Tony Pereira goes long
Posted 24 June 2007 | Filed under Longtails, Portland
All the cool kids are doing it now. Proud owner Allan Folz brought this by the shop today, straight from Tony’s workshop. Truly stunning, and I got to ride it for three blocks. That’s not much to go on, but if it isn’t perfect I sure didn’t notice.
Um, while you’re checking out the Flickr photos, don’t miss Jonathan’s spectacular Portland Volcano Clown Bike Solstice Wedding photo set. I love this town.
June 26th, 2007 at 18:17
oh wow. Looks like the big dummy just got the boot. Did he mention the frame price?
June 26th, 2007 at 21:24
Howdy folks,
Been real exciting and real busy around here lately. I picked-up the long-tail Sunday afternoon. Monday evening my wife gave birth to our second. What a week! And it’s only Tuesday. :-)
Some of the details folks might be interested in: she weighs 9lbs, 0 oz and is… oh wait. The frame weighs 9.5 lbs; fork is 2.0 lbs. Built-up as seen above, but without the V-bars or bags she weighs 34.5 lbs. I didn’t specifically request the lightest possible build. I discussed that my typical uses would NOT be hauling the heaviest possible load. Rather a kid or two and a couple bags of groceries. Other than that, I left it to Tony and figured I’d see where the weight fell. I’m happy with it. The forks have a lot of beef, tandem blades and a double plated crown. That will be useful when and if I get around to Stoking this. And I could have easily saved weight there by going with mountain bike blades and a uni-crown, but like with a woman, it’s not how much it weighs, it’s where the weight is carried.
Also, the wheels are 48 spoke, 559 BSD. Rear hub spacing is 160mm, allowing a dishless wheel.
The ride is incredibly smooth and responsive. I haven’t done any loaded hauling yet so I have no idea how it will handle with 80 lbs of rug-rats and 40 lbs of groceries on back, but am looking forward to that day.
Overall, I told Tony I wanted a bike that was beautiful in an elegant way, something I could Stoke for my wife to haul kids and groceries, and light enough that I could use as a loaded tourer. Those are some conflicting goals, and Tony pulled it off. Particularly the elegance. Everytime I look at the bike I have to smile. The colors, the geometery, the brazing, it is all gorgeous. I have to say Tony is such a remarkable craftsman.
Concerning the Big Dummy, I just couldn’t get into it. It’s looks leave me cold. Yeah, I’m riding what should be the beginning of a college fund for my daughter, but as my brother says, “women are made for lovin’ and money’s made for spendin’.”
Again, I give kudos to Tony, and I recommend anyone similarly inclined to look him up. Thanks Tony!
June 27th, 2007 at 06:58
Is the frame price top secret?
June 27th, 2007 at 07:14
derek, it’s a 100% custom job, not a product with a price tag. contact tony if you wanna talk. you should be prepared to wait. it isn’t really fair i think to compare to big dummy. obviously the rear truss structure is, erm, inspired by surly’s design.
June 27th, 2007 at 08:52
Hey all,
Thanks for all the compliments. I’m pleased with how Allan’s bike came out, but I’ve got to say that it was quite an ordeal to make it happen. Without a proper fixture every single tube had to be creatively held during brazing. IF I were to build another of these I will take many of the lessons I learned into consideration. The price will be very high and it will take a long time to get it. Currently my wait for a “standard” frame is about 8 months. Longbike orders would fall into that same queue, but I would schedule a full month to build each one (that’s how long Allan’s took). If you are interested visit my site and drop me a line. Cheers — Tony
June 27th, 2007 at 19:14
Todd- I understand that it is a custom job, but it’s not a product and it doesn’t have a price tag? I don’t understand this business model :)
Obviously it’s going to be more expensive than a mass produced bike and from the look of it, well worth it. However, I’m sure that there are others who read this post and wondered what the ballpark cost was. I checked Tony’s site and saw the pricing for a regular frame and knowing the longtail frame would be more expensive was not turned off. It seems to be very nice work. It also seems more efficient to get an rough idea here(on a post that features the bike) than a bunch of people emailing Tony, many of who will balk at the price and have wasted his time.
I always appreciate clients who come to me and already know my pricing and therefore I make no secret about it on my site. People that come to me asking pricing are about a 20-30 percent booking rate, while people that know what I charge are more like a 90 percent booking rate. It’s annoying to me when I get asked pricing, when it is clearly shown on my site, but I do answer every email courteously – even when I’m fairly certain it won’t lead to anything. Which happens to bring me to Surly.
