out to be him not realising the tire needed a lot more pressure!!!

As for the pricing issue you obviously are allowed to have your own opinion. I am well aware that most of the people in this forum have spent many hours learning how to build a safe bike and have plenty of time to look for the best deal on ebay, in which case I know you can save some money by building your own bike. If you feel that you can provide my customers a large range of bikes to a good standard for cheaper price than my current suppliers then I would love to hear from you!!!
Some people keep on arguing that our prices are too high for what we offer. As far as the pricing is concerned, they include the time to source and check the frames, time to strip them down ready for sand-blasting, logistics of preparing the frames, time to rebuild and check the bikes again, have them photographed, upload them to my site, not to mention the overheads of running the shop as well as VAT, your 12 months warranty, insurance, etc.. The fact of the matter is this is not a 'dubious' business, it is a registered business with HMRC and we aim to follow all the british standards. At the end of the day we provide a service and peace of mind for those that are not bike experts and have the time to customise their own bike.

i think forums are great to encourage discussions, I have gotten plenty of good comments as a result of this riot and I admit I had a bit of a laugh when people have been foffarising me!! I have lost track way back as to who is who, talking about what, when and how, but I want to reiterate I am the one and only Dani F0ffa.

In summary, I hope we can now move this forward and work together in an open and honest way.

I will be holding an opening party within the next 2 months and I sure hope that all of you can come along, the first drink will be on me! Especially for you Mechanical Vandal! Then again, you ll probably slag off my drink anyway...

Nice post Dani, hope it goes well for you.

Dani

Its nice to see someone with your attitude - and whilst i have had a go at you, i do think that if you can put together your new frames with decent parts, and a reasonable price, then you will be on to a winner.

Its clear that you care about your product, and IMO given the time you have put in, and with the right people begind you, Foffa can be a great little company

I geniunelly think that if you put in a lots of research, perhaps talk to different people about how to build a budget but reliable bicycle etc. I'm sure you'll be able to produce a reliable bicycle that the owner no longer need to go and see you again if something go wrong.

I don't really mind the price to be honest, but if the bike wasn't quite mechanically sound (i.e. unreliable component), I'd find it pretty expensive for what it is.

Good post Dani, not sure how but you've managed to come out ofthis clusterfuckstorm(tm) smelling of roses.

I think your prices demonstrate that it's hard to turn a buck building new bikes out of old stuff, but wish you luck if you continue to offer good service and enusre what you are selling is safe

I would think the business model is better selling completely new bikes using your frames and sourcing parts. If they turn out at £400 complete then people wouldn't have a problem, it is the fact that it is some old frame that has been powder coated that makes £400 seem steep.

Understand the time spent in stripping, getting painted etc,. and time costs which is why it must make more business sense to build all new mustn't it?

Agree that your attitude to all this is good (as it needs to be with the internets mass audience as it is!)

I still don't get where there is a viable and sustainable business model here. If the idea is to be a hipster Planet-X, Foffa is years behind the Doncaster boys in bike industry experience. A basic Pompino is £500, using PX house brand parts which they have sourced from Taiwanese partners with whom they have spent years building relationships, and with buying volumes far bigger than Foffa could hope to exploit in the first year. PX are probably buying at half the price you'd get as a small volume trade customer from a UK wholesaler for similar quality. In other words, if you're going to offer something of that quality but with custom colour and out of retail premises in London's famously expensive London, you're probably going to be selling nearer to £1k than £500. If Foffa really thinks £400 is not taking the piss for his current product range, then he'd be lucky to make a living even at £1k for bikes of £500 OTP quality.

Between the people who can, and would rather, do it themselves, the people who can get the same quality bespoke build from Condor, Cavendish, 14BikeCo etc, and the people who would rather just apply some modest customisation to a £5-600 OTP, that seems like a small niche.

On the other hand, if the plan is to offer "restored" "vintage" bikes, the top result on Google for Foffa is always going to be a thread on here taking the piss out of the extraordinary over pricing of piles of shit, unless you get into doing proper restorations of truly desirable vintage bikes, in which case get ready to lose a shit load of money. Nobody makes a profit from restorations.

I'm sure there are many people here who think they could put together nice bikes and sell them, it's just that most of us have spent half an hour looking at the numbers and worked out that it's all but impossible to make a living at it. Of course, during the "Fixie" "Culture" boom some people will find enough mugs with more money than sense to make a brief killing, but it won't last forever and I think the peak has already passed.

still, whilst people may deny it was them, it was definately someone from, or very closely associated to foffa.

these quotes are from GFGSS, fake Wicksie has changed their name to Andy_Kaufman

Any publicity is good publicity
Its just how you use it

the thread has had nearly 8000 hits in 6 days
Now tell me what happens when it all turns good ???
everyone will know about the bikes and the new range being launched next month

He now knows what it costs ................. Dani actually charges .................. NOTHING
Not because they are crap .... but because he is a nice guy.

So I hear
The bikes picked out with bent forks for the coloured backgrounds were photographed in a rush by a professional photographer and it was the photographers assistant who pulled out the bikes for their looks and just happened to pick out 2 that were to be repaired after the riders had had small accidents on them ( riders and car/bus issues not components).

Veloshuttty_boy has become Pussycat. Some of the posts have been edited.

Now, I don't want to make you look any worse, but what the fuck is going on? Either it's someone from Foffa, or it's a random dickhead trying to look like they are from Foffa, but I don't think someone would go so far as this (if they are they are a cunt) for a laugh, and the self righteous boasting tone of the posts suggests otherwise.

Unless you can get the labour on the cheap ie build in Asia and the far East you are not going to compete with the rest of the cycle market that does.I looked at doing what Foffa do but with better components and concluded as most have on here that there is not enough profit in it as MDCC says .We would all like to play with bikes and make money but the figures dont add up

Surely: the figures, they don't add up.

On reflection you are correct!!

banned is what you are, cocksucker*.

• calling people names is not big or clever, but it's incredibly satisfying.
  
  

i love cake !!!!

Ban coming in 3...2...1...

What did i do to deserve a ban ?