Well, Dia-Compe is openly selling the silver shifters to other vendors, so it's not like VO, Ben's or anyone are "stealing" them. I don't see them claiming to have designed or commissioned them, either, so I don't know what the problem is. If Riv didn't have an exclusive deal, or it expired, than that was part of the bargain they struck. Tektro doesn't sell 556 brakes as "the brake Rivendell asked us to make." I think VO recently asked Dia-Compe to re-make one of their "grand comp" centerpull brakes, and D-C agreed. When that brake shows up elsewhere, I wouldn't expect it to be called the "VO brake" or the "D- C brake commissioned by VO" or any other such thing.
I personally have never actually bought anything "made" by Rivendell - my Sam, Sackville, Mark's rack and MUSA stuff was all made by other companies, to Riv's spec. (Seems that a substantial part of the bike industry works this way, and everyone seems OK with it.) Some stuff is branded Rivendell or a Riv house brand, but the rack, for instance, is branded Nitto and is available from many other vendors. Maybe custom bikes are actually made there? I honestly don't know - never been to Riv HQ and I'm not in the market for a custom. I think it's great that more companies like Riv - VO, Soma, Herse, etc are getting great bike parts made (or re-made). The more the merrier, I say. -Pete On Feb 24, 3:11 pm, William <tapebu...@gmail.com> wrote: > I've bought two of the five "best sellers" and none of the five "worst > sellers". The thing I found interesting was the Silver Shifter story, > and that Riv shelled out the $9k for tooling. Other retailers sell > the Silver shifters, and all of them call them "Dia-Compe Silver > shifters" with no mention of Rivendell. Ben's Cycle sells them, > doesn't mention Rivendell, and copies verbatim Velo-Orange's > description of them. I wonder if Riv gets a royalty when VO or Ben's > sells a set of shifters, or if the $9k just gave them temporary > exclusivity with Dia Compe which has since expired. I have one set of > Silvers, and a stockpile of the original Suntours. It's a great > shifter design, and despite what Chris at VO says, I'd run suntours or > silvers over the Simplex/Mavic ones any day. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
