Friday, January 30, 2009

TCB 3.0: The Pret a Porteur

This is it! I am officially now producing the best racks at the best price in the world!




I came up with a new design recently and it's simple enough to produce that I can now bring my base price down to $100 $140. The other brilliant aspect of this design is that I wrote some customizing software to go with it. It works like this; you send me fork measurements, I ask my thinkin' box where to cut the tubes, I build a rack custom fitted to your bike for only an extra $10. Some custom builders are going to laugh at me for saying the "c word" without charging an arm and a leg, but that's the beauty about my method is that it really is that simple.

I have three standard sizes for this model if you don't need the custom option; Eyelet Tour for touring forks with double eyelets, Axle Tour for taller forks like the Crosscheck or 27" bikes, and Axle Road for road bikes with short reach brakes. The Axle models still require a solid axle front wheel (bolt on, not quick release, not allen key skewers) as mounting heavy cargo on a skewer is a bad scene waiting to happen.

I also now have three different crown attachment systems so any kind of brakes (even Paul's Racers) can be easily accommodated.

Hopefully I'll have more pictures up on the gallery at the website soon, but peep these for now.

Oh, and I recently took a delivery on a pallet, so now I'm legit.

Oregon Manifest

Been busy and haven't updated in a while, but hopefully I'll be better about putting new news up here.





So... I had a booth at the Oregon Manifest show way back in October and it was a blast. I figured since I make cargo racks I should definitely bring my booth to the show on a bike. That's a lot of stuff to haul on a rack so I made a trailer out of my booth instead.


Once I got to the show I felt totally outclassed but then realized these folks have been doing this for years and by the time I got set up I felt just fine about my display. And it worked! I sold a few racks, met a bunch of builders and suppliers, ate pozole, drank beer, wore suspenders...oh, and did the builders lap at the Cross Crusade race on my rack bike in my safety glasses and welding gloves.

I have a really cool job.