ThermionicScott 

Agreed -- GP was "allroad" before it had that name. Now it's the kind of bike that JH is most enthusiastic about.

JH is definitely not as much of a retrogrouch as he's frequently pegged -- heck, he just bought a titanium bike with 11-speed Campy (brifters!) and disc brakes.

Mr IGH

Number 1 selling Trek, Electra Townie....

Hiro11

Clearly. I'm not saying one can only be a success by selling millions of bikes. Grant sells what Grant wants to sell. That will ensure that Riv will only sell to people who like what Grant likes. You can see that as Grant's integrity to a vision or you can see that as Grant ensuring that Riv remains a niche company.

The interesting part here is that what Riv sells is at the cutting edge of hipster bike tastes right now. Fenders, steel, traditional paint, twine+leather grips, front baskets, flat pedals, wool clothing, Brooks saddles. Prime material for the Williamsburg-dwelling bearded fellow who's in a bluegrass band and enjoys Filson flannel and creating coffee tinctures. The industry has come back to Grant. He stuck to his guns, more power to him.

njkayaker

It could be both. I suspect that Grant has no interest in Rivendel being a big company. What he prefers might not have a large market and it might not be worth his effort to make Rivendel bigger.

Who knows if Rivendel is selling into this small market. "The industry" is mostly much bigger companies.

RJM

Grant has said in the past, and in one of the videos of the company, that he isn't concerned with how big of a company Riv is or market share. About Us

johnnyace 

Speaking of Mr. Petersen, Cycle EXIF has a nice article and pics on the Bridgestone Atlantis, posted a couple of days ago:

Lost But Not Forgotten: Bridgestone Atlantis | Cycle EXIF

rekmeyata

As of the 2014 report here : https://renobikeproject.org/wp-conten...eport-2014.pdf See the pie charts too, I don't see anything remotely close to 5 mil.

Sales have been increasing however so they are actually doing better so I think Grants philosophy is slowly reaching more people. I do know that Rivendell has had at least one major financial contributor that has been consistent year after year since the start of the company, plus a slew of other smaller grantors which is mentioned on that website above, which is why Grant never went bankrupt even though on paper he should have and would have if the success of his operation was solely based on how well the business did. So people with deep pockets really wanted to see Grant succeed and didn't care how long it took or how bad the financials looked. Not sure why there are people willing to support Grant in that matter. I recalled years ago when I use to get the newsletter that Grant and Rivendell were in serious financial trouble and someone gave them the entire year of operational cost to keep them going, now he has a slew of donors. Again look at the pie charts and you can see the business would not survive if it wasn't for the donations and grants. The business is essentially a failure being kept alive for years by donations and grants.

ckarr

This is the sole reason why Asian countries like Japan, China and Korea make so much crap, they don't have the brains to innovate and tell people what is best (because they can't design or create anything worthwhile) so they just end up putting out so much crap and hoping some of it sticks. It is really a different mentality over there.

rekmeyata

Actually Japan use to make on a large scale of products the best you could find in the world, today while that grand scale of products have reduced significantly they still make some of the best products you can find.

China is not at fault for making crap, American corporations go to China with a product they want made and tell China manufactures that they want the product made as cheap as possible, so China makes the product as cheap as possible and if it fails no one cares not even the American company! This is because American companies only care about profits because profits boosters stock prices. Combine that fact that Chinese workers get paid so little they have no incentive to make anything good; but this is slowly changing as state owned companies are changing to privately owned companies because the state is realizing that if something isn't done to correct the situation they will loose business which will hurt them in the long haul as there are already some American companies bringing back manufacturing jobs from China to America due to poor quality control and thus sales of their products are slipping.

bulldog1935

The Tao of craftsmanship exists in Japan - anything handmade from Japan is the best in the world. .



https://www.jitensha.com/eng/ksanToei11.html

Bandera

Once again:
A well designed and controlled manufacturing process will produce product that falls within the upper & lower control limits of QC/QA regardless of where it operates on the planet.

-Bandera

badger1

Stupid most certainly isn't restricted to "them" given the evidence provided by your post.

JonathanGennick 

I don't really think that's a fair statement. What I see in that region is that they've built a manufacturing and logistics infrastructure capable of making pretty much anything to a given specification. It is the bicycle brands -- Trek, Specialized, Pacific, etc. -- that provide those specifications, and then the Asian manufacturing executes on what they are being paid to deliver. Some of the best bikes are from that region, and probably some of the worst ones too.

As for Grant Peterson, I enjoy that he's got an opinion and has identified a target market. Good for him, and we should all be so lucky. He is neither threat nor menace, but is a passionate soul who adds some zest to the bicycle industry.

johnnyace 

Wow... just... wow.

rekmeyata

I loved that statement too, yet China leads the US in a lot of key areas, maybe that's because Asians have no brains whereas the Americans have no brains nor any common sense.

johnnyace 

Indeed. I wonder if he uses a slant-parallelogram rear derailleur, invented by Suntour, a Japanese company?

philbob57

Sounds like ignorance gone to seed.

Start here, with Needham's Science and Civilization in China: https://monoskop.org/images/3/30/Nee...ientations.pdf. China invented the compass over 2000 years ago. Gunpowder. Printing. Acupuncture. Pottery. Etc., etc., etc.

Consider the long history of Japanese metallurgy and the very desirable steel blades that are 100s of years old.

Consider the very high productivity of Chinese and Japanese land, because of their agricultural innovations through the ages.

As for producing crap, have you ever driven a US marque car from the late '60s-mid-'80s? It was lousy quality that gave the opening to Toyota and Nissan.

C'mon, guy! There's a wide world with a lot of history all around you. Look at it.

kingston 

I don't get it. How is the Reno Bike Project associated with Rivendell?

Spoonrobot 

I was wondering the same thing.

fastturtle

Have you fallen asleep in 1975 or do you live in the same world as I do ?

Anybody with a minimal industrial culture knows that Japan has been (and possibly still is) THE reference for inventive ways of improving quality and productivity. Ask the US and European automobile industries for confirmation.

To answer more comprehensively, I think that in a first phase, when you start being a low-cost industrial country, you manufacture what you are told, but as you don't really consume the goods you manufacture, you don't realize what makes a product interesting for the customer. Then you become richer and start buying these products, and from there on you gain the ability to create goods that will appeal to customers, at home then worldwide. This happened with Japan (automotive then electronics; Sony, Nintendo, sounds familiar ?) then to South Korea (Samsung, just copying western brands perhaps ?), then expectedly China will follow very soon.

Maelochs

I figure anyone dumb enough to say it wouldn't be amenable to education anyway ......

rydabent

Care to tell us about air bags from Japan??

SingleSpeeDemon

Do Takata airbags qualify as being hand-made?

BillyD

So nobody here sees a need to report this**********???

You can't allow hatred like this to go unchallenged.