cost to build bikes

Edward Dolan wrote:

Mr. Ryan makes some good points with respect to recumbents, but still the
example of the mountain bike (hybrid) proves that bike shop employees do not
have the final word on what sells. They cannot sell the racing style of
bikes except to the very few. They have to sell what the public wants and is
willing to pay for, i.e., hybrids.

I can't help but think that the main argument against recumbents was simply
their very high prices. A product that is needed and/or wanted and is priced
right will sell itself. It does not depend on bike shops and their
employees. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to review the advent of the
mountain bike which occurred in the early 1980's. You will never see a
racing style of bike in a department or discount store anymore. Nothing
speaks louder than that.

No longer true - you can get a drop bar bicycle at woolmort [1]:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3663046.

The world needed a $200. recumbent just as it needed a $200. mountain bike
to demonstrate what would or would not sell. A $2000. recumbent is not even
in the ball park as far as the larger public is concerned.

Sorry, but J&B/Sun is only making a small profit per unit on the EZ-1 SC
at $625, and that bicycle is definitely of "entry level LBS" quality. A
$200 recumbent would be a bicycle shaped object, similar to the $60 ATB
look-a-likes, and not suitable for real use.

[1] To use a gdanielsism.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
ryancycles aka Dick Ryan wrote:
In the early days of recumbency there were several small manufacturers
who
built relatively cheap recumbents. They too never sold well which
convinced
me there was no market for such bikes. Your Ryan recumbents were for a
niche
market from the beginning and never had a chance in hell of ever gaining
a
large market. There is nothing wrong with that but, please, do not blame
any
of your woes on the lowly bike shop owners and employees.

- Show quoted text -

Comments about recumbents that I've heard in bike shops.
You'll never see one on the floor of this shop!
They don't go up hills.
They are too heavy.
They are too low to the ground.
They're slow.
Sorry, can't help you, don't know anything about them.
Real men ride REAL bicycles!
They suck.
A friend of mine works at Wheel and Sprocket, probably the most
successful shop in the country. They sell about 5000 bikes a year and
about 7-800 recumbents. Trek is located not far from them, they have
an annual dealer meeting. According to my friend every year a dozen or
so dealers from around the country will stop by to shoot the breeze.
Most are astounded by the fact W&S has 50 or 60 recumbents on the
floor and often ask WHY. The very fact that they ask "why" should be a
good indication of the lack of intelligence on their part. For a few
years we had about a dozen dealers around the country. We had a couple
of high end very successful shops selling the bikes. Unfortunately
they all shared the same problem, they had one employee who was the
"recumbent guy" the rest of the employees refused to even discuss the
bikes with potential customers. I know this is true because I visited
a couple of these shops and didn't identify myself and when I asked
about recumbents was told I'd have to wait until the "recumbent guy"
was available. When I discussed this problem with the shop owners they
all gave me the same answer. Well, I'm sorry, but I can't afford to
offend the employees because they are so hard to find. I had quite a
few calls from potential customers who had driven many miles to look
at our bike and had made the mistake of not checking on the
availability of the "recumbent" guy. Of course this reaction from the
shop people didn't go over very well with the potential customer and
they would call us and complain.[...]

I have had almost exactly the experience Dick describes at several LBS's.


No doubt from Blue State UCI elitist bike racing bigots with a room full of
racing bikes they can't sell for reasons they can't fathom. You were in the
wrong bike shop. Look down the street. Somebody has probably seen the
opportunity to sell and service non UCI racing bikes.

Wilson wrote:

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
ryancycles aka Dick Ryan wrote:
In the early days of recumbency there were several small
manufacturers who
built relatively cheap recumbents. They too never sold well which
convinced
me there was no market for such bikes. Your Ryan recumbents were for
a niche
market from the beginning and never had a chance in hell of ever
gaining a
large market. There is nothing wrong with that but, please, do not
blame any
of your woes on the lowly bike shop owners and employees.