I am a bit turned off by them at the moment for not responding to some of my inquiries on the big dummy and they have probably lost my business because of it. The info may have been on their site somewhere and I probably should have checked a little more before I sent the email, but if you’re in a business you gotta put up with the morons(or lose their business if that is preferred) :)
It doesn’t sound like Tony is real excited about doing another one, so I’ll probably continue to look around. If I’m gonna spend that kind of dough on a custom bike, I want the builder to be a little more jazzed about it :) (If I misread your post Tony, I apologize)
June 27th, 2007 at 21:39
I don’t want to try to speak for Tony, or Todd for that matter, but the price is not meant to be top secret or anything like that. (It is not like Tony is going to ask someone’s zip code and quote based on that. As evidence his single bike prices are clearly posted at his web-site.) It is probably more accurate, to simply say he doesn’t know the price.
To come up with a price he’d have to sit down and figure how long the last one took. Then figure where and and how he could do things to speed up a second build. I know Tony would do that because he took a long time to carefully create a bid for me before we started. He wants to be as fair as possible to all his customers. And I suppose if a customer were of the mind where money did not matter and conveyed that to Tony with the instructions to quote a price based on exactly duplicating the first one, Tony would quickly oblige… but I reckon that would still take an email exchange.
Finally, I’d not read too much into Tony’s post… do you think Michelangelo was ready to quote prices two days after finishing the Sistine Chapel? ;-) But he did later sculpt Moses. So I’d say ask if you are inclined to.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:18
We’re all duly jealous now, so can we start arguing about weight?
34,5 pounds or 15,6kg is certainly very light for a cargo bike, but the dressing looks a little skimpy to me. How much does it weigh with the bags, and with lights and fenders/mudguards? Not forgetting the mudflap? The frame is a lovely colour and it would be a shame to let it get dirty.
If it comes in under 20 kilos fully dressed, I would be impressed. I understand similar bikes weigh closer to 30kg, so a savings of a third would be quite something.
June 29th, 2007 at 16:26
Derek, I think you read my post accurately. Cheers, Tony
July 8th, 2007 at 18:52
I haven’t seen this mentioned on anywhere, but I came across a longtail in the window of a Mtn View, CA coffeeshop the other day, and it is part of this prohect: http://www.projectrwanda.org/coffeebike.php
Looks like Tom Ritchey signed up to build longtails for coffee farmers in Rwanda to help their transport needs. The Xtracycle guys were working on this before as well, but it seems to be moribund.
July 8th, 2007 at 20:21
I mentioned Ritchey’s effort here: http://clevercycles.com/?p=155 . I wouldn’t describe the Xtracycle-spawned/affiliated efforts as moribund: http://worldbike.org/
July 9th, 2007 at 07:30
Craig Calfee is working on bamboo framed cargo bikes for African use.
http://duck-rabbit.ldeo.columbia.edu/bamboo/Home.html
July 9th, 2007 at 07:33
P.S. http://practicalaction.org/docs/technical_information_service/bicycles.pdf is worth a look too (in spite of the URL, it’s HTML not a PDF, PDF with more pictures is attached to that link).
July 9th, 2007 at 10:14
Sorry, my mistake. I had looked at the XAccess/Worldbike site a while ago and had not seen any recent activity. I also probably typed something wrong on the search terms when I looked for references to Ritchey’s project on your site.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:52
For those interested in more pictures of the Pereira long-tail, I’ve finally gotten around to posting some on flickr.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:51
There are more photos now at Tony’s site: http://www.pereiracycles.com/gallery/AllanF/
October 20th, 2007 at 14:13
[...] this Xtracycle compatible longtail frame for a customer. Thanks to Todd Fahrner for the photos and bloggage. I’m a big fan of the stays running from head tube to rear drop outs–seems like the [...]
March 21st, 2008 at 16:14
Wow! Beautiful and can transport loads of stuff. I believe this is the holy grail.
Kudos to Tony. What’s not to like.
March 22nd, 2008 at 14:38
I like it. Now, if only there were a production model along similar lines. (Yes, I know–Big Dummy; but it would be nice if there were a choice.)
March 23rd, 2008 at 21:19
I would also add that the very people who could most use something like that are the ones who could not afford a Big Dummy the equivalent.
If only Trek or Mongoose or even Schwinn or Huffey were to produce a longtail cargo bike! Granted nobody here would buy such a thing, but still, it would open up options for lots of people.