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Before this creates any more misunderstandings allow me to clarify this matter, Foffa has never enforced ‘price fixing’ to any of its resellers. Foffa has never discussed or agreed any retail prices with Wiggle and Wiggle has always been free to set the retail price it sells our product to its customers. Foffa was clumsily making the point that Wiggle is a good distribution outlet for the Foffa brand and that other retails should not consider Wiggle in a negative light. Wiggle has never discussed retail price setting with Foffa and any implication that it might have done so is erroneous, for which Foffa apologises to all of you.
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Actually über_grüber, after speaking to James from the Hackney Peddler (who worked as a manager for BLB for many years) who bought some of the last deep Vs we had, he confirmed our rims are EXACTLY the same as the H+Son. So our previous supplier was right afterall.
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BoyleAndDoyle, I am not sure why mine should be as you put it 'another futile attempt to rescue a brand which (not to everyones opinion) is notoriously unreliable' while we built over 4000 bikes and had very few issues with them (except the vintage bikes which I already said we stopped doing many years ago for exactly that reason).
Some people keep making a lot of false accusations based on facts that happened over 5 years ago, and I appreciate that initial errors haunt brands for the rest of their lives, but if you had a brand and saw some people that keep being utterly unfair to you, you would certainly do the same as we do, especially since you would have rectified EVERY single issue that was raised as part of this thread.
And it s a big shame that you get the feeling from our brand that our staff doesn't like riding bikes since it is far from accurate, and if you actually even came to our shop or talked to any of us you would have a different opinion.
And Chris Borneo, I appreciate you taking your time to justify the price difference between the Charge and our bikes, while some of the things you said might sound sensible, unfortunately I am not sure why you would say some of the other things, since you wouldn't be in a position to be able to state them:
- How would you have checked the welding of our frame sets if our bikes haven't arrived in the UK yet?
- How would you know whether they are not that light if you wouldn't have had the chance to pick one up and be able to tell?
To be fair the new frames won't be the same quality as our previous Maxway frames (which clearly used to cost considerably more) but we showed samples to the new range to many mechanics and potential resellers which checked it thoroughly and have all confirmed that these are some of the best Chinese frames they have seen (unless you were one of them in which case I am surprised you didn't tell us your thoughts directly when you had the chance) and the fact that we spoke to over 100 established Far East suppliers, got samples from the top 5 ones and picked the very best one, should give people the peace of mind that the quality at the £350 price point is much higher than many of the brands selling at the same price point.
As for componentry, the only points I might agree with you is on the Charge saddle which might be more comfortable than ours and the headset (which will also be improved on the new range) since I am well aware that Ahead won't need to be adjusted as often, but we have on purpose sticked to threaded (while most other brands go for thread less these days, which actually has a lower cost price) to offer more adjustability on the stem height and give that retro look (which are personal preferences of course).
As for the rest: the seat post is the exact same model, the chrome cable clips we frankly find them aesthetically unappealing (which is why we went for inner routed brake cables) but again that is personal preferences, and if you want to talk about little details then I certainly prefer the metal front badge we use as opposed to a stickered logo.
So overall it is pretty obvious that better welding (if this is even the case), sealed bearing hubs and a more comfortable saddle doesn't cost a brand an extra £100 (considering they also save money on other very important parts like non puncture protection tyres), and I am sure I don't need to tell you that for the £100 you would save on one of our bikes you could grab yourself a Brooks saddle and brooks tape if you so wish, making our SS model a far superior bike than the Charge.
- How would you have checked the welding of our frame sets if our bikes haven't arrived in the UK yet?
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Since this thread is still in the first page on Google and keeps misdirecting people that don’t know enough about bikes to make the right judgement call, I think it is only fair that I raise a few important points.
Fibblesnork, it is amazing how brand perception makes people look at products in one way even if the facts show the opposite way. A few people keep referring to the Charge Plug as an alternative but clearly these people didn’t even bother checking the spec of the Plug compared to our new Single Speed range, otherwise they would probably realise they have very little idea as to what they are talking about. To demonstrate:
- Charge Plug frame made of Cromoly with Hi-ten forks, while the Foffa has a full Cromoly frame set
- Wheelset, basic branded double wall rims, while ours are triple wall and deeper
- Crankset, a standard track one, as good as the one we use
- Tyres, their branded Coaster which are not even puncture protection while ours are
- Bottom bracket, a Tange sealed unit which is not much difference than the sealed unit we use.
