15 November, 2010

Still More Nice Bikes and a Few Notes

Nice Bikes
  • One of our Japanese customers sent us a link to his blog that describes his building-up a VO Rando frame. The build is super as is that flashlight and holder. I love blogs like this.
  • Here's a flicker set about installing a Grand Cru crankset.
  • How about this tandem that's based on am old Gitane frame. I like the linked VO chainguards.
  • In case you missed them, check the comments section in this recent post for more links to pics of cool bikes.
Notes
  • Prices for Japanese products continue to rise along with the value of the Yen. If you need Nitto, Honjo, Ostrich, or Sugino products, it might be wise to buy them sooner rather than waiting until Spring. Would that make you a currency speculator?
  • We're occasionally asked if any VO products are made in China. One of our bottle cages is. About 90 percent of our products are made in Taiwan. A few are still manufactured in Japan, the USA, or various other places.
  • Some of our products are being stocked by Quality Bike Parts, or QBP, the worlds largest bike parts distributor. So over 4000 bike shops now have access to them.

12 comments:

  1. how much are your VO battle cages?

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  2. Is there a single ring grand cru crankset on the way soon?

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  3. There is a GC 50.4bcd single ring crank going into production this month. We might see them here by mid-winter

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  4. I want one of those flashlight rigs.

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  5. What single ring sizes will be offered in the 50.4bcd?

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  6. why not post the country of origin? i would happily buy objects made in places with decent labor standards.

    otherwise, how am i to know what i can trust here?

    thank you.

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  7. Great news about the single ring 50.4 crank! It'll go great on the Polyvalent frame I ordered over the weekend. What size rings will be available?

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  8. We'll probably have 46 rings to start, maybe 44 & 48 later

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  9. The VO bike on the Japanese blog looks really nice. the blogger has lots of neat entries there.

    Does anyone else find it odd that a customer in Japan is buying parts made in Asia, shipped 6000 or so miles to the East coast of the USA, and then schlepped 1/2 way around the world BACK to Asia ? Just doesn't seem very efficient or economical to me.

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  10. The Minnehaha bags are made in China. They are bit vague about it and as I see it they designed their tags so the the selling shops price tag would cover the "made in China". They are fairly nice bags and the fact that they are made in China doesn't mean sweat shop labor, but I'm with erik I'd appreciate if VO would post the country of origin for all the informed buyers.

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  11. Brooks bags are also made in China. They really hide the tags on those.

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  12. it seems pretty obvious to me where Minnehaha makes their bags. They state it on their website:
    http://www.minnehahabags.com/where-are-your-bags-made/

    And it's on their packaging too. Minnehaha are not hiding anything.
    Is it 'designed to be covered up by the retailer with a price tag'? That seems a bit hyperbolic.

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