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Moveable fortress

We’ve got a new workshop! It has been an amazing year in Hackney Downs Studios and it’s been a real pleasure to be surrounded by such great businesses and lovely people but we’re making the moved to Islington (posh, I know).

We came upon a garage in N7 a few months ago - not the cool kind of garage, more like a parking space with four walls and no roof. The original plan was to just build a roof, but then we had a new idea and the container project was born.

First we wanted to drop a shipping container in the space, but with only an inch space on either side the crane guys weren't so keen. While we were trying to persuade them we came across another idea - the self-assembly container. The rest of the story is better described in pictures, but needless to say we had a pretty serious workout.

A rant.

A warning before you begin reading this. It’s what Kanye West would call a “visionary stream of consciousness”, but what most of us would call a nonsensical rant. Consider yourselves warned.

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There’s this email you get a lot as a small business (big businesses might get them too, but I wouldn't know about that). Its title varies, but it generally sounds something like: “Collaboration proposal” or “We’d love to work with you”.

Doesn’t that sound fun? Someone wants to work with you! They’ve heard about what you do and they’re keen to team up. The content of the email goes something like this:

Dear *insert business name*,

We here at Amalgamated Consolidated Incorporated are big fans of what you guys do. We really love the new angle you’re bringing to the industry and the way you’re turning heads out there on social media. We’ve got a really exciting proposal for how we might be able to work together - we’re running an event soon which is going to generate loads of buzz, especially on social media, and loads of really important press are going to be there. We need some *insert what your business makes* to deck out the place and we obviously immediately thought of yours. We were wondering if you’d be able to make us a few for us to show off and then give away in the prize draw at the end of the night. As I mentioned, there are going to be loads of press and influencers there so it should be amazing promotion for you guys!

Let me know what you think,

Johnny McGhee

These words vary from time to time, but there are three common features:

1) The compliment about what you do, with an emphasis on the fact that they personally know your business [swoon!] and have taken an interest in it

2) At least 2 mentions of the relative social and conventional media coverage of their specified event/giveaway/whatever

3) Zero mention of the price of what they are asking for. After all, they wouldn’t want you to think they’re going to pay for it.

There’s an episode of the classic BBC comedy Coupling in which they introduce a character called Captain Subtext to cut through the rubbish of what people say to one another to get to the truth. Let’s put him to work:

Hi guys,

Despite our sizeable event budget we’d like you to provide your service for free and in return some people will put it on Instagram and Snapchat. One or two people may even tell their mate about your service, but they probably won’t remember its name due to the fact that it is a minor sideshow in a wider event/mailout/whatever.

Cheers,

Resident blagger

I get what you’re thinking. Stop being such a grumpy git, James. All businesses need promotion and this is an easy way of getting it without spending money. Except it isn't. First things first - in our particular case a bicycle costs a lot to build. Our raw costs represent well over half the RRP of the bicycle. Secondly - even if your service doesn't comprise physical components like ours does - there is absolutely no difference in my mind in giving something physical for free and giving them your time for free. Entire enormous businesses have only human skill as their capital, and they are no more or less valuable than those that churn out millions of tonnes of widgets.

To the people out there who ask for these things I say this: Think very, very hard about whether what you’re offering in return realistically equates to what you are asking for. If you’re not sure, the answer is almost definitely a resounding “no”. Do not insult people by valuing their service at “50 likes on Instagram”. I get that PR agencies value media coverage in a way that makes getting a mention in the Sunday Times sound like it’s worth tens of thousands of pounds. But you, I and they all know that those calculations are utter balls.

To the people making the things being asked for: Politely decline. If they actually like what you do they’ll pay your for it like everyone else. If they don’t, then rest safe in the knowledge that what you do is worth something, in every sense. Both for business reasons and for your self-esteem it just doesn’t work. Journalists are not morons. They will write about what they want to write about and being invited to an event in which your widget is sitting in the corner with a small label is not the way to get their attention.