- Show quoted text -

Comments about recumbents that I've heard in bike shops.
You'll never see one on the floor of this shop!
They don't go up hills.
They are too heavy.
They are too low to the ground.
They're slow.
Sorry, can't help you, don't know anything about them.
Real men ride REAL bicycles!
They suck.
A friend of mine works at Wheel and Sprocket, probably the most
successful shop in the country. They sell about 5000 bikes a year and
about 7-800 recumbents. Trek is located not far from them, they have
an annual dealer meeting. According to my friend every year a dozen or
so dealers from around the country will stop by to shoot the breeze.
Most are astounded by the fact W&S has 50 or 60 recumbents on the
floor and often ask WHY. The very fact that they ask "why" should be a
good indication of the lack of intelligence on their part. For a few
years we had about a dozen dealers around the country. We had a couple
of high end very successful shops selling the bikes. Unfortunately
they all shared the same problem, they had one employee who was the
"recumbent guy" the rest of the employees refused to even discuss the
bikes with potential customers. I know this is true because I visited
a couple of these shops and didn't identify myself and when I asked
about recumbents was told I'd have to wait until the "recumbent guy"
was available. When I discussed this problem with the shop owners they
all gave me the same answer. Well, I'm sorry, but I can't afford to
offend the employees because they are so hard to find. I had quite a
few calls from potential customers who had driven many miles to look
at our bike and had made the mistake of not checking on the
availability of the "recumbent" guy. Of course this reaction from the
shop people didn't go over very well with the potential customer and
they would call us and complain.[...]

I have had almost exactly the experience Dick describes at several LBS's.


No doubt from Blue State UCI elitist bike racing bigots with a room full
of racing bikes they can't sell for reasons they can't fathom. You were
in the wrong bike shop. Look down the street. Somebody has probably
seen the opportunity to sell and service non UCI racing bikes.

I know a bike shop owner who caters to commuters and practical cyclists,
but wants nothing to do with recumbents.

As for a recumbent shop, I went through Hales Corners four times today,
so I could have stopped in a Wheel & Sprocket [1].

[1] Also saw a couple of W&S advertisements on billboards (all showing
upright bicycles, however).

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
[...]
The world needed a $200. recumbent just as it needed a $200. mountain
bike to demonstrate what would or would not sell. A $2000. recumbent is
not even in the ball park as far as the larger public is concerned.

Sorry, but J&B/Sun is only making a small profit per unit on the EZ-1 SC
at $625, and that bicycle is definitely of "entry level LBS" quality. A
$200 recumbent would be a bicycle shaped object, similar to the $60 ATB
look-a-likes, and not suitable for real use.

$625 for a recumbent for a first time buyer is still way too much. You need
to get the price down to about $200. At that price point it is possible that
we could began to see if recumbents were for the masses or not. Such a
recumbent would not need to be super light or have very good components, but
it would have to be a good design, be comfy and look nice. All recumbents to
date have been way too expensive for the general public. Remember, bikes are
toys to most folks.

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

Edward Dolan wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
[...]
The world needed a $200. recumbent just as it needed a $200. mountain
bike to demonstrate what would or would not sell. A $2000. recumbent is
not even in the ball park as far as the larger public is concerned.

Sorry, but J&B/Sun is only making a small profit per unit on the EZ-1 SC
at $625, and that bicycle is definitely of "entry level LBS" quality. A
$200 recumbent would be a bicycle shaped object, similar to the $60 ATB
look-a-likes, and not suitable for real use.

$625 for a recumbent for a first time buyer is still way too much. You need
to get the price down to about $200. At that price point it is possible that
we could began to see if recumbents were for the masses or not. Such a
recumbent would not need to be super light or have very good components, but
it would have to be a good design, be comfy and look nice. All recumbents to
date have been way too expensive for the general public. Remember, bikes are
toys to most folks.

And just how do you suggest making a recumbent for $120 [1] that is not
a piece of junk? It might be possible using near slave labor in mainland
China (lets hear it for fascism), but that will result in very heavy
bicycle (e.g. 60 pounds) with poor shifting, braking and general durability.

No thanks.

[1] Assuming 25% markup at the LBS [2] and $30 to get the bicycle to the
dealer.
[2] Which is considerably lower than the standard 30-35% markup.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
[...]
The world needed a $200. recumbent just as it needed a $200. mountain
bike to demonstrate what would or would not sell. A $2000. recumbent is
not even in the ball park as far as the larger public is concerned.

