Marty,
You are correct, the difference IS marking. In any business and in life in general "marketing is everything". One must direct ones efforts to th e place where the potential customers are. So why would one be written u p in a non cycling magazine? Reason is that the clientele he is seeking aren't really cyclists of the type we consider most of ourselves. His cl ients are looking for "image" and Richie provides that for them. Even in the waiting period ther is marketing. That's how successful business ar e marketed.
I can't speak for Bruce, but his approach should work for his circumstan ces, so something needs tweeking.
In my case I'm actually the opposite of this approach. I try to discoura ge the image seekers and ferret out the people who are really seeking ou t my work because of who I am and what I do. I market a bicycle that is the product of one persons beliefs, skills, and experience without feedi ng the image thing. I build bikes differently in a drastic way than many builders and I do it almost exclusively for my own satisfaction. I get my thrill out of making things. Unfortunately I have to sell some of the stuff for obvious practical reasons. I would befar happier if I could just build whatever my heart desires and create things of beauty and of lasting function and value based on what I felt I wanted to learn more a bout and what I felt like expressing at any given time. Until the return of patrons of artists and craftsmen, I will have to do it the hard way.
The sales/marketing aspect of being a framebuilder is not exactly cut an d dried. One has to work at it and develope a niche and then work within that. One can change and expand (or become more specialized); but one s till needs to operate within certain boundries. The market for handmade bikes is actually quite small, it shouldn't be that hard to work within it, and yet it ain't easy.
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
To start let me say right off the bat that my only connection to the bicycle industry is through my wallet.
That said I sit here and wonder what is the difference between say a Bruce Gordon and a Richard Sachs? For the sake of arguement (and reality) framebuilding skills should be taken out of the equation as both are artisans (ableit in different mediums). e-RICHIE© is all over the place, he is in magazines (and not just
cycling magazines), he is on websites (i.e. campy only), he is participating on various internet forums. Other than his own web site, I really can't recall seeing Bruce's work advertized, written up, reviewed in quite a while. Marketing. Richard has something like a 4 or 5 year waiting list, yet people still pony up even though there are other just as skilled and gifted framebuilders starving for work. I really think that the small builder has to promote themselves in order
to survive, it's this exposure in the media other than the
framebuilders list or here that get the names out there. Just out of curiousity I'd ask how
much increase in contact did Brian receive after Bicycling© wrote that small piece on his operation? And that leads me to my final point. Back in the 70's and 80's I would
read these wonderful articles about custom builders in magazines like
Bicycling© (Before it became an MTV soundbite) and Bicycle Guide and I wanted
those bikes. I knew who was building custom frames, whether they were race geometry
or full blown tourers. We just don't have those magazines anymore, and with
the exception of Cycling Plus one hardly sees any write ups on touring
bikes, its all go fast carbon fibre (at least as far as the magazines
available both commercially and locally). The CR lister who reads VBQ and Rivendell Reader already
knows, or has a pretty good idea about, the small artisan builders, it's the
general cycling public who needs the education.
Marty Eison
Frisco, Texas