We’ve been told it since we were teenagers - Never give it away for free. What you do has value, probably far greater than you realise, and the sooner you treat it that way the better.

p.s. more on Captain Subtext here: http://killerfrog.com/videos/coupling---captain-subtext/cushions-8113.html

Petrol crisis

That title is a bit misleading. I only mean to say, with a heavy heart, that we have nearly run out of petrol frames. As ever we won’t be replacing them so if this is the colour you need in your life then I’d get on it. The large frames have gone, we’ve got a couple of smalls and about five mediums left. On past form they’ll all be gone in just over a month.

‘I’m proud that my business doesn’t scale’

This is an article I wrote for the current issue of Courier magazine. It's a free, quarterly magazine/newspaper about modern businesses and is way, way more interesting than that description makes it sound - http://courierpaper.com/

" Hi, my name’s James and my business doesn’t scale. I’ve got another declaration to make up front – one many small business owners will be familiar with – I abuse pronouns on our website, in our emails, in the general conversation about our business. The business of which I speak is Kennedy City Bicycles, and it’s essentially a one man band. Well, I do see my partner Florence as very much a part of it, but then again she has her own business too (Petalon Flowers).

When I started the business I was a bit defensive about the solitude. I thought people might want to feel like their bicycle is being designed by a phalanx of industrial designers with pencils behind their ears and hewn out of metal by large men resembling Wolverine. But the longer I’ve done this, the more I’ve realised the scale of my business is actually a virtue. I meet the customers, I talk to them about what they need. I agree a design with them, build the bicycle and then service it later down the line. There is beauty in that personal interaction. My customers can say ‘James made this’.

I’ve been lucky enough that remaining small is a choice rather than a necessity. The business is premised on being a manufacturer that sells direct to customers. The reality is that our competitors are so big that I couldn’t hope to compete with them for price when it’s like for like. Instead I take out the 40% margin for Evans or Cycle Surgery, and as a result our bicycles smash theirs’ out of the park.

Many people have got to this stage before and the next step is well trodden: you start selling through distributors in way higher numbers. But despite the economies of scale these numbers achieve, one of two sacrifices have to be made in order to fulfil someone else’s margin: either the price goes up or the quality of the components goes down. Or both. What you are left with is a situation where you’re selling twice as many bicycles for slightly less profit each time but making more money overall. Theoretically the volume you can produce becomes limitless.

But who cares? You were already making enough money and you get to do what you love doing all day. You were lucky enough to have persuaded people to pay you for doing what you’d be doing in your spare time anyway. Why would you possibly give that up?

We’ve long since known Benjamin Franklin was full of shit when he said that hard work is a virtue in and of itself. We’ve realised that working 15 hour days is not the route to happiness. And surely we understand that when we’ve chosen to do something for a living that it was that thing that we chose to do, not managing other people doing it. But we are so entrenched in our ideas of what “success” is that we can’t poke our heads out of our holes and see what will really make us happy and do that.

Choosing to be small doesn’t mean a lack of ambition, it’s just a different ambition. My ambition isn’t to make my business the biggest ever. It’s to do the best job I can possibly do, to make my customers as happy as I can and to make the people I love proud of me and what I’ve made. I believe the best way to do all of those things is to stay small, making Kennedy City Bicycles a business that doesn’t – and won’t – scale. Whether it’s in their business plans or just in their imagination, I’d encourage others to consider the idea that success isn’t all about size. It doesn’t even have to have anything to do with it. "

Crunch.

Just before Christmas we moved in to a new space, a railway arch in Hackney Downs. It's a glorious place but needed a bit more effort than we realised! We're about there now, but there was a bit of a nasty set-back early on. You see we fitted a steel bar to the roof to hang our frames from. But the fixings used to attach this frame turned out not to be sufficiently strong and as the frames mounted up they eventually snapped, allowing many frames to hit the concrete floor from about 6 feet.

The result is quite a few scratched frames. None of them have any structural damage, but they do have superficial scratches. We've stuck them on the website with 10% or more off. Maybe it's the universe's way of telling us off for not having a January sale. Either way, there are bargains there to be enjoyed:

kennedycitybicycles.cc/marked-frame-sale

CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas everyone. We're off now for a couple of weeks, returning in our new studio on the 5th of January.

Here's to our being 1 and a half years old, to having had a barely believable 2014 and to another year of fun and laughter. We've got all sorts of new stuff coming up which we'll be announcing soon. Thanks for all your support and for taking an interest in what we do.