Sorry, but J&B/Sun is only making a small profit per unit on the EZ-1 SC
at $625, and that bicycle is definitely of "entry level LBS" quality. A
$200 recumbent would be a bicycle shaped object, similar to the $60 ATB
look-a-likes, and not suitable for real use.

$625 for a recumbent for a first time buyer is still way too much. You
need to get the price down to about $200. At that price point it is
possible that we could began to see if recumbents were for the masses or
not. Such a recumbent would not need to be super light or have very good
components, but it would have to be a good design, be comfy and look
nice. All recumbents to date have been way too expensive for the general
public. Remember, bikes are toys to most folks.

And just how do you suggest making a recumbent for $120 [1] that is not a
piece of junk? It might be possible using near slave labor in mainland
China (lets hear it for fascism), but that will result in very heavy
bicycle (e.g. 60 pounds) with poor shifting, braking and general
durability.

No thanks.

[1] Assuming 25% markup at the LBS [2] and $30 to get the bicycle to the
dealer.
[2] Which is considerably lower than the standard 30-35% markup.

How to do it? I leave that up to you. It will be a test of your smartness.
If you are unable to do it, then you are just as dumb as were all the
previous recumbent manufacturers.

I suggest the Bacchetta Agio design for your recumbent and the same
components you find on a $60 ATB. Now all you have to do is to figure out
how to make a cheap frameset. Jeez, do I have to do everything for you?

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

"ryancycles" wrote

[...] We had a couple
of high end very successful shops selling the bikes. Unfortunately
they all shared the same problem, they had one employee who was the
"recumbent guy" the rest of the employees refused to even discuss the
bikes with potential customers. I know this is true because I visited
a couple of these shops and didn't identify myself and when I asked
about recumbents was told I'd have to wait until the "recumbent guy"
was available.

Anecdote:. In 1998, I was shopping for a recumbent bike
and visited Richardson Bike Mart in Richardson, Texas. When I
asked about recumbent bikes they had in stock, on display on the
showroom floor, I was told if I had any questions I would have to
come back when the "recumbent guy" was available. They were
not too busy, they were simply uninterested in selling the bikes.

I had similar response at the same store more recently asking
about touring bikes (upright) for my son. No knowledgeable sales
staff, no interest in selling what we were looking for. They didn't
even have a not-present "touring guy" to refer me to...

Experience at the Plano Cycling and Fitness store has been
different. On the couple of occasions we were in the store,
they actually had sales people eager to assist us in the recumbent
section and encouraging test rides. They had a pretty large
selection of brands and models at few years ago, but recently,
they seem to be cutting back on the number of recumbents
they stock.

Jon

On May 10, 8:00 pm, Tom Sherman
wrote:
Edward Dolan wrote:
"ryancycles" wrote in message
...

Edward Dolan wrote:

In the early days of recumbency there were several small manufacturers
who
built relatively cheap recumbents. They too never sold well which
convinced
me there was no market for such bikes. Your Ryan recumbents were for a
niche
market from the beginning and never had a chance in hell of ever gaining
a
large market. There is nothing wrong with that but, please, do not blame
any
of your woes on the lowly bike shop owners and employees.

