Originally Posted by joejack951

My only guess is that Specialized does not consider any of those companies competitors and as such ignores them. They have nothing to lose there as I doubt they ever intend on making a 'Made in USA' bike frame.

The way trademark and patent laws work, however, is that if you ignore any infringement in that area you pretty much lose your rights to those items. Specialized spent good money on those trademarks originally and continues to do so (maintenance fees). They have to sue for things like that. And suing small companies is a great way to set a precedent as well so that no larger company attempts to do anything of the sort.

Originally Posted by November Dave

"100% made in Italy" in context of my post on this thread is meant as "it is 100% truth that it is made in Italy, without equivocation," as opposed to "100% of everything that goes into it is made in Italy."

I am 100% satisfied (speaking not as a "November rep" but as the co-founder and co-owner of the company, in addition to being the person who product managed the frames from our end, as well as picking the color palette and sketching the original graphic design) that there is no obfuscation, misrepresentation, or other shadiness in calling the Timoneria a "made in Italy" product.

Your earlier assertion that November would flip out if someone said something was made in Italy with less actual Italian input than our frames have is incorrect. We'd do nothing. We've witnessed outright lies many multiples worse than that, and we basically say nothing about it. This post is the harshest response we've ever had to the misrepresentations we see coming out of the bike industry. Please don't characterize how my company would respond to something when you have absolutely no knowledge nor available evidence of such.

We're not trying to justify any kind of price. The frames cost what they cost to produce, and we're selling them for a rather crappy margin to us. Pedal Force probably makes a better margin on their $750 frame. The people who've bought them are, to a person, absolutely thrilled with them. I love mine, and it's a very rare ride when I'm not stopped by someone to tell me what a pretty bike I have. Equivalent bikes, built by the same people with the same materials, are sold elsewhere for much much more. We're not exactly pushing these bikes. If the right customer is in the market for such a thing and we're the right solution, great. If not, great. If a $12,000 frame from someone else is the right fit, great. If a $750 frame from someone else is right for you, great. Frames are a minuscule part of our business, but if we sold these frames for $750, we'd lose a couple of thousand bucks on them so don't look for that to happen anytime soon.

Going purely by the dominance of Toray and Mitsubishi in supply of carbon to the bike market, maybe we should just say any bike thing made of carbon is made in Japan? I appreciate the point you're trying to make, but the decades of design experience, dozens of very skilled man hours, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of capital equipment and infrastructure used to turn approximately $50 worth of raw carbon fiber into a Timoneria are more important than the $50 of raw carbon fiber (an overestimate if anything) from Japan.

Originally Posted by Bah Humbug

Specialized does not consider an actual framemaker to be a competitor but does consider a local bike shop to be? Is that your position?

Originally Posted by joejack951

No, that's not my position. Did you read my explanation?

Originally Posted by Bah Humbug

I did. To expand, your position is that "made in the USA bike frames" don't compete with "made in China/ Taiwan bike frames"? That someone in the market for one would not be in the market for the other? Someone could not decide that an (allegedly-fraudulent) claim of "made in the USA" on a bike frame couldn't cause that frame to be more appealing to a certain buyer than a Specialized? I didn't even think that bore mentioning; "made in the USA" is one of many things that could cause buyers to make a choice of frame purchase, not an exclusionary market divider.