What do people in the SE think of the new Tomac bikes?

Mount Dora Cycles, if you want sales over unique factor I would suggest that you find a brand that is willing to hold bike demos at trails near you. For me, purchasing a new bike is a large undertaking and, due to the expense, I will not purchase a bike unless I can ride one in the size I need (either by borrowing a friend's or attending a demo).

Simply put, if you only have one model in one size than I will not purchase it unless it just happens to be the one I want and is also in my size. The reason is I want to be able to test drive the bike before I purchase it. However, having only one Tomac bike on your shop floor would not be a big an issue if Tomac is willing to haul a trailer full of Tomac bikes to a local trail so your customers can demo/test ride a few different models and sizes. Given the fact you will be the only dealer in hunreds of miles, it is unlikely that Tomac will make it to your area with their demo trailer.

No matter how great the brand, how nice the owners, how great their building/inspecting process is, if you cannot sell a few Tomacs a year than that single bike is taking up space and costing you money.

luckynumber9 said:

I'm getting the vibe you just want a tomac at dealer prices for yourself. can't say I blame you. if you said 'so people can take it out to the local trail and demo it" then i'd think differently. As much I'd like to say getting the "personal demo tomac" is a poor business practice, if I had just opened a shop I'd probably want to buy pimp new ride as well.

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I didn't see this comment earlier but no, the bike would not be for myself. I am not a huge mountain biker. I would order a medium frame to fit more riders. I just bought an old Zaskar for myself I plan on using for more of a commuter bike. When I said that I would take it to the trail, I meant for other people to use. I don't plan on letting someone take it from my shop out to a trail. Thanks for clearing up any confusion there. I'm not sure why you would think it's poor business practice to go out and let people try out the bike. I'm trying to support Tomac's comeback and getting their name out as much as I can. I'd love to see them attempt a road bike.

Schaars: The Demo day would be cool but I don't think Tomac is even doing that anywhere as of yet. I know one of my other brands, GT, is but haven't heard weather or not they plan on coming to my neck of the woods or not. I understand about trying a bike out before buying. I wouldn't expect anyone to buy a bike that expensive without trying it out.

Mount Dora Cycles said:

Tomac is designed and developed in America. Why the hatred towards "Chinese bikes" anyways? People will pay top dollar for a bike deserving it, not where it's made. I've seen people pay $8000 for a bike made in Taiwan and loved it.

I'm still straddling the fence on whether or not to carry them. The bikes are selling well in Colorado. Florida is the polar opposite of Colorado though.

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The problem people have with Tomac is not the brand recognition in that sense. The brand recognition they have is going out of business several times now. Each time, it's never John and Doug Bradbury's fault. The last time, they collected their paychecks from ABG, and we saw what kind of fiasco that was. They claimed in the beginning they had all this input, but then at the end, claimed they had no part in it. People don't trust the two. The company goes under every few years, lack of confidence in long-term support, and not much special in the designs. The market is very tight and there isn't that much going on there, to be honest, going beyond the questionable name.

People are afraid of Tomac going out of business again. Sure, they look good, but even going back to the Manitou frame days, Bradbury was designing nice looking frames that had many flaws.

People associate him also with Manitou during their really poor period as well. He just doesn't have lots of credibility in making or designing stuff properly. Sure, it will look good, perform ok for a bit, but then it will usually fail.

Regardless, I think it's kind of disingenuous to slap on a Tomac label on these things to get people interested based on the name. Maybe as a racer, he had something going on, but for bikes, he's an utter failure and blames everyone else for it. Put some other name on it, start from scratch, and let it stand on its own and be judged for being good or bad bikes, not simply bikes that have a racer's name on the downtube, and the false impression that he designs them, rather than just doing photoshoots with the line for catalogs.