Sales Picking Up Again...Finally

   If you weren't aware, during the past two years the bicycling industry took a major hit, as many companies overestimated the market post-COVID. If you recall, there was a bicycle supply shortage during the pandemic, as manufacturers could not keep pace with the tremendous demand.

   The situation was a great advantage to guys like me, when folks were snapping up any bicycles they could find! To give you some perspective, I was usually doing 6 or 7 custom builds for customers a year, including a couple of my own randomly-chosen projects. However, during the COVID year of 2021, I nearly two dozen bicycles and was doing an outrageous amount of upgrades/repairs!

   Unfortunately, when people were allowed to return to their gyms and other forms of exercise, this sales trend stopped. Companies had overshot their sales predictions, and now had more bicycles available than the public needed. Overstock saw prices drop dramatically for new bikes, and although I am in a bit of a niche market with my vintage racers, it very much affected me.

   As prices on new bikes dropped, folks who had some cash to throw around were discarding their older machines instead of bothering to fix up what was sitting in their basements or garages. This, in turn, created a glut of used bicycles on craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Now older bicycles were going dirt cheap, and I was having a hard time finding a magic price point where someone would choose a unique, older bicyle over a brand new, modern product.

   That price point was proving difficult to reach, as the cost for the Campagnolo parts required to build my Euro racers was not dropping - vintage stuff always become harder to find, and demand during the original COVID bike boom hit that supply chain hard, as well. Those parts don't "come back", either!

   While repairs and such held fairly steadily, my sales dropped off to a handful in 2023 and only two during 2024! My basement was really resembling more of a stockroom than a repair shop. I collect parts as I find them in good, inexpensive condition, but if I don't have room to store bicycles, I'm not going to continue building more, and space gets eaten up by hanging wheelsets and boxes of component groups.

   Well, it seems things may have turned around slightly, at least for my little corner of the cycling world, as I've sold a few bicycles already this calendar year. The most recent was a interesting custom job involving a Dazzan frameset. Ottavio Dazzan was an Argentina-born Italian racer, most known for competing in the 1980 Summer Olympics in the sprint. The frames his company built are rare and are of high quality.

   My new friend Chris commutes to work by bike and was interested in an inexpensive frameset of Columbus steel which he could build up as a single-speed. He didn't want anything flashy that would draw the eye of possible thieves, and I thought this lesser-known brand would fit the bill. It came with quality Miche components, and its silver-blue paint job was attractive, but understated.

   Besides installing a single-speed freewheel and solo chainring, it was just a matter of some bullhorn bars (Chris' preference) and the appropriate brake levers. The Continental Gatorskin tires were a must for gritty NYC streets, and although I would have gone for the version with brown sidewalls for a more vintage look, he decided to go the all-black route.

   

Well, it's not warmer, but at least it's snowing more often! (add sarcasm)

   I've had about enough of this winter, and I hate riding indoor trainers, so I've just become resigned to the fact I'll be starting near ground zero when it finally comes time to hit the roads again. I have been lifting a bit, just to do something, though not the mass-gaining type of weight-training, as that is just poundage I'd have to haul up the hills! I had been doing regular hiking and a bit of trail running before the snow turned the area paths into a sloppy mess.

   For some inspiration, I have been planning some interesting rides this spring, but I'll hold off on sharing those until the appropriate time. I've also been catching some cyclocross events online, and Matthieu van der Poel looks to be on fire! I'm looking forward to the classics season, with the unofficial start just a couple weekends away with the traditional Saturday/Sunday events of Omloop He Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.

   In the meantime, I'm wrapping up a couple projects, one of which is actually the building of two bikes (I shared the Tommasini last time) from which a customer is going to make a (difficult) decision. Here are some photos of the Cicli Moser bicycle, which I've equipped with Campagnolo Chorus Carbon gruppo, a set of the company's Vento wheels (my personal favorite) and Cinelli stem/bars:

Too Effin' Cold!

   I was mentioning today to a customer how, when it is as cold as it has been for the past month, my basement becomes like one of those old-fashioned ice houses. Before electricity and modern refrigeration became the norm, cold food storage could be provided by huge blocks of ice which were cut from frozen lakes and kept within a thick-walled, below-ground stone structure.

   Our home's plaster/lath/brick walls are light on insulation, as the house was built at the turn of the 20th century, in an age when they just poured more cheap anthracite coal in the furnace when it got cold. Understandably, we divert the majority of the heat into our living space, and really, once the ground freezes, there is not much you can do to warm things up down in the basement shop. It doesn't take long before my fingers and toes become numb while working down there, even when I move a space heater right next to me while working.

   Of course things are usually pretty slow from December through February, but I have had a couple sales, as well as some customers schedule build projects. Perhaps they are optimistic we'll get a break in the weather or just looking forward to the spring, but I've tried to get as much accomplished as I can before tapping out and wrapping myself in a warm blanket in an attempt to get some feeling back in my extremities!

   In this abbreviated blog entry, I wanted to supply some photos of the Tommasini Sintesi bicycle that I wrapped up assembling the other day: