Haro Partially got the Right Idea... Options

[PHIPPSIO]

The intent of this 30th Anniversary Freestyler was to make an EXACT replica of the original 1982 Freestyler. That is what the Project Manager Dom did. And he did a fine job at that! Even made in the USA by True Torch. Sure, if this was made in China, they could have lowered the cost. But the exact frameset from 1982 was made by Torker in Fullerton, CA. True Torch is in Santa Ana, CA - right down the road. I am glad he took the effort to have this built in the USA! And I am willing to pay for it.

I give kudos to Dom for making this as authentic as the original was. Seems like everyone was complaining about the old retros - 25th Anniv "Mirra 540", the 2007 Haro Sport retro and of course, the disasterous full HI TENSILE steel 2009 retro Freestyler (I still bought one). Haro got enough feedback that the last three retros they did were not liked by us fellow collectors, so they hired Dom (a collector and all over the boards and the man behind the Haro Registry) as the lead Haro historian to create the most authentic replica of the original 1982 Freestyler. This was really made for us collectors! That is why they only made 300. Haro wasn't out to sell thousands of these. We all know the geometry of the old bikes don't make sense for today's riding, so they knew "most" collectors would be happy to hang this on their wall and admire it - not to ride it.

Here's a pic of my 83 Freestyler:
(IMG:http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b386/saC99/Colo%20BBQ%202011/DSC_0639.jpg)

Thankyou...

[humidity saC]

What that's what they partially got WRONG... Some collectors RIDE THEIR BIKES and don't hang them on the wall. All of my vintage bmx bikes - I ride and try to do tricks on. But I don't do skateparks on them and throw the bike in a spill. I just do simple old school flatland tricks I never conquered. I'd like to do rolling flatland but I'm not talented at balancing.

My only retro Haro, - the 2006 Teal one, is a POSER bike that can't bunnyhop and was made to Mirra 540 geometry. Well, modern bmx bike geometry SUCKS as I can bunnyhop well on many of my oldschool bikes but my modern bmx bikes are terrible at bunnyhops.

I suggest for your next Haro Retro Project another frame and fork set, this time with complete front and rear brake 990 mounts. Maybe a 25th anniversary edition of the Teal 1988[?] Haro Master. Make them to original old school geometry and lightweight, as the Frame and Fork on my 2006 Retro is an overbuilt tank. And sell 1500 of them for about $450 a F &F set. BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE LIKE TO RIDE THEIR BIKES. Make them in China if you want to sell them cheap.

Is that what you are after - a 1988 Sport? There's plenty of them out there and you can probably pick up a frameset for $450 or less. Then maybe you can bunnyhop to your hearts content.

Bike brands can't just keep doing retro bikes and keep selling a ton of them. There is a threshold of how many you can sell to us collectors. Eventually, we're just going to have a basement full of retro bikes and not old school bikes. There are a lot of brands now selling some type of retro bike out there, and only us "40 somethings" are buying them. The kids of today don't want anything to do with them. So there is a limited market for the retros. And unfortunately, there are a lot of us 40 somethings that aren't in the shape we were back in the day and might ride the bike down the block, but aren't actually doing tricks on them. I am happy to say I am NOT one of them. I ride an 87 Sport for my rider and I also have an 87 Dyno Pro Compe that I built to the exact replica I had back in the day. Both get ridden on ground and ramps.

You have to understand the huge commitment of time, tooling, effort, enginerring it takes to make a retro, then market it and sell them. If these bikes don't sell fast at a good profit for the company, then it becomes a waste of resources that they could have used on other bikes or products that would sell well.

SE has had retros for a few years now and they've had them on closeout almost every year. (No offense meant to SE) So again, there is a REALLY limited market out there. No company wants to gamble on us old schoolers and then have a bunch of retros laying in the warehouse that they can't sell.

Seems like no matter what kind of retro or replica is made these days, there's always someone complaining about the geometry/brake set up/head tube size,BB version etc etc. They can't win. We collectors are all over the map about what we prefer and like in a bike. To each his own. If you don't like what the company is doing, don't buy it. But there is no need to go onto a blog and start whining about how they don't know what they're doing.

[The R]

My only retro Haro, - the 2006 Teal one, is a POSER bike that can't bunnyhop and was made to Mirra 540 geometry.

See, the trick here is that no bike can bunnyhop -- it's the rider on it that makes it do so.