- Above all, price point, Charge Plug £450 VS Foffa Single speed £350.
The only thing that some of you might have a few objections about is the sealed bearings which we dont use on our hubs but will introduce in our next year’s range. Other than this the brakes are exactly the same, all parts (stem, bars, seat post, etc..) are alloy just like on the Charge Plug, so I am seriously curious to know how people will be able to justify the additional £100 on a bike which is heavier than ours, is specced just about the same (with the difference that some of the parts we use are actually better) and simply comes from a brand which has a lot more budget to spend on marketing than us so some of you can believe that they are actually selling a better bike when this is not the case.
This thread has been going on since our early beginnings where we clearly made some mistakes (which we have fully acknowledged a number of times), and the comment ‘Because they're over priced and shit’ refers to the custom bikes we have been building up to last year. I appreciate that nobody should be expected to go through 60 pages of posts to shed some light on everything that happened since 2009, so to sum up:
- we stopped doing vintage bikes 4 years ago because they were not 100% reliable
- we sacked one of our previous mechanics that caused some issues to us (which we always fully rectified) and made some of the people in the forum believe that we dont know how to build bikes properly
- we now even stopped doing our ‘non pre-built’ bikes (I am not allowed to use the word ‘bespoke’ here because this implies that you can also customise the frame and apparently choosing your bars, tape, wheelset, tyres, saddle, crankset and other parts (and not just colours but actually different brands and types) is not enough:)
- we even closed our London shop as that was the only way to cut down our overheads and start to make decent quality bikes at affordable prices.
And some people here on this thread still advise you to go for a Charge Plug? I think you can appreciate how someone like myself could feel about this.
The fact is that we have worked very hard to get our bikes right (also thanks to a lot of good feedback we got as a result of this thread), so if some of the people here are not able to start being fair to a brand that has clearly always listened and taken on board what the community had to say about our bikes in 6 years, then I will only assume that these people have simply decided that, no matter what, we will always be the brand to slag off, and since this attitude is of a defamatory nature, if this carries on, even after all the transformations the company has gone through, I will need to request Velocio to remove this thread, something that I probably should have done years ago, but always decided not to thanks to a lot of the reasonable people reading this forum which have been very supportive and valuable to making our brand what it is today.
In fact Fibblesnork, I would be tempted to offer you a £100 discount on one of our new single speed bikes, so you can ride it heavily and give it your honest review on this forum so that people know whether our bikes are actually worth buying or not. Let me know if you would like to take advantage of this offer.
All the best for now,
Dani
- Charge Plug frame made of Cromoly with Hi-ten forks, while the Foffa has a full Cromoly frame set
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Gargenville, thank you for ordering one of our bikes and as Kboy mentioned I hope you ll find yourself riding many happy miles with it.
I am not sure whether assuming already that it is going to 'fall apart five minutes into its maiden voyage' puts you in the right mind frame to fully appreciate a very good bike for that price point, but I look forward to hearing your honest thoughts on it.
