Holy shit. Remember this guy?
I don’t have any recollection of seeing this before today. He comes off as a completely sane, rational seller who would be just fine to deal with. But the type of personality who takes 6 years for paint? That gives me pause.
i remember seein him selling off alot of his bikes on serotta forums a year or two ago
WTF with that Schwinn head badge. Part of me is wondering why you’d ruin 6 years of paint for a stupid joke, but the other part of me is happy that he used it and rode it and DGAF about it being “artisAnal.”
Couldn’t manage to nail down those pin stripes in 6 years?
Also the head badge is off center. What a fucking joke.
I can’t laugh cos I’m in pretty much the same position.
[list][]Bought a bike in August 2007.
[]got it shipped straight to framebuilder for repair/paint. Was told it’d be 7 weeks
[]first laid eyes on the repaired frame in late January 2011.
[]there’s an issue with the fancy crankset. So straight to another framebuider.
[*]now. Still don’t have it.
[/list]
it sucks but it’s not my only bike. Hassling these tortured geniuses too much sometimes just turns a bad experience into a truly horrible one.
[edit]I should say that I have actually hassled both guys on a few occasions but it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference except that it makes me all flustered and angry
And yeah, definitely scared I’m gonna hate it when I finally get to ride it.
Are you fucking kidding me? Maybe I’m just a noob and this is standard in the custom bike world but that is some bullshit. I work in the automotive industry and my paint guy is amazing. Pretty much every classic and custom car person in town goes to him along with a huge percentage of regular insurance work. He bangs out paint work that would make you cry and is never even close to several months out. That includes mixing a unique paint, doing every jam, nook and visible interior surface, pin stripping, and combo matte and gloss finishes. Have artisinal bikes become so huge that these douches can have wait times that the worlds most respected artists cannot justify? I don’t care how good you think you are, if you are 6 years out then you suck at working, managing your business or both.
Probably good at smoking epic quantities of weed though.
It’s a different situation. Your guy probably has apprentices or staff or a secretary or something. These tortured geniuses can’t trust anyone to work to their standard. And they sure as hell can’t handle having a boss. They never set out to take six years, it just happens. They move house, they get high-priority work from pros, it’s a sunny day and they want to go to the park. Somrthing just turns up.
Basically, they’re bad at business but good at their job. I imagine a bunch of them never get returning customers.
IMO at the point you start taking peoples money and property you ought to pull your shit together. My guy does indeed have a bad ass shop and a full staff but he got there from nothing by kicking ass and not sucking at business. I know a guy that makes $12,000 knives and has a 3 year wait list. That said, he would never add you to that list without you knowing exactly wtf is up. I know when people are doing shit out of their garage, they can run up against unforeseen delays but 6 years is ridiculous. Small business people that bite off more than they can chew piss me off and it’s their customers that get the short end of the stick. Hope you get your bike back and love it, that is a long wait for disappointment.
in 6 years i hope i have a real fucking hobby not this bike crap
that paint sucks anyways.
Daimyo that’s a cool story bro. Tell us more about your auto body guy.
We have a guy like that in town. He’s the dude to go to if you need frame repair on your priceless whatever ridden by Eddy Merckx type shit. Had to get a seat tube reamed out .2mm bigger, it was done in a week and done perfectly. Asked the guy about a wheel build, no answer now for two weeks. He’s notorious for being horrible at time lines, but he’s also probably the best bike repair guy in the city.
It is what it is. Welcome to the stark realization that bikes are a smaller industry than cars
Don’t get me wrong. I am well aware that painting bikes is not going to make you the same money as cars. There is still a basic level of commitment to your customers that you should hold yourself to if you are going to charge money. I am certainly understanding of small, high level work. I don’t think 6 years is justifiable under any circumstances though unless you told the customer flat out that it would be that way. Like I said, maybe this is normal in the custom bike world. It certainly isn’t in most small custom hobby work. We have a similar wrenching guru up here and his times are not as accurate as the LBS may give you but the work is superior and worth a reasonable wait. That said, I trust him to not take 6 years to do anything. You could fucking pattern weld steel from iron and charcoal and machine your parts from scratch in less time.
Bro, I’m seeing a lot of “should” and “could” and that’s all fine and whatnot, but that doesn’t really change shit. A lot of the super talented/conceited/reputable dudes in the bike world are a fucking pain in the ass to deal with, and whether they should, could, or would doesn’t really make a dick hair of difference.
That I can accept and understand. It is what it is and if people allow it to happen, I suppose one could stay in business no matter how shitty their work ethic. It’s just surprising from my standpoint. I am sure no one is awaiting my approval before starting to paint bikes.
I don’t disagree with you, but when only one guy in town can replace a bent top tube, or do the best paint in the land, you take what you can get.
Look at e-ritchie, the man seems to be one of the biggest pain in the asses to deal with and yet his waiting list is what, almost a decade long? If you want one of his bikes, you suck it up and deal with it
EDIT: You can’t even get on the wait list any more. So there you go
Ha ha, I thought I was the only one.
I bought a Bates frame in bad shape 5 years ago. It sat at Argos in the UK for 2-3 years with them continuously making excuses why it wasn’t getting painted. Then it went to a well-known framebuilder/painter in the US, where it has sat for another 2 years while he makes excuses about why it isn’t getting painted. I’ve never even actually seen the frame, it went from the seller to Argos to the US painter.
I actually ended up chroming my Herse because I didn’t want to hear all the excuses.
That’s like the BF equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever shipping. What with the Tete actually getting painted and Pcad having to give up bikes due to ED, the 41 is going to degrade to BFSSFG levels.