Over the years it has been my non-policy to not require exclusivity on any of the widgets we've designed or bought the tooling for. It may change. The Nitto Stem was originally ours to a point. It was our idea, and we co-developed it with Nitto, suggesting many of the final details. Originally it was going to weigh 250g (or so I'd hoped), and when it got up to over 300g (still not much), we bailed. By that time, Nitto liked it so much that it bought the tooling itself in Japan ($15,000 USD equivalent), and made the post. It subsequently won an award that repaid the deveopment and tooling cost to Nitto. Since we didn't buy that tooling, we don't have any exclusive; but it is not zero percent influenced by us (and no biggie, but it wouldn't have even been a topic of conversation had we not made it that).
Other Riv designed Nitto stuff: Nitto always asks if it can sell to others, and what we want in return, and I always say yes and nothing, not because I'm nice or dumb or both, but because I want to see Nitto stuff out there in other places, too (to help Nitto, not to help others, but that's not a bad thing, either). So things like Moustache, Noodle, Mark's, various racks...we don't hoard for us. I don't know if that's all the stuff, but it's some. "Designing" something for Nitto isn't like designing a Jaquet for Bill Blass or something. It's more like a gruffy bikey guy getting an idea, sending in a really crappy sketch, and having Nitto get the idea, fix it up, and make it beautiful. I don't mean to understate the inspiration, but the work is in making it strong and beautiful and accurate, and Nitto needs no help in that. RIV's strength is not my design abilities, but my connections. Silver Shifters: Same deal. No contract ran out---I said YES, but recently told D/C that we wanted to develop a line of Silver parts, and so no more selling direct to other guys. So now if others buy them they'll get them thru us. I think it would be nice if they'd associate us with them, but it's OK. Ruffy-Tuffy type tires: Others sell these. We bought the mold for the checkerboard tread (in the case of some) and it cost about $5,500. We have three molds: Ruffy/Rolly....Fatty Rump...JackBrown. We allow Panaracer to sell to others, with the agreement that we get a dollar a tire, paid quarterly. Sometimes they forget and we forget for a couple of years, and then we get a check for $2,300 or so. SOMA San Marcos: Our deal there is we get $6 per frame SOMA imports. I designed the geometry and OK'd the tubing (they said it had to be Tange Prestige, and there's nothing wrong with that). We provide the lugs, crown, and bb shell. They picked the dropouts. The fork has a bigger radius rake than we put on ours, but the offset is RIV's, and how it fits and rides and what tires it fits is RIV's. So is the kickstand plate!!! There are microthings I'da done differently if it was purely ours, but in collaborations you get along and keep the big picture in mind, and I think it's a killer bike. We have the samples here, they ride fantastically, and I can't imagine how they cannot sell a few thousand a year. And yet, the first order is small, which makes me think holy cow, what bike on any dealer's floor can even compare? But outside our bubble I know things are different. I've written a note to SOMA's dealers about why it's good and how to sell it, but my influence is minimal in that world---maybe dealers who even know about Riv or me don't like me, for some reason, I don't know. But the first order of AMOS bikes includes the three 700c sizes---54, 59, 63---and if I told you how few they've ordered, you wouldn't beli15ofeacheme. We're taking 5 of each, leaving not many for their 3,000 dealers. Simplex retrofriction shifters (named for its unique mechanism, not as a marketing label) were nice looking and could work really well. The cable groove diameter is only 14mm, which means they don't wrap much cable, which means you may have to move them 165 degrees to shift through the range. It depends on your derailers. I raced with them, and rememeber one race where maybe my cable was a bit slack or something, and I was moving them 180-degree PLUS. I remember thinking "I need a slot in the end so I can push them past the cable." The small groove diameter was ideal for 5sp or 6sp freewheels, and meant a big "trim window", for super easy friction shifting. But it meants slightly slower shifts, no big deal. Their last hurrah was the BORAF time trial in which LeMond came from 50 seconds behind and beat Fignon by a few seconds. It was a great moment for downtube friction shifters and steel frames. The scarcity of Simplex shifters makes people want them more and more, but all commercial interests and pride and personal weaknesses aside, I'd still rather shift the Silvers. They both have the "easy pull, hard push" feature, but they get it in different ways. That's the main thing. On Feb 24, 12:11 pm, William <tapebu...@gmail.com> wrote: > I've bought two of the five "best sellers" and none of the five "worst > sellers". The thing I found interesting was the Silver Shifter story, > and that Riv shelled out the $9k for tooling. Other retailers sell > the Silver shifters, and all of them call them "Dia-Compe Silver > shifters" with no mention of Rivendell. Ben's Cycle sells them, > doesn't mention Rivendell, and copies verbatim Velo-Orange's > description of them. I wonder if Riv gets a royalty when VO or Ben's > sells a set of shifters, or if the $9k just gave them temporary > exclusivity with Dia Compe which has since expired. I have one set of > Silvers, and a stockpile of the original Suntours. It's a great > shifter design, and despite what Chris at VO says, I'd run suntours or > silvers over the Simplex/Mavic ones any day. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
