WooLyWarm.com
Title
Welcome to Rivendell Bicycle Works Web Site
Description
Our business is often labeled this or that by journalists or internet pundits who understand a limited number of business models and want us to fit into one of them. Our business isn’t all that complicated, but a label can’t sum it up either, so I’ll try to do that in the next 900-or-so words.
We’re a twelve-person, twelve-year old bike company specializing in the kinds of bicycles and gear that must be behind or ahead of their time, because they aren’t all the rage these days. We sell some normal things you can get at any bike shop, but only when any alternatives would be awkward and no option at all would leave a gap—like brake cables, for instance. I don’t care what anybody says: There’s no doing without brake cables.
A lot of what we offer is made in Japan, and that’s unusual these days. With high labor costs and in a global economy, Japan has lost most of its export business in labor-intensive goods, because it can’t compete on price, and the highest component of price is labor. But when it comes to bicycle-things made of smooth & glistening metal, no other country can compete with Japan. From brass bells to lugged steel frames to aluminum handlebars with beautiful curves, luscious finishes, and engraved crests, Japan is at the top of the heap. It has to be, because that’s the only way it can compete in a price-obsessed world.
