It's sunny and 65 today in the Mid-Atlantic, prompting several of our customers to inquire, "when can I ride my new Wheelhouse / Max Perkins / RFSWs / FSWs / RFSCs?" A good question, to which we now have answers. This past week has faster than the first 5 laps at Clarendon Cup, but not only did we avoid getting dropped - we're actually in very good position. To wit:
- The rims for all the wheel orders arrive in DC on Monday.
- The hubs for the wheel orders arrive about a week later. The spokes we source from right here in the US so we can start building the wheels once the hubs arrive. This puts us about 7 days ahead of our original wheel schedule, which I believe to be awesome.
- The Wheelhouse frames just came out of production the other day and are in boxes ready for shipment. We're filing all the shipping and customs paperwork now. Once done, the frames will be on their way across the Pacific. It could be by today, if not then early next week. We won't have an exact delivery date until the shipment is executed. When we do we'll communicate it here, and also the date by which we'll be able to deliver to customers.
- The gruppos and build kits for the Max Perkins bikes we get from a distributor here in the states. Some we have already and the rest we will pick up before the frames arrive so everything is ready. We've been monitoring inventory levels to watch for backorder situations so we can work around them. (There's a huge labor problem in China right now, which puts a lot of items in threat of backorder. Sure there are a billion workers, but there are almost as many factories. People leave for Chinese New Year and the factories have no idea who will come back and who will start at a better job at a different factory. This doesn't affect our frame or wheels because they're in Taiwan, but many of the other components by the brands you know are made in China.)
Overall, we're very pleased with the schedule and are on track with our original timetable. Our big fear was Chinese New Year - if we didn't have our products well into production by then, there could have been significant delays. But putting the order in by mid-November made all the difference for us, and we avoided the production bottlenecks many other brands will face. Hooray for us, and you.
We'll be notifying customers individually about the exact availability and delivery of their products. For the customers who bought complete bikes, we're lining up some build options so we can give you the option of taking a fully assembled bike. There will be an extra expense for the build for the customers who want it done, and of course anyone who wants to build themselves and save the money has that option.
For those of you who are not yet our customers, you can still buy a Wheelhouse, Max Perkins, FSW, RFSW or RFSC out of the arriving inventory.
As ever, contact us with any questions or craft beer suggestions.