Good morning,
In my mind the only hole in the market is for a good steel tourer at around £799-£999, a bit like a Raleigh Royal or Dawes Galaxy in their best versions.
However the only people who I could see being able to offer such a bike would be Boardman (
Halfords) or Van Rysel (
Decathlon). Trek used to offer the 520 and Specialized the Sequoia but they both seem to have disappeared suggesting that the market is pretty small.
Given this price range it would probably have to be generic 4130 Cr-Mo as Genesis do with Mjolnir, but possibly with a more generic label which doesn't suggest that the material is any more than it is.
The question in my mind is would the customer base accept a steel frame that doesn't have Reynolds or Columbus stickers, after all that is why we have Reynolds 520, a steel tube that hasn't seen the Reynolds building.
Yet if done well the new label could become as desired as the two mentioned brands, in the 1970s and pre the internet it was hard for many people to understand what something like 531 actually was, nowadays it is much easier.
Given the already existing retail base of Halfords and Decathlon they wouldn't need every size in every shop and they could offer racks and panniers as extras, somthing they already do to a degree.
If the, small in my mind, market could get over the base brand as Boardman managed to with their bikes initially they could easily have a long term good seller and unlike the "race" bikes there wouldn't be a need to change models yearly and offer discounts.
I suspect that the closer to £799 the better as at £999 you are getting close to offerings from SPA/SJS Cylces etc. But as a Carrera Vanquish still comes in under £500, £799 doesn't seem an unattainable retail price, especially if you expect to sell some extras as well.
I would be building the frames with external cable routing to allow for both D/T and STI/Bar End shifters. For me once you reach 9 speed the benefits of the extra sprockets starts to become negated by a reluctance to change gears with D/T, my Raleigh has moved from 8 speed D/T to 10 speed Di2 on the rear but still D/T front, the Di2 front mech doesn't seem to like my 600 series pre Ultegra chainset spacing.
Bye
Ian