- Show quoted text -
Comments about recumbents that I've heard in bike shops.
You'll never see one on the floor of this shop!
They don't go up hills.
They are too heavy.
They are too low to the ground.
They're slow.
Sorry, can't help you, don't know anything about them.
Real men ride REAL bicycles!
They suck.
A friend of mine works at Wheel and Sprocket, probably the most
successful shop in the country. They sell about 5000 bikes a year and
about 7-800 recumbents. Trek is located not far from them, they have
an annual dealer meeting. According to my friend every year a dozen or
so dealers from around the country will stop by to shoot the breeze.
Most are astounded by the fact W&S has 50 or 60 recumbents on the
floor and often ask WHY. The very fact that they ask "why" should be a
good indication of the lack of intelligence on their part. For a few
years we had about a dozen dealers around the country. We had a couple
of high end very successful shops selling the bikes. Unfortunately
they all shared the same problem, they had one employee who was the
"recumbent guy" the rest of the employees refused to even discuss the
bikes with potential customers. I know this is true because I visited
a couple of these shops and didn't identify myself and when I asked
about recumbents was told I'd have to wait until the "recumbent guy"
was available. When I discussed this problem with the shop owners they
all gave me the same answer. Well, I'm sorry, but I can't afford to
offend the employees because they are so hard to find. I had quite a
few calls from potential customers who had driven many miles to look
at our bike and had made the mistake of not checking on the
availability of the "recumbent" guy. Of course this reaction from the
shop people didn't go over very well with the potential customer and
they would call us and complain. Eventually we stopped selling through
shops altogether, but not so much because of the problem that the
employees were such morons but because we couldn't afford to give the
shops their margin. The thing about bike shop employees is that just
about all of them are young males that are into bike racing. If it
isn't a full suspension mountain bike or a 15 lb drop bar road racing
bike it isn't a bike. My negative opinion of these people has been
reinforced many times. The best example I can give is the time I was
invited to a bike shop event, (featuring free beer, thereby
guaranteeing a good turnout) given by a well known shop employee in
the Boston area, (he is the recumbent guy) at the shop. He asked me to
bring a bike to the event. There were about fifty people there, all of
them were bike shop employees. And one reporter for a local bike
publication. They had a tape of the tour de france playing on a
relatively small screen tv. These guys were so into racing they could
identify the individual racers on this small screen tv. I was there
for about three hours and not a single person asked about the
recumbent, it was sitting in the middle of the floor in everyone's
way. But as far as they were concerned it was invisible. The magazine
guy did ask me what the bike cost. We had a customer who wanted to buy
one of our $4500 tandems through a local shop. I happened to be there
when they were talking to the salesperson, another employee overheard
the conversation and interrupted the conversation with the comment
"you probably won't find that thing as comfortable as you think" and
walked away. I witnessed a similar thing at a dealer in Cambridge Ma.
they sold Linear recumbents. The salesperson was discussing the bike
with the customer, another sales person was standing near me talking
to another customer, he looked at the recumbent and more or less
whispered to the customer he was dealing with, "real men ride real
bikes" . All small businesses suffer from employee problems, but it
seems to me that the bike business is somewhat unique in having
employees who actively discourage customers. I know just about everone
in the recumbent business, they all have mentioned similar experiences
with shop people.
I don't think it's paranoia on my part in blaming the "lowly shop
employees" for at least some of the difficulties of getting recumbents
into the market place. I should also mention that I attended the
industry trade show many times and saw first hand the glazing over of
the eyes of shop employees on the rare occasion that there bosses had
some interest in the bikes and stopped at our booth to ask questions.
Dick Ryan

I will take credit for drawing out Dick Ryan on this subject. It is
extremely interesting to hear what one of the early and main manufacturers
of recumbents has to say about bike shops and their employees. I am learning
a quite a few things I never knew before.

I suspect I may not have been your typical recumbent buyer. I fell in love
with reucmbents from the moment I first saw one. It was a picture of an
Infinity that I saw advertised in the Nashbar catalog. No one ever had to
sell me on the virtues of a recumbent. I sold myself right off the bat.

The one and only problem I ever had with recumbents were the high prices.
This has totally colored my view of the industry I must admit. I never had
much to do with bike shops, but I had quite a bit to do with the
manufacturers themselves because I bought directly from them. I could tell
Mr. Ryan some real horror stories about how some ran their business. But
most of them have gone the way of the Dodo Bird and it is all ancient
history now in any event.

Like Jim Reilly also of this newsgroup I loved the Ryan Vanguard and the
only thing that prevented me from buying it was the high price. It appears
that Dick Ryan did the best he could to keep the price reasonable. I would
like to thank him for educating me and I suspect many others on this
newsgroup on the problems involved in marketing a damn good recumbent
bicycle.

Viva Recumbency!

Best Regards,

The is the best post I have ever seen from Ed Dolan - on topic,
positive, polite and reasonable.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

Agreed. Out of character, but refreshing and hopefully a change that
signals a trend that will continue.