All the best
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I am afraid all tools have already been sold to a bike shop. Everything we have left is on the list above (except some various bits like brake cables and spares) and images are on www.foffabikes.com/saleaccessories
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Quick update on what we have left on clearance since we have cleared out most of the stuff, so I finally managed to make a definite list of what's left, and here it is (images on www.foffabikes.com/saleaccessories):
- BAGS & BACKPACKS
CHROME METROPOLIS BAG (grey and black) - £80 (RRP £160)
CHROME MESSENGER BAG (navy blue / red) - £40 (RRP £80)
CHROME YALTA RUCKSACK (olive) - £60 (RRP £120)- STANDS & STORAGE
TOPEAK TWO UP STANDS - £70 (RRP £160)
PARK TOOLS PRS2 OS2 DUAL STAND - £350 (RRP £700)
UNIVERSAL BIKE STAND - £5 (RRP £15)
BIKE STAND x 3 - £15 (RRP £30)
BIKE STAND x 5 - £20 (RRP £44)- HELMETS
LAZER ARMOR RED (medium) - £20 (RRP £60)
BELL FACTION BLACK (large) - £15 (RRP £30)
BELL FACTION WHITE (medium and small) - £15 (RRP £30)
HARDNUTZ CHROME (medium and large) - £15 (RRP £35)- VARIOUS
KNOG USB BOOMER WHITE - £30 (RRP £60)
FULL WINDSOR MUDGUARDS RED - £5 (RRP £16)
SEALED UNIT BOTTOM BRACKETS (Various sizes) - £5 (RRP £15)
BELLS (black and silver) - £5 (RRP £12)
MICHE SUPERTYPE 27.2mm SEATPOST SILVER - £25 (RRP £55)
CHROME MIDWAY GREY SIZE 9 - £20 (RRP £60)
SHIMANO SORA 9 SP REAR DERAILLEUR - £10 (RRP £27)
DICTA FREEWHEELS (16 and 18t) - £4 (RRP £8)
7 SP SUNRACE CASSETTE - £5 (RRP £12)
DIMENSION LOCKRING - £2 (RRP £4)
17T FIXED COGS - £3 (RRP £8)
NITTO BLACK STEMS (80mm and 100mm) - £10 (RRP £20)
ZAFFIRO PRO II TYRES (SET) - £15 (RRP £30)
LEZYNE DIGITAL FLOOR PUMP - £30 (RRP £80)CHROME FORKS (1’’ THREADED, VARIOUS SIZES) - £30 (RRP £80)
BAR GRIPS & TAPE
OURY LIKE (BLACK, BLUE, PURPLE, PINK, RED, YELLOW, GREEN) - £5 (RRP £12)
BAR TAPE (YELLOW, RED, PALE PINK) - £5 (RRP £12)
BROOKS LEATHER TAPE (BLACK, WHITE) - £25 (RRP £50)
MICHAUX CLUB REFLECTIVE LEATHER TAPE (HONEY, BLACK) - £25 (RRP £50)- BRAKES & LEVERS
CYCLOCROSS 22.2 LEVERS (SET) - £8 (RRP £20)
TEKTRO RX4.1 TT LEVERS (SET) - £10 (RRP £20)
DROP LEVERS (SET) - £10 (RRP £20)SINGLE SPEED CHAINS (BLACK, SILVER, BLUE, YELLOW, AZURE, GREEN, PINK, RED, WHITE) - £4 (RRP £8)
HANDLEBARS
RISER BARS 480MM (25.4MM CLAMP) - £8 (£16)
FLAT BARS 420MM (25.4MM CLAMP) - £6 (£12)
GUSSET STASH BLACK 630MM (31.8MM CLAMP) - £10 (RRP £26)- PEDALS
FOFFA SEALED BEARING CITY PEDALS - £10 (RRP £20)
TOE CLIPS + LEATHER STRAPS - £5 (RRP £12)
WELLGO MG1 (BLACK, WHITE) - £20 (RRP £45)
WELLGO PLATFORM BMX (BLACK, WHITE) - £10 (RRP 20)
GUSSET PLATFORM (BLACK, CLEAR) - £10 (RRP £25)
GUSSET RED STRAPS - £10 (RRP £20)- SADDLES
FOFFA TRACK (BLACK, HONEY, WHITE) - £8 (RRP £20)
FIZIK ARIONE WHITE - £60 (RRP £100)- WHEELSETS
LOW PROFILE CHROME RIMS WITH TRACK HUBS (FLIP FLOP) - £70 (RRP £100)
LOW PROFILE CHROME RIMS WITH 2 SPEED STURMEY ARCHER (S2) - £100 (RRP £140)
FOFFA CHROME DEEP VS - £100 (RRP 195) - BAGS & BACKPACKS
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Before this creates any more misunderstandings allow me to clarify this matter, we have never enforced ‘price fixing’ to any of its resellers. We have never discussed or agreed any retail prices with Wiggle and Wiggle has always been free to set the retail price it sells our product to its customers. We were clumsily making the point that Wiggle is a good distribution outlet for our brand and that other retails should not consider Wiggle in a negative light. Wiggle has never discussed retail price setting with us and any implication that it might have done so is erroneous, for which we apologise to all of you.