1st time bike buyer

"jon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi all. Im looking to buy a new mountain bike. I think Ive made my decision to get specialized's
hard rock sport:

specialized.comSBCBkModel.jspOpen ↗ qd6fv.j27004

Quoted message said:

Anyway, the stores here have it listed at $329. I was wondering how much "haggling" is typically
done? What would be the expected price to pay? Its an '04. Thanks!

This is a lousy time to haggle for an '04. You could do well haggling for an '03 right now though.
For an '04, if the store is anxious to sell or has a lot of them, you'll be lucky to get 10% off
without too much argument. I wouldn't expect any more at this time of year for an '04. You could get
20% off an '03 without much argument though if you can find one. Try not to stick it to your LBS
though. Find an average price and go to the LBS you like best and ask them to match the average if
they're above. If the shop does good service, it's worth a little more, believe me. Incidentally,
that's a nice entry-level bike. It will work well-enough for most riding, even serious off-road (if
assembled well at a good shop!!).

Cheers,

Scott..

thanks for the quick reply! All my LBS's seem nice🙂 ofcourse, i AM the customer as of right now, so
it only make sense. Anyway, it would seem that my local mom and pop bike shops don keep any bikes
really on hand. just maybe one or two of each model, so its hard for me to find an '03, though I
would certainly go for that. Im not trying to start a holy war, but, the difference between
specialized, giant, and trek == ford, chevy, dodge? The hard rock sport, seems to be in the same
price class as the trek 4100. Any major differences? Thanks again all!

Quoted message said:

This is a lousy time to haggle for an '04. You could do

well haggling

Quoted message said:

for an '03 right now though. For an '04, if the store is anxious to sell or has a lot of them,
you'll be lucky to get 10% off without too much argument. I wouldn't expect any more at this time
of year for an '04. You could get 20% off an '03 without much argument though if you can find one.
Try not to stick it to your LBS though. Find an average price and go to the LBS you like best and
ask them to match the average if they're above. If the shop does good service, it's worth a little
more, believe me. Incidentally, that's a nice entry-level bike. It will work well-enough for most
riding, even serious off-road (if assembled well at a good shop!!).

Cheers,

Scott..

Quoted message said:

Hi all. Im looking to buy a new mountain bike. I think Ive made my
decision to get specialized's hard rock sport:

specialized.comSBCBkModel.jspOpen ↗ qd6fv.j27004

Quoted message said:

Anyway, the stores here have it listed at $329. I was wondering how much "haggling" is typically
done? What would be the expected price to pay? Its an '04. Thanks!

Jon: The biggest differences between the shops won't be the price, but rather the service provided
(how well they help you figure out the right type of bike, assembly quality, willingness to change
things to accomplish the right fit, and after-sale service). Those will vary greatly from shop to
shop, and the tough part will sometimes be in sorting out the rhetoric from reality. It's easy to
*say* something, but the only thing that's relevant is how they actually perform.

In many cases, the best "deal" will be had from shops that are entirely unwilling to haggle on
price, because they place an unwavering value on the services they provide. They know they're going
to do whatever it takes to keep your bike out of the garage, and, if they're setting up a $400 bike
the way some shops do, they're actually losing money on each one (the break-even point for some
shops is around $500-$600, based on the amount of time allowed for assembly, fitting, after-sale
service, and the relatively-slim margins offered by many major brands).

This is not to say that you won't come across a shop that both haggles and does a great job. But in
our case, our intent is to do a great job with every single bike we sell (in terms of selecting the
right bike, fit, assembly, after-sale service etc), and in a possibly-misguided sense of fairness,
have one price for everyone, regardless of how much they want to haggle. If we could sell a bike
profitably for less money, we'd do so for everyone, not just the haggler. But that's our business
model, and I accept that it works great for some, and not for others.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles chainreactionbicycles.comchainreactionbicycles.comOpen ↗

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

thanks for the quick reply! All my LBS's seem nice🙂 ofcourse, i AM the customer as of right now,
so it only make sense. Anyway, it would seem that my local mom and pop bike shops don keep any
bikes really on hand. just maybe one or two of each model, so its hard for me to find an '03,
though I would certainly go for that. Im not trying to start a holy war, but, the difference
between specialized, giant, and trek == ford, chevy, dodge?

Pretty much.

Quoted message said:

The hard rock sport, seems to be in the same price class as the trek 4100. Any major differences?
Thanks again all!

Make sure you ride them if you can find the models you are interested in. The most important point
is that they feel comfortable to ride. In that price range there's little functional difference in
quality between the different manufacturers.

....

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