One person’s opinion, but regarding the newsletter, I think you should focus on your comparative advantage. What can you do (with decades of experience and an independent platform) that few others can’t? Reviewing bikes, components, wheels, interesting tech - Yes. Telling us what new tires Specialized released…there are probably better uses of your time. For the newsletter I think it’d be a great forum for: mini reviews of things you find useful and why (like the Topeak Nano 7), highlighting things that might not be covered elsewhere (the Litespeed bike), little tips and tricks you’ve picked up over the years that would be worth sharing and just general observations of yours over the week and things on your mind. You’d save time because it’s mostly stuff off the top of your head, no need to connect with brands, PR people, etc. What’s in your head that we can’t read elsewhere...I’d love to glean from those decades of experience. Just my 0.02.
That's pretty much where my head's at, too. I'll likely keep the newsletter going, but it might start to look a little different sooner than later. Thanks for the insightful input.
James, you had the most complete, technical info on the new Vitoria tire, though.
You read deeper into the press release or you asked the questions others just speculated about. Either way, you added value that others didn’t.
When I was skimming the tire section yesterday I first saw the tire profile illustration as depicting spring rate LOL! rather than air turbulence. Guess it says more about my priorities.
Can’t wait for the review of the State Ti allroad. Looks like an awesome option. The carbon too, but its colors don’t match the expensive bits I already own and would swap over.
James - you make hot chocolate just like my better half does! And our kids would have it NO OTHER WAY! Except - ours don’t have cute little floaty critters. What are those? Do they dissolve? We must know!
Cool mugs! Will keep an eye out for those. I’m not a hot chocolate person myself (blasphemy, I know!) but my wife swears by “the only real way to make it.” My kids are righteous snobs - powdered “hot chocolate” they say with air quotes, and derision. Have a happy Friday James!
"....especially given the unquestionably premium US$6,500 asking price just for the frame (or US$16,500 for a complete bike – to start)" I don't want to hear anyone in the bicycle industry crying about how they are having so much trouble selling bikes when the industry itself is normalizing this kind of pricing....purely ridiculous. It's like dealerships crying about lower sales when many trucks now are over $80k....something has to give...anyway, beautiful bike, but no thanks..
I've had a few conversations within the industry about things like pricing and target markets and whatnot. Without question, Litespeed is shooting for the stars with this one, but I'm not sure it'd be fair to characterize it as "ridiculous." The company already makes a whole bunch of titanium frames that are quite reasonably priced all things considered, and has done so for a long time. Should we fault them for moving back into a category they once played in already, into a demographic that (like it or not) seems to be growing rather than shrinking?
It'd be one thing if they introduced this bike and abandoned the more affordable models, or if they jacked up all of their prices when the market was insane a few years ago, but neither of those things happened.
I agree with James. To use the auto analogy, pretty much every car brand has vehicles that are “reasonably” priced and other that are much more expensive for buyer that don’t mind paying more for something special.
Agree - "Budget" Ti seems like an oxymoron, so going in this direction with an S-Works-ish bike makes sense, just like it makes sense for Seven to go in the other direction with their semi-custom program you mentioned earlier. And it also shows that LS still has "it" when it comes to advanced Ti tech. (All this assumes that the frame handles well.) Assuming most of the cost of carrying this frame is up-front/R&D (since they don't have molds/gnarly inventory costs with fancier grades of raw material), it seems like decent line to introduce, even if they don't sell many units.
Pricing aside I'm struggling to see the market for this new light-weight Ti frame from Litespeed. I had a brief look at a Ghisallo in around 2006 and underneath my 75kg it was an absolute noodle when riding out of the saddle. I think Ti can be used to make some lovely bike frames, I am not convinced it is well suited to making a lightweight bike frame though. For example one of the main selling points of Ti is durability and longevity but I would have serious doubts about that with this frame due to the light weight nature of the tubes and reduced amount of material at frame junctions.
But as ever, I will be very interested in your take James once you have one for review. The Ghisallo was 20 years ago (!!!!!) and this is now.
For sure, I'm wondering myself what this will ride like. The rather modest maximum rider weight limit makes me wonder, but who knows, maybe it'll be amazing. We'll see! Finalizing my sampler order today.
