AdamDeCurve wrote:Howdy all,
Adam from Curve Cycling.
Wow, hasn't this post gone crazy... thanks all for the comments, they give us great insight to see what people think of our brand. Ultimately it helps us understand how we can grow and develop our products, brand and messaging. The comments almost make us feel like celebrity
So to comment;
We have always been open about our "open mould" - especially because in forums like this, we know that we could not afford to lie about it.
It's pretty easy to see why we are compared to Far Sports, they have a strong online presence that ranks well on google and offer a very similar yet expanded range to what we do... sure, it annoys us that they exist, but so do many other similar agents, companies, websites and factories.
We get about 2-5 emails a week from agents and factories in Taiwan and China asking us to use their rims and wheels. They offer us products that look, on the surface, exactly like ours; DT Swiss, CX Ray 38mm or 50mm Rim. Whilst some are legitimate factories, many only claim so and are more or less agents selling products from "who knows where". We had to wade through all this stuff 5 years ago, but as we travelled over to Asia and tested our product back here in Oz, only then we could progress further and feel confident in bringing a good product to market.
Furthermore we have developed UCI approved rims - A significant investment for us, where our rims were independently tested and approved in Belgium, it was a long process that in some of our early tests, we failed. So we had to work out ways to get this right and this is a process that is exclusively ours, albeit in an open mould.
Agents do not invest in UCI approval and agents do not have a global liability insurance.
Yes, we are working on releasing more data, working on exclusive moulds and are also testing and developing other carbon wheel technologies. For the many that are enjoying Curve, thanks for the support. For the others watching from the sidelines, hopefully you will follow our journey and we will eventually satisfy you with a product that is worthy... feel free to tell us what that might be... we are listening.
Cheers
Adam
So, to summarise; you use open mould rims that you didn't design, and you get from a factory that also supplies some / all of the mainland Chinese sellers, like FarSports, Yeoleo, etc.
UCI approval; so you are listed on the UCI list then are you? With an open mould rim? Does that mean that anyone who uses this mould automatically gets UCI approval? I also thought that UCI approval was a whole wheel approval process, not just the rim...
Exclusive moulds; looking forward to seeing what this means.