Most notably the fact that I am no longer offering TIG welded Jonny Cycles framesets.
I was offering TIG welded frames.
A description of the TIG welded frames from the old site:
I started this project in response to two questions:
1) Can you build me a track bike in time for next years race (or riding) season?
2) I love your bikes but can't afford one, is there any way you can offer a less expensive option?
3) Have you ever considered selling though a shop?
Unfortunatley building custom lugged steel bikes is very time consuming and thus takes allot of money and time. A basic lugged track frameset takes a minum of 20 hours shop time to get it out the door and to the painter. A track frameset with modified and polsihed stainless lugs can easily exceed 80 hours of work...so you can see it doesn't take to many orders to add up to a significant waiting list. The answer to the above two questions was always no...untill now.
I share my shopspace with two great resources:
Ahren Rogers - Among other things he's one of the best welders around
Zack Reilly - In adddion to working on his own frames (ZRcycles.com) he helps me out around the shop by mitering tubes and doing general prep work.
I decieded the three of us could work togeter to provide an addional Jonny Cycles frame option, TIG welded framesets.
All the design work and material selection is done by me.
Zack does all the mitering and prep-work
Ahren welds the main triangle
I do all the brazing (frame ends and fork)
To further save time and cost we use Spectrum Powderworks for paint
The end result is a superb quality track frameset ready for any velodrome or street. No skimping on materials or design, just using my resources to come up with a quicker (only 2-month wait!) and less expensive option.
The current situation at the shop has however changed. Ahren from Banjo cycles now keeps very busy building frames for Velo Orange, Boxdog bikes (in San Francisco), and Broadway Cycles (in Boston). Zack from ZR cycles has been keeping quite busy building lugged mountain bikes. I'm excited for both of them and happy to see them grow their respective businesses. I was then left with the options of:
1) Do some real promotion of the semi production TIG welded Jonny Cycles frames such that the order volume would justify hiring an employee to help with the production.
or
2) Drop the TIG welded option and focus on my lugged frames.
Since my normal made to order lugged frames have been quite well and my available time for other projects is fairly limited I decided to go with the tried and try option #2. It works, its what I love doing, and I'm not sure I'm up for expanding the business at this point in time.
