Hey all - I wanted to address a certain elephant in the room that we have had some inquiries on - with regards to the last few batches of bikes - mainly around the component sets that we have been able to source.
First - trust me when I say that I would be sourcing the gear we have always used in the past (SRAM, TRP, KMC, etc) but only IF those items were available. Nowadays they are not. The bike industry has had two years of hammering on nearly all supply chains for dozens of reasons. Most of those higher grade components are still on 1-2 YEAR backorders. We will eventually be able to get them, but in the interim...
I have had to source - literally - whatever the best level of compatible components that I can - often on the fly for every batch for the last two years. Availability of SRAM, etc. for manufacture levels orders for OEM bikes like ours are simply not possible like it was pre-2020. And even for the other branded components we are sourcing - I have had orders for those components fall through in the 11th hour - leading to instant scrambles and pulling of strings with everyone I personally know in Taiwan - to pull favors to even get certain components to end up with ridable bikes. "Hey man can I bum 50 sets of hopefully compatible calipers off of you by this Friday?" The struggle is real.
The alternative is waiting possibly years - and no bikes at all. Over two years it is a miracle that we can have complete bikes. The behemoths of the upright world (and even mid size foreign companies making bikes that aren't even sold in the USA) have sucked dry the industry for tubing, components, manufacturing time, painting time, cardboard box making, you name it. For every bike we make there are near a dozen companies in the chain that all need to be able to smoothly get their wares from A to B and keep their schedules going to accommodate us. This is juggling a dozen balls in the air with other people all juggling a dozen balls in the air and then throwing certain ones to everyone else and hoping nobody drops any.
Adding to the headache are the manufacturers who continually work on creating component groups that are difficult to get any cross-compatibility with other items - so mixing brands of things that are actually available has gotten much harder. When ordering for OEM, some component brand companies make it harder to order large quantities of certain components if you aren't going for their full group - they want their full set on the bike - not a mix of brands. So we end up in a situation where maybe the SRAM shifters are available - but the matching DR is backordered for 500 days. So it's either wait 500 days or go with something else entirely because they won't just ship the shifters without THEIR compatible DR.
So that means we have to change brands entirely for that batch - while leaving a standing (with deposit) order for hundreds of SRAM parts that "might" be available in their estimated "500 day" timeline which they hold no guarantee can be met. Those timelines over the last two years keep getting longer - not shorter. This is the case for nearly all quality components - tires, tubes, rims, hubs, spokes, spoke nipples, chains, cables, ferruls, cable housing, shifters, brake calipers, cassettes, brake levers, bottom brackets, cranksets, etc... sometimes if just one component suddenly becomes delayed it can cause a ripple to derail the entire process or require a scramble to get an alternative - which then might require another component to be changed due to incompatibility. And so the dominoes tumble. While smaller numbers might be available via JBI or other vendors that supply bike shops it doesn't mean that hundreds are available all at once for one manufacturer.
Sometimes it is a matter of actual raw materials being short - no aluminum no frame tubes, no rims, no special machined parts.
For me this is a - nightly - conversation with our manufacturing partners in Taiwan and all of us together feel like the actor in the movie running towards the door at the end of the hallway. But the door always gets further and further away. I often get a personal message that says;
"Component X is suddenly pushed back 200 days, but I can get component Y to substitute. They are holding them for me, but if I don't say yes in the next hour they will be all gone as they have ten other companies asking for them...." Everything is fluid and there are no guarantees and time is always of the essence.
We are lucky at Cruzbike to have very strong personal connections - so getting things done has been relatively smooth if not always exactly what we want. This - I will say with 100% truth - is not always the case for many manufacturers both recumbent and upright.
All this said - it can be much easier to possibly source your own alternatives individually for frame builds. Most of the component specs at the moment (I like to call the Covid Spec) think of as interim to what you might really want - but rest assured I strive to make sure the best I can get goes on the bikes so we at least have ridable bikes to sell you all.
And this is all only about getting parts to BUILD bikes. Even through the disaster-for-manufacturing last few years of Covid, we have still been able to pull off the impossible like evolving to through axles, flat mount brakes, the V20C, and MORE to come. We make miracles happen - still. I could go on and on about that and even getting them here to the states - shipping nightmares are an entire separate issue. Throw in some geopolitical chaos for the real icing on the cake.
So please enjoy the ride as best you can and know that we at Cruzbike are all working the best that we can in far less than ideal manufacturing conditions. Our goal is everyone on a Cruzbike and I will get rideable bikes here for you all no matter what - if I have anything to do with it.
