If you Google 'self-serving douchebag', it will say, see also: Richard Sachs...I mean really, who the hell is he trying to convince here, the people dumb enough to drop a deposit on a $4000 steel frame with a FIVE year lead time, or himself?
Let's be serious for a moment...FIVE fucking years? For a steel frame made out of very average tubing, by a guy who has been building what is effectively the SAME frames for years. No pushing of the envelope, no experimentation, no imagination...
That ain't ''at the vanguard" homie!
And do the math...
$4k for a frameset that's made up of MAYBE $500 worth of lugs and tubing, plus the $250 or so for the paint. That leaves $3250 for labor, welding supplies and amortized equipment costs. You cannot, for a MOMENT tell me that he's not making money! My guess is $2k-ish per frame. The production numbers are never solid, but rumor has it that between 50 and 75 framesets per year are constructed. That's $100k to $150k per year in the checking account. Yeah, he's in it for the soul of it...
If you believe that, I have a ______ ______ to sell you...
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate steel bikes. Hell, I finally found one of my personal white whales and bought it. Yep, it's a Columbus Foco tubed Jericho Nightshade CX frame. It's beautiful. The tubes are mitered so closely that the welds are imperceptible.
I also have a raging woodrow for IF. Those guys are pushing the envelope on steel, stainless and Ti. And the paintwork? Unreal!
And Hampsten...Jesus!!! They are using custom drawn MAX tubesets. Yes please!!! I may have to throw down for one of these before too long!
Oh, and if anyone wants an old school steel Merckx, Pinarello, or Pegoretti, I have it on GOOD authority that GITA in Charlotte still has more than a few floating around the warehouse.
Just my two cents...
7 comments:
One of my velobozo buddies had a Richard Sachs frame...he didn't like it! He called it the Rat Shit or the Richard Sucks frame.
I've heard it from more than a few people...
Never heard any complaints about IF, Seven or even those dillholes at Dean.
Personally, I love my two Richard Sachs bikes (road and 'cross), and in the 10 years that I've known Richie, I've never known him to be a douchebag.
Yes, he has his opinions and isn't afraid to voice them, but honestly, neither am I, and neither are you, Mark.
Something else to keep in mind. Richard isn't accepting orders from new clients anymore ... when I first met him, his lead time was 7 months. Now his backlog is 7 years, and he isn't building any fewer frames now than he was 10 years ago; the demand for his frames have gone up that much.
I like to think that I had something to do with that, by building his website, oh so many years ago, but honestly, if the product is crap, it doesn't matter how much marketing you do, it's not going to improve your business.
Richie got where he is because he doesn't compromise ... not when it comes to framebuilding, and not when it comes to expressing his thoughts on "the industry".
BTW ... his PegoRichie tubing is custom-drawn Columbus Spirit ... their top-end steel, not a mediocre tubeset.
That's just the thing though, he seems to spend more time commenting on the industry, or blogging, or on Roadbikereview, chastising anyone whose opinion differs from his own, than building frames. That quote I posted is the exact type of self-congratulatory BS that the bike business doesn't need. You don't see Tyler and the crew at IF, or the guys at Hampsten, pontificating about the industry. They just build good shit!
And the other point is, how the hell does one let the backlog reach SEVEN YEARS? Sounds like someone didn't know how to handle the business end of the deal. Take Garro @ Coconino. Great designs, great tubing, flawless execution and an 11 month lag. Oh, did I mention he's paralyzed from the waist down?
And I know he uses Spirit tubing that drawn for him. My issue is the fact that the tubesets do not differ, and take into account frame size, a rider's weight, or a rider's preferred ride.
Sachs' general demeanor is that if you are lucky enough to have a Sachs, then you are lucky enough.
And yes, I've held, fondled, built and ridden a couple of Richard's frames. They looked nice, but were swingsets.
Like I said...my two cents...
Another thing to keep in mind. Richie doesn't build custom bicycles. Richie builds made-to-measure (or bespoke) bicycles, and there's a huge difference. A custom framebuilder (like a custom tailor) will make whatever you want ... a bespoke framebuilder (like a bespoke tailor) makes what he makes, sized to fit your perfectly.
The backlog hit 7 years because orders kept coming in ... and people knew what the backlog is before they put a deposit down to hold their spot in line, so there's obviously a demand for his frames, despite the wait.
Richie has three ways to manage that lead time ... one is to hire people to build the bikes for him (like Hampsten and IF and Seven), but then he becomes a factory, not a framebuilder; a second is to start cutting corners and building frames more quickly by assembling subsections in advance, not spending as much time on the finish filing, etc.
The third way is to raise prices to reduce demand. One man shops that do a lot of handwork will often have lengthy lead times ... and the best way for one man shops to manage them is to charge more so that supply and demand come into balance.
Obviously, right now, demand has outstripped supply ... and while Richie has raised prices over the years, from a microeconomic standpoint, they haven't been raised enough to bring down the demand.
On the other hand, Richie pretty much has a guaranteed income for the next seven years.
And from personal experience, Richie does take rider weight, flexibility, etc. into account before he builds the bike. My RS Signature road is hands-down the most comfortable and best-handling bike I have ever owned ... and of the many, many bikes I've owned over the years, only 2 were not specifically built for me.
Garro is a fine framebuilder ... but there isn't the same sort of demand for a Coconino as there is for a RS frame. When Garro has been building for over 35 years, let's see what route he takes when the demand for his frames begins to outstrip the supply he can put out.
Richie's long wait time is nothing unique, in cycling or in other fine crafts. Vanilla Bicycles has a 5+ year lead time as of April 2009.
Brian Baylis (framebuilder and painter) has been known to spend well more than a year building a single bicycle.
Philippe DuFour (a fine watchmaker) has a 4-5 year lead time for his Simplicity model (http://dufourwatches.free.fr/simp1.jpg, about as simple as you can get).
Kim Walker (http://www.walkerguitars.com/) has a 7+ year lead time for delivery of a handcrafted guitar.
If you don't like what he has to say, that's fine ... you're allowed to.
BTW ... you know what happens when you push the envelope and experiment? You get failures. You get frames that aren't meant to last. And that's not what Richie does ...
But enough ... I doubt I'm going to convince you to change your mind.
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