One person’s opinion, but regarding the newsletter, I think you should focus on your comparative advantage. What can you do (with decades of experience and an independent platform) that few others can’t? Reviewing bikes, components, wheels, interesting tech - Yes. Telling us what new tires Specialized released…there are probably better uses of your time. For the newsletter I think it’d be a great forum for: mini reviews of things you find useful and why (like the Topeak Nano 7), highlighting things that might not be covered elsewhere (the Litespeed bike), little tips and tricks you’ve picked up over the years that would be worth sharing and just general observations of yours over the week and things on your mind. You’d save time because it’s mostly stuff off the top of your head, no need to connect with brands, PR people, etc. What’s in your head that we can’t read elsewhere...I’d love to glean from those decades of experience. Just my 0.02.
That's pretty much where my head's at, too. I'll likely keep the newsletter going, but it might start to look a little different sooner than later. Thanks for the insightful input.
James, you had the most complete, technical info on the new Vitoria tire, though.
You read deeper into the press release or you asked the questions others just speculated about. Either way, you added value that others didn’t.
When I was skimming the tire section yesterday I first saw the tire profile illustration as depicting spring rate LOL! rather than air turbulence. Guess it says more about my priorities.
Thanks, Shiggy! At least for now, I think I'll continue on with the newsletter, but I think I'll tweak the format a little bit. Stay tuned.
Can’t wait for the review of the State Ti allroad. Looks like an awesome option. The carbon too, but its colors don’t match the expensive bits I already own and would swap over.
James - you make hot chocolate just like my better half does! And our kids would have it NO OTHER WAY! Except - ours don’t have cute little floaty critters. What are those? Do they dissolve? We must know!
Cool mugs! Will keep an eye out for those. I’m not a hot chocolate person myself (blasphemy, I know!) but my wife swears by “the only real way to make it.” My kids are righteous snobs - powdered “hot chocolate” they say with air quotes, and derision. Have a happy Friday James!
I just asked my wife where she got them, and she unfortunately doesn't remember :(
And no need to justify your warm beverage of choice to me. I don't drink coffee, either!
It's the best way, no????
As for the critters, they're actually part of the mugs. We have a few of them with different animal characters in each one :)
8044 days left.
"....especially given the unquestionably premium US$6,500 asking price just for the frame (or US$16,500 for a complete bike – to start)" I don't want to hear anyone in the bicycle industry crying about how they are having so much trouble selling bikes when the industry itself is normalizing this kind of pricing....purely ridiculous. It's like dealerships crying about lower sales when many trucks now are over $80k....something has to give...anyway, beautiful bike, but no thanks..
I've had a few conversations within the industry about things like pricing and target markets and whatnot. Without question, Litespeed is shooting for the stars with this one, but I'm not sure it'd be fair to characterize it as "ridiculous." The company already makes a whole bunch of titanium frames that are quite reasonably priced all things considered, and has done so for a long time. Should we fault them for moving back into a category they once played in already, into a demographic that (like it or not) seems to be growing rather than shrinking?
It'd be one thing if they introduced this bike and abandoned the more affordable models, or if they jacked up all of their prices when the market was insane a few years ago, but neither of those things happened.
I agree with James. To use the auto analogy, pretty much every car brand has vehicles that are “reasonably” priced and other that are much more expensive for buyer that don’t mind paying more for something special.
Agree - "Budget" Ti seems like an oxymoron, so going in this direction with an S-Works-ish bike makes sense, just like it makes sense for Seven to go in the other direction with their semi-custom program you mentioned earlier. And it also shows that LS still has "it" when it comes to advanced Ti tech. (All this assumes that the frame handles well.) Assuming most of the cost of carrying this frame is up-front/R&D (since they don't have molds/gnarly inventory costs with fancier grades of raw material), it seems like decent line to introduce, even if they don't sell many units.
Pricing aside I'm struggling to see the market for this new light-weight Ti frame from Litespeed. I had a brief look at a Ghisallo in around 2006 and underneath my 75kg it was an absolute noodle when riding out of the saddle. I think Ti can be used to make some lovely bike frames, I am not convinced it is well suited to making a lightweight bike frame though. For example one of the main selling points of Ti is durability and longevity but I would have serious doubts about that with this frame due to the light weight nature of the tubes and reduced amount of material at frame junctions.
But as ever, I will be very interested in your take James once you have one for review. The Ghisallo was 20 years ago (!!!!!) and this is now.
For sure, I'm wondering myself what this will ride like. The rather modest maximum rider weight limit makes me wonder, but who knows, maybe it'll be amazing. We'll see! Finalizing my sampler order today.
Disappointed that none of the new Specialized gravel tires come in 650B.
Yeah, I hear you, but my guess is someone crunched the numbers at Specialized and decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.