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.
