On May 10, 8:00 pm, Tom Sherman <sunsetss0...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> Edward Dolan wrote:
> > "ryancycles" <ryancyc...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
>news:f84eb0e1-4b45-4a22-ac27-f50f6b9c1d49@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > Edward Dolan wrote:
>
> >>> In the early days of re***bency there were several small
manufacturers
> >>> who
> >>> built relatively cheap re***bents. They too never sold well which
> >>> convinced
> >>> me there was no market for such bikes. Your Ryan re***bents 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 re***bents 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 re***bents. 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 re***bents 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
> >> "re***bent 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 re***bents was told I'd have to wait until the "re***bent 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 "re***bent" 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 re***bent 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 re****ter 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
> >> re***bent, 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 re***bents. The salesperson was discussing the bike
> >> with the customer, another sales person was standing near me talking
> >> to another customer, he looked at the re***bent 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 re***bent 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
re***bents
> >> 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 re***bents 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 re***bent 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 re***bent. I sold myself right off the
bat.
>
> > The one and only problem I ever had with re***bents 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 re***bent
> > bicycle.
>
> > Viva Re***bency!
>
> > 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 refre****ng and hopefully a change that
signals a trend that will continue.
|
