I-ROBOT
Active member
WOW This thread seemed to take on a life of its own! Somebody asked for my perspective but I don't think I can offer much that hasn't already been said one way or another. Obviously when Fat City hit its stride, mountain bikes were still "the latest and greatest". From what started out for me as just a part-time job, became a labor of love, blood, sweat, and tears. My focus was to be the best welder in the industry. I couldn't concern myself with the business side of things since that was not my area. To me, Chris Chance's biggest mistake was staying in Somerville when he had an opportunity to move the company to someplace outside of the city. He leased space in a big crappy building (Linden St.) that was ill-suited to bike manufacturing - especially on the scale we were. I know that Somerville was made into the "lore" but, to me, it held no great significance. The spirit and will of the employees to make the best bikes was much more important than the location.
I'm not surprised to hear that the NY guys thought our fixtures were no good. We built as much as we could as cheaply as we could. If they had better tooling, than that's the way it was. When Somerville was going down, Serotta came in and interviewed everyone. They did make me an offer, but with a two-year old, moving to South Glens Falls (with a pay cut) was not an option. By the time Somerville was done, bike frame welding had reached the end for me and I knew I had to find something different. I was lucky enough to walk into a much better paying job inspecting and welding at a small family-run company that built biotech manufacturing equipment - and knew how to make serious money doing it. Enough so that they attracted the attention of ITT in 2001 and sold out to them - and then beat their sorry asses at their own game and forced ITT out after cashing their lottery ticket.
As far as IF goes, I'm glad they have lasted as long as they have. I liked Lloyd and I wish him the best. If it was me, I would go to Newmarket in a heartbeat. It's a really nice town, close to Portsmouth on the coast, Manchester to the west, and Boston is only an hour away. I wouldn't work in Brockton no matter how much you offered me.
It seems like there is a lot more competition in the high-end market that has probably shrunk considerably due to the economy. When we lost the lucrative West German market to re-unification, the effect was much the same as the financial woes of today, at least as far as I can tell.
Scott
I'm not surprised to hear that the NY guys thought our fixtures were no good. We built as much as we could as cheaply as we could. If they had better tooling, than that's the way it was. When Somerville was going down, Serotta came in and interviewed everyone. They did make me an offer, but with a two-year old, moving to South Glens Falls (with a pay cut) was not an option. By the time Somerville was done, bike frame welding had reached the end for me and I knew I had to find something different. I was lucky enough to walk into a much better paying job inspecting and welding at a small family-run company that built biotech manufacturing equipment - and knew how to make serious money doing it. Enough so that they attracted the attention of ITT in 2001 and sold out to them - and then beat their sorry asses at their own game and forced ITT out after cashing their lottery ticket.
As far as IF goes, I'm glad they have lasted as long as they have. I liked Lloyd and I wish him the best. If it was me, I would go to Newmarket in a heartbeat. It's a really nice town, close to Portsmouth on the coast, Manchester to the west, and Boston is only an hour away. I wouldn't work in Brockton no matter how much you offered me.
It seems like there is a lot more competition in the high-end market that has probably shrunk considerably due to the economy. When we lost the lucrative West German market to re-unification, the effect was much the same as the financial woes of today, at least as far as I can tell.
Scott
) or even walking (nice in the summer). If I was at IF right now and was faced with having to get to Brockton from someplace like Everett every day, there's no way I could do that. There's just no good way to get there and back without 2 hours of traffic and/or tolls.