Have a restful break and we'll see you soon.

Chrimbo.

Tomorrow morning will herald the beginning of December. As a result we're officially allowed to talk about Christmas.

We're one and a half years old right about now and last Christmas all we had to offer was our bicycles, but this year we've got a whole lot more.

We've already taken orders for plenty of Hövdings for those looking to keep a loved one safe and stylish. Our backpacks are still working their way from the sewing floor in South London on to people's backs and we've got a great new addition to go with them - our saddlebags will be on the website tomorrow. Made by the same hands as our backpacks in Brixton they are also made of waxed canvas with a waterproof inner lining. Their leather straps fasten to the under side of pretty much any saddle under the sun and their practical sizing makes them sleek and unobtrusive while still able to easily carry a decent sized waterproof, puncture repair kit and the essential phone/wallet/keys combination. They look great with one of our bicycles, but we won't hold it against you if you get them for someone who hasn't made that great decision.

They're all available at kennedycitybicycles.cc/accessories

Merry Christmas guys, hope the holidays treat you well.

NEWS UPDATE

It's all go at Kennedy towers.

Today we received our full stock of frames for the next 5 months. Finally. The next few weeks will mostly be spent catching up building bicycles for our dear and patient customers.

But we'll also be sparing some times for other things:

We're very, very close to finishing our saddle bag prototype. What I can tell you is that it'll fix to the bottom/rear of the saddle and provide a bit of extra storage for all those who don't want to carry bits and pieces on their backs or in pockets. It'll be made of waxed cotton (like our rucksacks) and it'll be bloody beautiful.

We're also working on another storage solution. Much like the saddle bag it'll be beautiful, practical and made right here in the UK, but that's about where the similarities stop. It'll be on the front of the bicycle and it'll be made of steel rather than waxed cotton. No more clues.

It's a busy month ahead so we're also in the process of ordering our next set of frames. Which means a new colour or maybe two. They won't be around for about 5/6 months, but if anyone has any suggestions for colours they think would look particularly beautiful we're all ears - [email protected]

That's it for now. Stay classy guys.

Ta ta teal

Time to say goodbye to our good friend teal. The timing may seem odd, bearing in mind we've literally only just managed to capture this colour properly on camera so as to give it an accurate representation on our site, but the world moves in mysterious ways (much like the blue/green colour balance of the teal frame).

As I write this we've got one small teal frame, one medium (it's marked, get in touch if you're interested in a cheeky discount) and three larges. After they go this badboy is gone forever.

We'll miss you old friend.

The King is dead. Long live the King

I've just had confirmation from customs. Our first few frames in two new colours arrive tomorrow so that we can photograph them and get them up on the site.

Maroon and Pewter (names subject to change) will sit alongside Black and Teal as our four frame options. Cream and Mustard showed us a great time, but all good things must come to an end.

I thought I'd take the time to explain our frame colour policy. The plan is to always try to have either 3 or 4 frame colours available. Choice is great, but too much choice is shit, so it seems a good level.

We don't get rid of any of our frames because we don't like them any more. It's not their fault; it's ours. It's purely a recency thing. As our first frames cream and mustard are the first to go. Next will be teal. We've already run out of medium teal frames and won't be restocking them. I'm expecting the smalls and larges to be gone in the next two months.

After that? Who knows. I might have to crack out a colour wheel and work out which angles we haven't mined yet, but suggestions are always welcome (especially if there are pictures/example of the frames to illustrate how great they look) to [email protected]

Tyred.

A big part of what we do is weighing up what represents value for money. The price of our bicycles is a key part of what we do, and while we'd like to be able to spend the world on every component the reality is that we have to keep the cost under a certain point to pay the rent.

Over the last year our costs have actually increased. We introduced better tyres, security bolts and improved the wheels significantly, all without raising our retail price.

With regard to those better tyres, we've been fitting the Schwalbe Lugano, a fine tyre, for nearly 6 months now and they are excellent. However, we think we can go even better.

One of our biggest bug bears with the market as it stood before we started was the pittance spent by bike brands on the tyres a bike came with. So many people we knew immediately had to swap them out since they weren't up to the job, and we were so keen to avoid this that we spent around 2-3 times what our competitors did on tyres. But as I said, we're going to go even better.

