Argonaut Cycles

[John M]

With Argonaut thread on the main forum front page, I thought it might be time to bring this Smoked out thread back into the conversation. I looked through the new Argonaut website, which is really slick. The product looks great and I am sure the bikes ride well. I am curious to ask Ben about the investment costs up front in getting the new project to market and how long it will takes to recoup with what is by definition a low volume product.

[bfarver]

I'm really excited about the new bikes. I feel my approach to carbon is different than most, which is one of the things I'm most proud of. I feel Velocipede readers might appreciate what I'm trying to do, which is bring the great ride characteristics of steel to carbon. This forum has been a great resource for me in the past, and have found both friends and customers here. I hope I can give back by sharing some of what I've learned over the last few years.

In reference to John's question, that's something I'm happy to talk about over a beer, but not so much in a public forum. In short, though, the upfront investment was significant, but my process is now scaleable with little overhead, and the business model over all is much more sound than when I was doing one-off steel.

Thanks for the encouragement to re-ingage in this forum. I've been away for a while hard at work on the new bikes, and I'd love to answer any questions this group might have.