[CR]SSCs still in hard service

(Example: Racing:Jacques Boyer)

Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:25:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Tom Dalton" <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com>
To: haxixe@gmail.com, Classic Rendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR]SSCs still in hard service

Kurt wrote:

I don't think bicycle and bicycle equipment manufacturers or retailers are interested in reissuing old designs no matter either the demand or merit, as doing so could undermine their marketing hype about newer higher volume sales products and breed cynicism that might harm sales of items based on said hype.

Kurt Sperry Bellingham Washington USA

I have to question this one. What it all comes down to is whether the company is going to make a nickel. Maximizing profit is going to drive their decisions, which is probaby appropriate. What you've said is not inconsistent with this idea, because you're suggesting that Mavic's assumption is that they will loose profit because they will be selling less of the mass market (loosely speaking) high volume (loosely speaking) product like pre-built low-count wheelsets because the image of those poducts will somehow be underminded by their maunfacture of some older items. It's this last asupmtion that I question, or rather it is Kurts's assumption that Mavic would make this assumption that I question. It seems to suggest that there are people sitting around at Mavic cranking out new and ever more absurd products with full knowledge that said products offer no benefits, just hype. I realize that Kurt didn't say this precisely, but that's how it reads. I honestly believe, perhaps naively, that Mavic is making their best products ever, right now, at least in terms of racing performance. I also believe that they are still the leader in racing wheels, in that they offer the best-performing and most practical (relatively!) products at competitive prices. I don't see why they would shy away from a new SSC on teh bsis that Kurt cites, given that there is no fundamental difference between the SSC and their current Reflex rim. Yes, the Reflex is lighter, and the section is a little different, but there is no more reason that a Cosmic Carbone Ultimate buyer would look at the SSC and decide that his wheels are a hoax than there woudl be for him to have the same response when seeing the Reflex.

The fact is that clinchers now dominate, and even the carbon rimmed wheels are offered in clincher. The other fact is that pre-builts also now dominate, and not entirely without reason. I think it's a shame that more people don't use conventional wheels for training, but Mavic does still offer the Open Pro and several other clinchers, as well as the Reflex, for that oddball who still wants to train on tubulars. It sounds like Mavic might do well to expand the line of tubulars to include a new version of the SSC, at least as a means of supporting the teams in the cobbled classics, but given that the market is dominated by clinchers, and prebuilt clinchers at that, it seems that there would be little demand for an SSC-like rim beyond professional racing teams in cobbled races... and it looks like those folks can get what they need.

I really doubt a few hundred rim sets sold to CR types is going to motivate Mavic to blink. If they were to reissue anything it would probably be the SSC gray because that rims was in their lineup into the 1990's, and is more useful to the pro teams that might be interested in it (the teams seemed to all move to the grays by the mid-80s). That said, I see no reason from a marketing standpoint that a reissue of the original SSC would degrade the image of Mavic's new products or the company in general. If they did it right, they could position the product as a commorative reissue of their "legendary rim that dominated the peloton before Zip, Lightweight, 'Bontrager' et al were even in business." The stumbing point would be to keep Mavic from looking dated by emphasizing the connection between "then" and "now" and their leadership and experience going back to the begining of alloy rims. The potentially insurmountable challenge would be to make the marketing benefit meet the costs of the associated advertising, which it probably wouldn't. People would be more moved by ads touting recent wins and directly promoting new products, but that does not mean that a "nostalgia" campaign would necessarily tarnish Mavic's image. It's probably just not a money maker. To make money from the rims sales directly I assume Mavic would need to sell the rims for at least what they sold for "in the day" which was over $200/pr. in the mid 1980's, so figure $400 a set in 2007 dollars. I think you'd need to bump the price up quite a bit if the run was small to cover the fixed costs, even if you assume they have teh baisc extrusion, heat treatment, and anodizing capacity. So, lets figure they would need to sell the rims for $500/set or so. Suddenly already small group or "hundreds" who would be interested in these rims is looking more like dozens. It's tough to get folks to pay over NOS eBay prices for a repro.

Tom Dalton Bethlehem, Pennsylvania USA

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