2011 – The Year in Review.

Today is January 1^st, 2012 and it being cold and gray outside it seems like an ideal time to sit for a few minutes and reflect on the year 2011. So here are a few brief (or not so brief) thoughts in bulleted form –

• I doubt many would argue that 2011 was a great year. Many of my friends and customers have be experiencing hard times and this of course effected my business. I did have a number of folks who put down deposits in 2010 ask me to put them to the back of the line when I got to their spot in the queue. Who can blame them? — when things get tight a new handbuilt bike usually isn’t at the top of the priority list. That said it was a good year overall for Kirk Frameworks. Both deposits and deliveries were higher in 2011 than either of the two previous years and the business was solidly in the black. I have no complaints considering how many framebuilders closed shop and sold all their tools on eBay. I am truly fortunate and I thank all of my customers for making this possible. Seriously — thank you very much.
• The year 2011 saw a dramatic increase in overseas sales/deliveries for the business. I sent bikes to Belgium, Norway, Scotland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and Switzerland and of course a large number of bikes went to Taiwan. All tolled a solid 38% of my work went out of the country in 2011. A big thank you to all of my overseas customers who are happy to deal with the time differences, language barriers and shipping costs in order to ride one of my bikes. It means more than you know.
• I was proud to introduce a few new products and features this year. It was the first year of the JKS Classic and the JKS X. Both have been selling well and the first JKS X has been delivered to a happy customer. I love that bike. This was also the first full production year using the ‘new’ Triple F rear dropouts. I say ‘new’ because they have been in the works in my head for so long they seem anything but new. They have worked out extremely well and I’m very proud of the way they work and look. I think my entire design philosophy can be neatly wrapped up in their design.
• 2011 was the first year I brought my ‘Booth in a Box’ to the annual NAHBS event. After a number of years of packing and unpacking cardboard boxes to get stuff to the show I broke down and invested a huge amount of time into the crate that hold the goods and then opens to become the display. It was worth every minute of time invested to be able to hang the bikes on the wall of the booth at the end of the show, close the box and then not worry about it. Couple that with the fact that I really like the look and things are good.
• I ended up building a wide variety of bikes this year. Most of them were members of the JKS family but I also did a lot of Full Customs. I designed and built fixed gear road bikes, MRB’s, expedition touring bikes, sport bikes, bikes with smaller tubes for lighter riders and bigger tubes for heavier riders, bikes to work with Di2 and so many others. I love that there is nothing cookie cutter about them and that each is made for that rider and how they will use the bike. This keeps it fun and fresh for me after 22 years of framebuilding and many thousands of bikes. So thanks for thinking of different uses and asking me to help you.
• This was also the year I got back into racing my bike. In a previous life racing was almost all I did and at some point I lost my excitement and enjoyment of racing and stopped. Then I was hit by some health troubles and racing wasn’t something I could have done even if I was motivated to do so. But over the past two years I’ve slowly and carefully worked my way back into better health and with it came the desire to ride much more and do some racing. So after something like 15 years of not racing I entered a cross race here in Bozeman. The last cross race I did before this was in the mid 1980’s. I had a ball and very much look forward to continuing to ramp it up for next year and race a good bit more. In fact I’m building myself a new cross race bike for next year with some new features and it will be shown in my booth this year at NAHBS.
• As many of you probably know I work from home — I build my frames in ½ of my garage and split the room above the garage with Karin (she also works from home) as our home office. It works well but one thing that was really needed was more light and better ventilation — in both the shop and the office. So after nearly 8 years of having very little natural light in the shop during the winter months I now have 3 new huge windows and a garage door with windows. It no longer feels like a sweatshop and I can even tell if it’s light or dark outside! The photos show the new windows installed but still needing a bit of trim and paint. This will be done soon and I’ll move my bench across the room to these south-facing windows and bask in the flood of natural light. We have also added windows and skylights to the office above and now we’ll have much more light and cool fresh air up there in the summer. It used to get into the mid 90’s up there in the summer and you would just drip sweat onto your keyboard. Not good. But no longer.
• It was also a very active year for me with autocross racing. I’m a member of the Southwest Montana chapter of the SCCA and we host about 10-12 events a season here in Bozeman and about 1 ½ hours north of here in Helena MT. I had a very good season racing my Lotus Elise and this year took on the role of the main course designer for our events. This is a huge challenge and hugely rewarding I design the courses ahead of time on paper to scale and then set the courses the morning of the event. This means I’m usually the first one there on a cold Sunday morning setting up cones but I love it. The club seems OK with it as they keep asking me to do it — good by me.

I’ll bet that gives you more info than you really wanted or needed so I’ll wrap it up with what I expect from 2012 —

• I think we will see more electronic shifting systems and the firm move of disc brakes from MTBs to cross and then, in the next few years to high end road. I’m excited for all of it.
• I hope to get fitter and race more next year — mostly cross with a bit road and MTB tossed in.
• There will be a few new products and features offered this year and I’m excited for them. I don’t offer new stuff just for the sake of it and feel that anything new needs to offer something the old didn’t so I roll out the new stuff slowly. But some cool new stuff is in the works.
• I look forward to racing my car again this season and working to continually improve as a driver. Having a fast car is easy — being a fast driver is not.
• I will take a vacation this coming year. Last year it just never happened but this year I vow to make it happen. Maybe a visit back east to do some cross racing in the North East — that would be fun.

That’s all I got — thanks so much for a good 2011 and I look forward to an even better 2012.

Be well and Happy New Year.

Dave

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5 responses to “2011 – The Year in Review.”

1. Chris says:

   January 1, 2012 at 3:27 pm

   Thanks for the insight into what seems to me to be less a business than a manifestation of your personality. There’s real substance, innovation and optimism here, and I’ll be looking for that “cool new stuff” in the future. It doesn’t surprise me that I can’t think of too many other builders who are willing to share this much of themselves–perhaps there’s not much substance to share. I’m proud to be on the 2012 list and proud to support Kirk Frameworks.

2. Donny Roth says:

   January 1, 2012 at 6:31 pm

   Dave, keep your chin up; I’m sure 2012 will be a more productive year. Sheesh. Seriously, with all that going on, do you have to measure your age in something like “dog years?” As in, “Yeah, I’m 45 years old, but I call Yoda ‘junior.'” (And Yoda never rode ‘cross.)

3. dave crane says:

   January 2, 2012 at 7:06 am

   Dave,
   You got your health back, everything else is gravy!

4. Nai Shung Chang says:

   January 2, 2012 at 9:22 pm

   Dave Happy new year 2012

5. Bran Deditems says:

   January 4, 2012 at 9:11 pm

   Happy New Year Dave! More power to kirkframeworks.com and keep up the good blog. I am excited on how technology will change the way we ride our bikes. Peace.