As of next week we'll be fitting our bicycles with the Panracer PT tyre. Made in Japan, the PT in these badboys' name stands for "Puncture Technology' - we've done the research, we've talked to a lot of people who've used them for a long time and the long and short of it is that these things are The Shit.

However, this awesomeness is reflected in their price. The RRP for these tyres is £50 for the pair. That's a lot. For context, of the two brands we are most often compared to, one spends under a fiver and the other under a tenner on tyres. Remarkably some of the more budget options spend even less. To us this is madness, there is nothing worse than buying a new bicycle and immediately slipping around and getting punctures, or that sensation that you've bought something that isn't quite ready yet. 500-odd quid is a lot of money and it should get you a lot of bicycle.

So we've made a tough decision, we're switching to the Panracers. Sadly this means we'll also have to raise our price a little to reflect the improvements we've made over the last year. Don't worry, it's only a tenner, and the instalments options will remain exactly the same price.

I won't have time to change all the payment buttons until next week though, so feel free to sneak in in the mean time and buy a bicycle at the old price with the new tyres.

Here's to awesome tyres and doing the best you possibly can with the money available.

#kennedycitybicycles #singlespeed #cycling #tyres #noseriouslyhowarewegoingtomakeanymoneyifwekeepdoingthis

Birthday!

A year ago we launched this lovely business with the following words:

"This business will strive to create the best bicycles it can for the lowest price it can afford to, and it will do it while remaining as personal as humanly possible. The big boys in our playground have a lot of advantages- their margins are more than twice as big, their economies of scale are greater, they’ve got the old relationships with the right people and they’ve got the big marketing budgets. But we’ve got advantages too- we’re nimble, we’re passionate, we’ve got a great product and most of all we’d rather go bust than make crap bikes. In that epic speech in Any Given Sunday Al Pacino’s character says that in any fight it’s the guy who’s willing to die who’s going to win. Well that’s us, so bring it on.

Today we start pedalling along a long road. It’s going to be both brutal and massively rewarding, hopefully more of the latter than the former. If we go bust then that’s just fine, but if we do so and we haven’t put more people on bicycles, loving riding the city streets like we do, then we will have truly failed."

A year on I like to think we've stayed pretty true to those principles. It has been an amazing 12 months in which we've had the pleasure of meeting some amazing people and businesses. We've also sold some bicycles.

So here's to another year, putting more people on bicycles on the city streets, and here's to meeting some more amazing people.

#birthday

Alan Shearer and Jonny Wilkinson

When I was a kid, despite being an ardent rugby player and supporter, I loved Alan Shearer. Maybe it was because I loved rugby so much that I rated him so much - powerful, direct, he just didn't fuck about. The other thing I loved about Big Al was that he retired while still being a damned good sportsman, much like my (and so many others') rugby hero - Jonny Wilkinson.

We're really low on our cream and mustard frames now. At the time of writing we've got 1 large mustard, a few mediums and no small ones. For the cream we've got 3 smalls left, that's it. We aren't replacing them.

Some people have been a bit upset about this. Some to a surprisingly emotional extent (my wife is included in this latter group).

"But why stop them when they're selling so well?"

Ask Alan and Jonny. Always better to finish on a high than to wait until you're dragging your creaky body around the lower divisions.

Plus, there are two new colours coming mid-August, so it isn't all bad...

#AlanShearer #JonnyWilkinson #Wilko #goingoutonahigh

Dear diary,

Dear diary, it has been far too long and I apologise for that, but to be honest we’ve been pretty busy.

On a personal note, we got married. The wedding and honeymoon made May a bit of a write-off, but we came back with a bang a couple of weeks ago and June has been a bit mad.

We had a lovely write-up in this month’s edition of Monocle:

Shortlist said nice things about us too. We particularly enjoyed being described as “a lot of bike for your money”. We particularly disliked being called “Fixies” (we’re not, and we don’t make them, even if people ask really nicely).

Our bag collaboration with Dereks came out. This little beauty:

-is made of waxed canvas, making is tough as nuts

-has a roll top, making is hugely water resistant (we’re not supposed to say “waterproof”, but it basically is

-doesn’t have a piece of plastic in sight, it’s all leather, brass and copper

-has a reflective label, which is practical but also technically makes it “cycle safety gear” and therefore covered by cycle to work schemes. A coincidence, I assure you ;)

Hovdings continue to fly off the shelf, making us very very happy. We’ve got great faith in these things, and it’s awesome to be putting people on the roads in something safer than the conventional cycle helmet.

Last of all, we’re coming up on our 1st birthday (it’s the 30th, in case you want to send us a card). We’ll put together a more poignant, soppy and meaningful post nearer the time.

xoxo

#kennedycitybicycles #cycling #singlespeed #adrianmole

Bike the strike

Tonight another tube strike begins in London. It will run from 9pm tonight (Monday 28th April) for 48 hours.

Last time this happened I was massively encouraged by the number of extra cyclists on London's roads. Much like the Skyride or that Prudential thing in the summer it got people out on the roads on two wheels who wouldn't normally be there, and as far as I'm concerned that can only be a good thing.

So to do our bit we're offering out our display bicycles for all of Tuesday. You can borrow one for free. First come, first served, from our workshop at 100 De Beauvoir Road in N1. If you know a Londoner in need, send them our way and save them from travel chaos.

#bikethestrike

#bikethestrike #cycling #london #ldn

Saying goodbye to the yellow spectrum for a while

One of the most brilliant and difficult things about having a small business is possibility. You sort of have the option of doing whatever you like, and for a slightly hyperactive person like me it can lead you along roads you possibly shouldn't go down.

This is most easily manifested for us in the colours of our frames.

"Wow! That colour would look amazing on one of our bicycles!" quickly leads you down a path of 100 colour combinations and what some might call "too much choice".

When we started out 9 months ago we had three frame colours - teal, cream and mustard. In December we added black to our arsenal. Having said we'd only do 3 colours at any one time we found ourselves up to 4, but quite pleased about it.

This morning we placed another frame order to arrive in the summer with a new couple of colours, but rather than moving up to 6 we've taken the decision, after several rather unscientific polls both online and in person, to allow our Mustard and Cream frames to run out.

We won't be discounting them, there's really no reason to - they both look awesome. Plus we don't want to be one of those companies that mindlessly employs "seasons" as a way of introducing systematic nonsensical discounts on "last year's model" whose only difference is in Pantone code.

The current status is that we have stock in both colours in all 3 sizes except the medium Cream. However, we don't have much of each, so if you're after a bright summery colour for your KCB you've probably got a month or so snap them up.

But hey, the new colours will be amazing too, so no rush.

#cycling #bike #bicycle #singlespeed #twospeed #frame #continouscirculationofbicyclecolours

Hövding

Last weekend we exhibited at Spin LDN, the urban bike show. More on that in a couple of days when I'll write our review of the event and the awesome people we met. In the mean time I'm going to focus on just one of the other exhibitors.

For the uninitiated - Hövding make airbags for cyclists. Their kit looks like a scarf/collar but contains over 200 electronic components which can detect when you crash your bicycle and inflate an airbag that surrounds your head.

I'm not going to waste my words hear describing it in a poorer level of detail than you can find on their site, or even better in this rather excellent and informative video:

You'll have guessed by now that we were sufficiently impressed by seeing them in the flesh that we are now one of the first stockists in the UK. Though that video has plenty of lovely graphic effects, I think a "James's eye view" of the Hövding is as impactful:

Hovding demo at spin

But you may well be aware of the price tag. £300. It's a lot, no doubt. But the more I think about it I think it presents decent value. I'm not going to try and convince you of that now, instead I'll just say that we're trying to make it as affordable as possible in two ways:

1) We'll be offering it on cycle to work schemes, so the price will be reduced by 40%, give or take, and paid over 12 months. So something like 15 quid a month.

2) We'll be offering it in instalments alongside a bicycle, with no markup whatsoever.

You may have guessed that today I started wearing one myself. Hövding all the way.

#hovding #cycling #airbag #helmet #cycle safety #bike #singlespeed #bloodyhellitsmagic

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