Turner goes non-horst...
- Thread starter Sherpa
- Start date
Where did you hear that? I've always heard that it was this guy named Horst Leitner and SPecialized.snowskilz said:
DT was working for horst leitner at AMP research while he(horst) was developing it....someone correct me if i'm wrongRepack said:
yeah, honestly i think the industry could use less ellsworths and more turners...I think you get value for your dollar with turner, and nice graphics with ellsworthless.
I've been torn about this whole thing. The XC bikes won't matter, but I have no interest in a 6" travel bike from turner anymore. I'm sure that, if anybody, Turner can do the 4bar right, but I already know I'm not a fan, so I'm not gonna waste my time. I'd buy a six pot or RFX though.
Of course, there's the lawill patent, which nobody is using, and I know works....
I've been torn about this whole thing. The XC bikes won't matter, but I have no interest in a 6" travel bike from turner anymore. I'm sure that, if anybody, Turner can do the 4bar right, but I already know I'm not a fan, so I'm not gonna waste my time. I'd buy a six pot or RFX though.
Of course, there's the lawill patent, which nobody is using, and I know works....
but as far as I know they only have the DH bike in the works.
FYI, the costs for royalties are listed on Nicolai's web site. Its much lower than you guys think.
That is what I had heard. Horst sold the patents to Specialized b/c Specialized wanted to continue to use the design and both parties were sick of it being illegally copied. GT dropped FSR after S started to enforce the patent b/c they couldn't exactly go around making frames with one of their chief rivals stickers on it. It wasn't about the $ so much as recognition/ not being ripped off.atrokz said:
huh. $13.95usd per frame.atrokz said:
It's true that patent protection is often about preventing copycat designs as much as it is about making money. But honestly, given how tight margins are in the bike industry, $14 per frame is nothing to sneeze at. Multiply that by the number of frames and it adds up pretty quick, especially for a relatively small company. Plus specialized gets non-cash benefits in the form of customer recognition, etc.
Let's say Turner sells 1,200 frames per year excluding the DHR, that's almsot $17,000 in royalties that go off to the big ugly S. That's half of somebody's salary. $14 per frame doesn't sound like that much until you start adding it up.
Exactly right. As well, there are no costs tied to that $17000 unless you wanna stretch it and say lost revenue from possible sales of S or TE bikes.James | Go-Ride said:
Raise the price of a bike $14, would anyone even blink? Or even the price of a shock, or spring, for that matter...James | Go-Ride said:
Of course, who knows how much the Ells royalties were? In the end, it probably wasn't about the money. But a lot of crow to eat when you admit you can't tell the difference between chainstay and seatstay links. And that the location of the link was just about keeping derailleur slap to a minimum.
That's not really the point, now they can raise the price of the bike $14 or drop it $14 or do whatever they want and don't have to write a check to another bike company. I'm not saying I have some sort of inside knowledge as to what exactly happened, but if I owned a boutique frame company, I would rather not have to send money to another competing mfg every month because of the location of my pivots.sbabuser said:Raise the price of a bike $14, would anyone even blink? Or even the price of a shock, or spring, for that matter...
Of course, who knows how much the Ells royalties were? In the end, it probably wasn't about the money. But a lot of crow to eat when you admit you can't tell the difference between chainstay and seatstay links. And that the location of the link was just about keeping derailleur slap to a minimum.
Yeah, what James said. And better to eat crow now and move forward independently than to keep paying fees and be subject to license agreement restrictions.
For a company like Turner to have to kow tow to Ellsworth seems reason enough.