i have had a chance to ruminate and contemplate. now i'd like to disseminate. (some information.) i'll try not to obfuscate. and who knows? maybe serotta's sales will inflate.
i don't think company people always think things through when they arrive new on a forum to discover a potentially disparaging post about their product or service. there seems to often be a suspicion or preconception that there was a total absence of any mention of their company prior to the offending post. in the case of serotta:
• there have been better than 500 posts written on this forum about this fine company's products during the past year and a half.
• there have been about 200 posts specifically about paul levine's fine fit service, and paul levine not only sells exclusively serotta's bikes, he is one of serotta's very largest dealers.
• there have been roughly 50 posts on this forum published by paul levine himself.
• there have been, oh, 65 or so posts about christopher kautz, a west coast bike fitter who is the analog to paul levine in the east. kautz is, as well, a serotta bike dealer.
• likewise, kautz is a forum member, having published 35 or 40 posts here himself.
• all this traffic mentioned above, plus the plethora of emails i get privately asking me to recommend a good tri bike fitter, has resulted in some number of customers accruing to levine. i don't know how many. paul can answer that. however, it is a not inconsiderable number. how many of all these customers end up buying serotta bikes i also do not know. but i suspect it's a robust total.
all this occurs at no cost to levine or kautz (or serotta). this is free advertising, free discussion, and it occurs in a way incremental to serotta's efforts. what i mean by "incremental" is that to my knowledge serotta does not advertise in any tri publications, does not have a program for sponsoring triathletes, does not sponsor multisport events, does not purchase expo booths at such events, does not financially support retailers who do choose to expo or advertise, support or sponsor such events.
as far as slowtwitch goes, we do not feel we need to be paid by kautz or levine for their participation. we get as much as we give by having their expertise here on this forum. my point is that looking at one post, or one thread, on a forum like this paints a rather incomplete picture of the financial impact this forum has on a business such as serotta's.
i'll put it another way. were all past, current and future mention of paul levine, chris kautz, and serotta--its company, its bikes, its theories--to be immediately gone from this forum, two things would happen. first, the forum would be the worse for it, because kautz and levine are two of the most knowledgeable contributors to it. the second thing that would happen is that serotta would sell fewer bikes than it now does.
precisely because kautz and levine are such able apologists for serotta's fine bikes, info@serotta.com does not need to come to its company's rescue.
having said that, and as highly as i regard serotta's very well made and designed road race bikes, i still believe the case has yet to be made by ANYONE that $7000 is an appropriate price to pay for a bike built by a company that does not appear to me to have spent any particular time contemplating the specific needs of triathletes. litespeed has 118 bikes in kona, and if you add the tiphoons it makes for QR then it's probably more like 130 ti bikes in the race. this is tenfold what serotta had in kona. however, when you compare serotta's numbers to litespeed's in the road race and road geometry bike categories, serotta fares quite favorably. this is because serotta has not contemplated triathlon. would serotta want to consider triathlon seriously, it would do very well. serotta is too good a company, its ability to build fine products too robust, for it not to compete well in triathlon if triathlon was a priority.
finally, perhaps serotta might want to consider rethinking its position of not having a presence on forums such as this. most of triathlon's important bike brands and aero handlebar companies have owners/managers/reps sharing info with this rather large and embarrassingly well-behaved end-user community.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
i don't think company people always think things through when they arrive new on a forum to discover a potentially disparaging post about their product or service. there seems to often be a suspicion or preconception that there was a total absence of any mention of their company prior to the offending post. in the case of serotta:
• there have been better than 500 posts written on this forum about this fine company's products during the past year and a half.
• there have been about 200 posts specifically about paul levine's fine fit service, and paul levine not only sells exclusively serotta's bikes, he is one of serotta's very largest dealers.
• there have been roughly 50 posts on this forum published by paul levine himself.
• there have been, oh, 65 or so posts about christopher kautz, a west coast bike fitter who is the analog to paul levine in the east. kautz is, as well, a serotta bike dealer.
• likewise, kautz is a forum member, having published 35 or 40 posts here himself.
• all this traffic mentioned above, plus the plethora of emails i get privately asking me to recommend a good tri bike fitter, has resulted in some number of customers accruing to levine. i don't know how many. paul can answer that. however, it is a not inconsiderable number. how many of all these customers end up buying serotta bikes i also do not know. but i suspect it's a robust total.
all this occurs at no cost to levine or kautz (or serotta). this is free advertising, free discussion, and it occurs in a way incremental to serotta's efforts. what i mean by "incremental" is that to my knowledge serotta does not advertise in any tri publications, does not have a program for sponsoring triathletes, does not sponsor multisport events, does not purchase expo booths at such events, does not financially support retailers who do choose to expo or advertise, support or sponsor such events.
as far as slowtwitch goes, we do not feel we need to be paid by kautz or levine for their participation. we get as much as we give by having their expertise here on this forum. my point is that looking at one post, or one thread, on a forum like this paints a rather incomplete picture of the financial impact this forum has on a business such as serotta's.
i'll put it another way. were all past, current and future mention of paul levine, chris kautz, and serotta--its company, its bikes, its theories--to be immediately gone from this forum, two things would happen. first, the forum would be the worse for it, because kautz and levine are two of the most knowledgeable contributors to it. the second thing that would happen is that serotta would sell fewer bikes than it now does.
precisely because kautz and levine are such able apologists for serotta's fine bikes, info@serotta.com does not need to come to its company's rescue.
having said that, and as highly as i regard serotta's very well made and designed road race bikes, i still believe the case has yet to be made by ANYONE that $7000 is an appropriate price to pay for a bike built by a company that does not appear to me to have spent any particular time contemplating the specific needs of triathletes. litespeed has 118 bikes in kona, and if you add the tiphoons it makes for QR then it's probably more like 130 ti bikes in the race. this is tenfold what serotta had in kona. however, when you compare serotta's numbers to litespeed's in the road race and road geometry bike categories, serotta fares quite favorably. this is because serotta has not contemplated triathlon. would serotta want to consider triathlon seriously, it would do very well. serotta is too good a company, its ability to build fine products too robust, for it not to compete well in triathlon if triathlon was a priority.
finally, perhaps serotta might want to consider rethinking its position of not having a presence on forums such as this. most of triathlon's important bike brands and aero handlebar companies have owners/managers/reps sharing info with this rather large and embarrassingly well-behaved end-user community.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman