> What's interesting is that Waterford builds single-speed frames for > Ben's Cycles in Milwaukee, and they're like $500 (with fork).
Good tubes are expensive, lugs are expensive, Silver is expensive (brass not so much), and paying someone with the skill to stick it all together is expensive. A builder told me that most high end frames have more invested in parts than most other frames cost retail. The Milwaukee's are tig'ed and the fork is not US made (originally was a surly, but now IRO?) and the tubing isnt the top shelf stuff. Look at Gunnar, those are nice frames for nice prices. I think the failure of Match, the failure of so many US builders in the last few years, and the ever-increasing quality of the stuff coming out of Asia creates huge obstacles for a non-custom, non-asian bike. Look at Trek, they moved the 520 overseas, and they have the $$$ that they could have kept it here on principal and taken the hit. I dont blame'em, woulda done the same thing. I think moving Atlantis production to the US would be a very short term solution (even if it were possible)-- and a few years (months?) they would be back in the same situation. The Atlantis was under $1000 when it was introduced and has more than doubled in price. Keep in mind that things were not-so-good in Japan in the 1990's and that led to a good exchange rate-- now things are not-so-good everywhere. I vote for keeping the Atlantis, even if it means $2300 and they sell 1/10 the number of them, or keeping it like the Legolas and doing batches of'em every so often., or finding an acceptable builder in Taiwan. Like others have said, too much time has been spent creating a good product with a good name to just kill it. Cheers! cm --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