Ride on!
Robert
First - trust me when I say that I would be sourcing the gear we have always used in the past (SRAM, TRP, KMC, etc) but only IF those items were available. Nowadays they are not. The bike industry has had two years of hammering on nearly all supply chains for dozens of reasons. Most of those higher grade components are still on 1-2 YEAR backorders. We will eventually be able to get them, but in the interim...
I have had to source - literally - whatever the best level of compatible components that I can - often on the fly for every batch for the last two years. Availability of SRAM, etc. for manufacture levels orders for OEM bikes like ours are simply not possible like it was pre-2020. And even for the other branded components we are sourcing - I have had orders for those components fall through in the 11th hour - leading to instant scrambles and pulling of strings with everyone I personally know in Taiwan - to pull favors to even get certain components to end up with ridable bikes. "Hey man can I bum 50 sets of hopefully compatible calipers off of you by this Friday?" The struggle is real.
The alternative is waiting possibly years - and no bikes at all. Over two years it is a miracle that we can have complete bikes. The behemoths of the upright world (and even mid size foreign companies making bikes that aren't even sold in the USA) have sucked dry the industry for tubing, components, manufacturing time, painting time, cardboard box making, you name it. For every bike we make there are near a dozen companies in the chain that all need to be able to smoothly get their wares from A to B and keep their schedules going to accommodate us. This is juggling a dozen balls in the air with other people all juggling a dozen balls in the air and then throwing certain ones to everyone else and hoping nobody drops any.
Adding to the headache are the manufacturers who continually work on creating component groups that are difficult to get any cross-compatibility with other items - so mixing brands of things that are actually available has gotten much harder. When ordering for OEM, some component brand companies make it harder to order large quantities of certain components if you aren't going for their full group - they want their full set on the bike - not a mix of brands. So we end up in a situation where maybe the SRAM shifters are available - but the matching DR is backordered for 500 days. So it's either wait 500 days or go with something else entirely because they won't just ship the shifters without THEIR compatible DR.
So that means we have to change brands entirely for that batch - while leaving a standing (with deposit) order for hundreds of SRAM parts that "might" be available in their estimated "500 day" timeline which they hold no guarantee can be met. Those timelines over the last two years keep getting longer - not shorter. This is the case for nearly all quality components - tires, tubes, rims, hubs, spokes, spoke nipples, chains, cables, ferruls, cable housing, shifters, brake calipers, cassettes, brake levers, bottom brackets, cranksets, etc... sometimes if just one component suddenly becomes delayed it can cause a ripple to derail the entire process or require a scramble to get an alternative - which then might require another component to be changed due to incompatibility. And so the dominoes tumble. While smaller numbers might be available via JBI or other vendors that supply bike shops it doesn't mean that hundreds are available all at once for one manufacturer.
Sometimes it is a matter of actual raw materials being short - no aluminum no frame tubes, no rims, no special machined parts.
For me this is a - nightly - conversation with our manufacturing partners in Taiwan and all of us together feel like the actor in the movie running towards the door at the end of the hallway. But the door always gets further and further away. I often get a personal message that says;
"Component X is suddenly pushed back 200 days, but I can get component Y to substitute. They are holding them for me, but if I don't say yes in the next hour they will be all gone as they have ten other companies asking for them...." Everything is fluid and there are no guarantees and time is always of the essence.
We are lucky at Cruzbike to have very strong personal connections - so getting things done has been relatively smooth if not always exactly what we want. This - I will say with 100% truth - is not always the case for many manufacturers both recumbent and upright.
All this said - it can be much easier to possibly source your own alternatives individually for frame builds. Most of the component specs at the moment (I like to call the Covid Spec) think of as interim to what you might really want - but rest assured I strive to make sure the best I can get goes on the bikes so we at least have ridable bikes to sell you all.
And this is all only about getting parts to BUILD bikes. Even through the disaster-for-manufacturing last few years of Covid, we have still been able to pull off the impossible like evolving to through axles, flat mount brakes, the V20C, and MORE to come. We make miracles happen - still. I could go on and on about that and even getting them here to the states - shipping nightmares are an entire separate issue. Throw in some geopolitical chaos for the real icing on the cake.
So please enjoy the ride as best you can and know that we at Cruzbike are all working the best that we can in far less than ideal manufacturing conditions. Our goal is everyone on a Cruzbike and I will get rideable bikes here for you all no matter what - if I have anything to do with it.
Ride on!
Robert
Last edited:
