I am fairly price sensative, and I bought a Sam Hillborn after considering the Surly CC and LHT and many other options. For me, the decision came down to confidence in fitting. I needed to make a decision without the chance to test any of the bikes I was considering. Riv's abililty to give confident sizing advice based on one easily measured parameter, PBH, was worth the difference in price. At that time, Surly offered a vague chart of frame size by rider height, and I was in between a 56 and 58. I couldn't take the chance of putting $1xxx into something that might turn out not to fit. Riv's advice was confident, clear and right.
Besides that, the Sam was the only choice in my price range that had all the features on my list. I ended up buying a used frameset on this list and having it built by a shop in Maine which gave me incredibly reasonable prices on quite a fine build. Might not have been able to justify it otherwise. Turns out the frameset was first built up by Jim Thill. I still have a Hiawatha Cyclery decal on the bike. We work hard for our money. If we are lucky enough to have a bit extra to spend on a good quality bikes that's something to be thankful for l. We try to make the decisons that are right for us, given the (changing) preferences and (incomplete) information we have at the time. No way I'm spending $$ on a water bottle though. Riv sent me one for free with my last order. Actualy not even an order, a warrantee replacement of an inexpensive item which they shipped overseas, free, without me asking. That's worth something too. Quite a lot, actually. Jay -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
