I live on a small island in the middle of the Pacific. There are only two bike shops here; one carries Giant the other Cannondale. But the head mechanic at Hornet sports was incredibly supportive when I ordered the Soma. I was amused at the amount of positive comments the bike received as I was in the shop while they were doing the assembly. Maybe it was just that the bike looked a lot different than the average Giant carbon frame bike. I say this because it seems that several years ago if you brought a very nice old-steel bike into a shop they sneered at you and tried to tell you how much faster you'd be on something else. (Often times they had to tell me that on the sales floor because they could catch me on an actual ride)
I think that things are definitely changing I don't know if Rivendell is the cause of that of if it just a normal market cycle. People like something different. After all, all carbon bike pretty much look alike. I would bet that many are actually the same frame from the same factory with different decals. But I also think there may have been a bit of over reach with things like integrated seatpost and such. I refuse to pay 8K for a bike that I have to throw away after a bad crash. This goes beyond the supposed repair-ability of lugged frames. If you have to worry about a bike after accidentally dropping it down the stairs how can you say the frame is strong enough to be safe? On Sunday, May 19, 2013 9:24:48 AM UTC+10, PeterG wrote: > > My wife had to go out of town for the week. Bored, I decided that I would > spend the day riding my Hillborne and then visit a few local bike shops and > see what's selling out there these days. I haven't really been to many bike > shops in the last couple of years (Rivendell has been my "go-to" place for > most all my cycling needs lately). I ended up visiting three shops here in > Reno, NV. I felt like I was in a weird sort of parallel universe. All of > the stores had their racks filled with carbon race bikes with the > handlebars wayyyy below the seats. When I asked to see bikes where i could > get my handlebars at or above the seat I was told at each store that they > don't make them that way... unless I was interested in a beach cruiser type > bike (single speed). It was explained to me that people want to go fast on > road bikes, so they need to be hunched down to prevent wind drag. When I > asked about seeing steel frame bikes, all of the salesmen told me that > steel bikes haven't been made in years.. .....WOW! At the last stop I made, > a young kid that worked there (maybe 19 years old) whispered to me that > there was a local shop that did indeed sell two steel bikes, gunnars and > surly's....but he couldn't remember the name of the store. Not sure if that > is true or not, but I give the kid credit for at least trying (his boss > tried to sell me a cervelo race bike two sizes too small for $7900 for > weekend solo riding). Is Reno an anomaly or is this happening everywhere? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en-US. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
