More Test Sites For Cruzbikes?

[thebean]

I am wonderingif there is a plan to get more Cruzbikes at bike shops so people can test ride them. It seems to me that sales could potentially improve if this were the case.

Another thought is this. A road trip. On the MacNichol Guitar forum, they do road trip guitars. You pay $35 and you get the guitar for a week and then ship it to the next person.

The other thought is to pick a major dealer in certain states. For example, Ajo Bikes in Tucson is the largest recumbent dealer in Arizona.

Last thought. Get the bike in the hands of a person in each state that is comfortable making adjustments as needed. They would be the contact person for anyone interested in doing a test ride. This person would have a Quest for people to try. Perhaps a Silvio too.

Just a thought!

 

[Ian Smith]

Testing and promotion

Three additional things:
* Presence at HPV events such as the Pedal Prix in Australia would do wonders for exposure of the brand and may well start to bring down the price point as numbers grow. It also gets the younger crowd exposed to the alternatives to the 'safety bike'.
* Make a bike that looks more like a beach cruiser in attitude or even a replacement for the 'Dutch bike'. This would appeal more to the casual and women cyclists.
* Consideration of the trike would boost sales significantly. Even resurrecting the Sigma with three wheels would be an idea for the California/Florida type of markets where most of the beach cruiser sales are likely to be. This would be especially good if there was provision for carrying long cargoes.

John and Jim are probably looking at this going "It's not your business though".

 

[John Tolhurst]

In the consulting profession,

In the consulting profession, we have a technique called an organisational review. We pose a question and individually interview everyone we can find about it and we record answers onto small cards. Then we have a silent meeting with everyone present. The cards are sorted into clumps of like ideas. Everyone gets to read cards and sort them together, all floating around a board table at the same time until people generally don't see how to improve the organisation any more. Then we document. Typically ideas fall into, gotta do it because it fundamental; should work on doing it because its something we can achieve; and we'll do as the chances present themselves.

There are not many ideas that we havn't thought of at one time or other. Our driving force is to continue researching how to make these bikes as efficient and ergonomically correct as possible, by racing them. We are still learning here.

 

[Ian Smith]

The Consulting Profession Also Knows

John,

Are we at the point where some of those chances are presenting themselves? I know that there is an increasing cycle culture here in Adelaide. The cyclists are becomming more vocal, the Adelaide City Council is pro-bike, the State Govt is ... No, it's Government so that's not true. The big thing with Adelaide is that we are hosting the VeloCity conference in 2014. This could be an excellent marketing opportunity. I might raise this as an opportunity for a bicycle expo that the ACC can organise.

 

[mgraham]

Parallel Inquiries?

I can totally understand your desire to produce a race bike and certainly there is a lot of work to be done in that direction. However, most bicyclists aren't racers and have no desire to be. Would it really be impossible to take a machine that has already proven itself to be quite capable at multiple jobs and start tweaking things a bit to make them more practical for commuters and tourers?

I see all kinds of posts of riders doing brilliant work-arounds for bag racks, headrests, etc. Refining those designs and making them offered accessories would be an easy first step in that direction.

 

[Charles.Plager]

The Sofrider has literally

The Sofrider has literally been ridden around the world. Modifying these bikes for more cargo isn't very hard at all and you can find (at least one) nice thread on this forum about headrests, too.

I think it would be great if Cruzbike decided to follow Lisa's suggestion (I'm available!). But at the end of the day, they are a small company and have to be careful and choosy in what they do decide to do.

 

[John Tolhurst]

We began this company to make

We began this company to make it easier for people to get a FWD MBB. Up to then, I was just making the kits. It took a lot of time, and I got my capital back but no more. There was no desire to race. But I did want to make a really nice bike too, so I designed the Silvio and it worked out pretty well.

The tone at oday's bentrideronline.com site is different to what it was. At first the gurus on that site would mock and ridicule us for stating our bikes were pretty efficient, and when we would come back at that, we were told to prove it by going racing. Now, none of knew at the time, but you don't challenge Maria Parker on a question of fact and get away with it. She headed off and set a record on the Silvio, with 45 degree recline, for the 12 hour. Also set a course record at Saratogo before that. With that kind of dedication and committment, I was compelled to turn my attention to a full road racing bike. It was easy to design Silvio, and then took some work to resolve the building details. It was not easy to design Vendetta, because we needed to exploit the very edges of the ergonomic and handing window. The current Vendetta drawing is revision Y(iv), so that is 25 important frame design decision points, with 1 to 5 subrevisions each.

So we were compelled to go in this direction in order to overcome the err ... bigotry, I suppose. And the learning curve has been fascinating.

What we now have with Silvio is a beautiful frame and you will see some really nice pannier racks available too. The whole package is shippable anywhere in the world and assembles with road bike components. As the flexibility and quality of the frameset improves, it will be more accessible to bike shops. They will be able to take one on without it causing them headaches and wasting them time and money.

The key to making Sofrider low cost and versatile is to keep within the standards as far as possible and to avoid making custom accessories for it. If we make all those accessories, the price will shoot up. The cost to design, test and make 50 racks for example would price each one at triple the cost of one that is already on the shelf in bike shops. Ideas for improving sofrider and quest are along the lines of make the frameset more like other bikes so they can accept all those nice accessories that are out there.

 

[1happyreader]

History teaches ?

The parallels of bicycle companies to the post WWII American auto industries with race teams are rather eerie.
Not sure of the lessons to be learned, or pitfalls to be avoided.
Can only hope that racing name recognition translates into more looks and sales of Cruzbikes no matter what the model.