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Serotta Cycles Busy Since Closing – Price Drops, Service Expansion & Private Label Building

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Serotta custom bicycles price dropped under new management

In the brief few weeks since Serotta Cycles announced they were closing, they’ve been rather busy restructuring the way they’re doing business. Blog posts on their own website and reports circulating around the Interwebs have them simultaneously increasing production of their own framesets and dropping prices, lowering refurbishing/refinishing pricing and making a move to boost private label frame manufacturing for others.

The contract manufacturing keeps the facility in Saratoga Springs, NY, humming along with most of the existing staff. CEO Bill Watkins and founder Ben Serotta have both left the company, but Patick O’Farrell will continue his 23-year tenure as director of operations under Divine Cycling Group’s oversight.

For their own frames, prices drop up to 20%. The Ottrott shown above goes from $7,195 down to $6,000, and all other models drop accordingly. Well, except the Fondo and Pronto. Somehow, those went up $5. If you already have a Serotta, or any other “high quality” brand, that needs a bit of touching up, they’ve reduced their repair and refinishing (aka repainting) services by 25%. Lead time is about two weeks.

All seem like smart business moves, and having another private label builder in the US to help other small and mid-sized brands keep things domestic seems like a good idea to us. Whether the Serotta brand retains the cache without Mr. Serotta behind it remains to be seen.

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Topmounter
Topmounter
11 years ago

Can they add a rear disc brake mount to my Ti road frame?

The Guy
The Guy
11 years ago

BOYCOTT

ludditecyclist
ludditecyclist
11 years ago

serottas prices have been all over the map. the ottrot was selling for a time 3/4 years back at about half the current price. serotta also did the one of the worst jobs i have ever seen with a fork recall, making customers wait 3 months or more for a new fork.

TheBiker
TheBiker
11 years ago

$6,000 for a mixed carbon and Ti is still pricey. Just check Serottas resale value. Very poor. Why will I go with a Serotta with company in turmoil versus a company that is quite busy and continue to hire in Seven Cycles? I don’t get it. I have both a Serotta and a Seven and Seven wins in my book.

eric
eric
11 years ago

a near 1200.00 drop on the Ottrott? really? maybe if Ben would have been more competitive with his pricing as well as newer technology with his bikes, he would still be in Saratoga Springs!

Brian
Brian
11 years ago

Really? 6k for a frame, and that’s a discounted price!? I’ve heard the doctor/dentist jokes about serotta before, but never realized how much they actually cost. They deserve to go out of business with prices like that

Ajax
Ajax
11 years ago

Still waaaaaaay tooooooo expensive.

I like companies that care about their customers and don’t just set so high a price that they are just price gouging rip off artists pretending to be a savior to US manufacturing. So, I say… hey Serotta, don’t let the door hit you in the rear on your way out.

bass pete
bass pete
11 years ago

thats kind of a sign of bad management, ” up the prices”.. however, it seems to be the way of the bike industry, 5 grand is a decent intermediate bike these days., most people don’t seem to care about price. Go look at the comments on the cervelo r5 page.. they are saying five grand is NOTHING. “a mere bargain. a bunch of madmen with a lot of credit card debt i bet

bin judgin
bin judgin
11 years ago

Seven bikes are beautiful

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