if lance didn't ride a trek?

[996vtwin]

I have worked at shops and I work in the industry now....big deal.

you said "quality no better than the rest".....maybe thats true, but their guarantee may be better than the rest.

That my friend is a load of **** bull.

 

[jhuskey]

Trek is no better than Giant or specialized the exact same its just since Lance they have to spend more on Marketing and that mean higher sticker price. All of this OCLV b*llsh*t is a load of ****. I personally owned a Trek Madone and hated it the day everyone in my peleton was riding one. I distinctly remember even a lower al model carrying the same paint scheme as my 5200, how dumb is that. I have since bought a Ti bike and then a Pinarello and Trek's quality cannot is grotesque in comparison. Treks are for loosers, they are ugly as hell and just that name TREK is enough for me to barf.

IMO after Lance leaves Trek will go bankrupt.

Bankrupt? Want to wager a bet?

 

[frenchcycling]

If you're going to lecture us with big words, learn how to spell them. What exactly is your point in comparing the TCR1 and the Pilot 5.2? They're two different types of bikes.

minor mispellings don't chance a word's meaning. sorry.

 

[DannoXYZ]

I rode Trek bikes decades before Lance was around. At that time, they provided a great performance value for the money. I had a 770 which as a great steel frame, providing comparable performance to high-end custom Italian Columbus bikes for 1/3rd the price. It also had the best crit-geometry I could find with a 38.1" wheelbase.

Then I got a Carbonframes the year before Lemond started using them. It was definitely a great bike, especially at 1/4th the price of a Kestrel. But after Lemond started using them, the price rocketed 600% and when he bought the design, its price-to-performance ratio simply wasn't worth it.

The OCLV definitely brought CF bikes in at a value-performance level for most people. Now that Trek owns the Carbonframes technology, I'm sure it's been combined with the OCLV for the most optimum configuration, however, the price has skyrocketed in the past 5 years with Lance's noteriety. So Trek does appear to be a bit on the high-price side of things for what you get.

Giant has now taken the market-position of a value performer that Trek once occupied.

 

[rooman]

if lance and the discovery team didn't ride trek bikes, would anyone buy their road bikes simply on quality?

NO !

anyone can get far better quality (fit, performance, comfort, handling, longevity, stability, build, and correct geometry ) from properly designed custom frames( made to the rider's professionally fitted physiology/needs) by custom makers and some mass producers ( mainly in Italy).
Price is the only consideration to buy any mass production bike...performance and quality are not in their products, just marketing hype by makers and LBS's to suck money from buyers based on (seemingly) their bikes used by some winners...remember Armstrong once rode a Lightspeed painted as a Trek in a TT...and since then, what else has he ridden, we will never know unless "secret bike"business" reveals it.......for instance in this year's TdeF, four of the davitamon-lotto team rode bikes built for them by other than Ridley, plus Merckx rode his dad's bike and it has been said that Robbie McEwen's bike was built by Eddie Merckx and/or Greg LeMond, but painted to look like Ridley's...don't always believe the corporate promo's that the sponspored riders actually use the product!...there's a lot of smoke out there, so there's gotta be some flames OK!

Trek cannot and does not build bikes used by its pro's the same as they sell in the shops, no matter what they choose to say in their press releases and promos....Trek cannot offer you the geometry of the pro's bikes, they cannot produce quantities of bikes with the seat tube angles, the head tube angles and chain stay lengths necesary to deliver the elite riders the performance necessary at break neck speeds of the Tour deFrance....and then offer that same geometry to the public....standard treks are too unstable in those conditions by the elite pro's and would be tossed into the first ditch.....but for the genral public they are the result of mass production of mass tube output and standard geometry, a product of the great hoodwink perpetrated by all mass produced bike makers ( Giant, Specialised, Cannondale, AND Trek, and a heap of other bike makers around the globe...including Avanti, Learsport, Cervello....)

Even on the track, the bike claimed to be the best in the world by many ( The BT) is one of the worst handling bikes around for any rider over 5 feet 10 and 180lbs, they are too small, they cannot deliver the full wattage of a powerfull rider and they certainly cannot be modified to give correct postition....because they have bad geometry...they have a reputation because some great riders have used them, but it wasnt the bikes which won, it was the rider and their skill and ability, they could have done it on a steel track frame just the same, just use good wheels and bearings.

eye candy is often very unpalatable....

* end of rant*

IMHO buy a custom and ride properly, happily and for ever...ride anything else and suffer the pain of injury , irritatingly suspicious performance and a bruised ego

 

[imslayer]

trek are awesome

 

[IronDonut]

Trek bikes seems to break a lot. Gary Fisher (Trek brand) mountain bikes as far as I can tell if you ride them a lot have a near 100% frame failure rate.

But they do stand behind their warrenty.

But at the same time I'd rather just have a bike that didn't break in the first place. So I gave up on Trek a while ago.

I have worked at shops and I work in the industry now....big deal.

you said "quality no better than the rest".....maybe thats true, but their guarantee may be better than the rest.

 

[IronDonut]

Do you guys sell Gary Fisher too? Holy ****... I've never seen so many frame failures in my life. As if the chain suck wasn't bad enough...

Doesn't look like the OCLV holds up that well on mountain bikes either.

The reason I don't ride a Trek has nothing to do with their quality. I just preferred the look and ride of my LeMond, heck, with the component package I may as well have gotten a Trek. I am sure that Lance/US Postal have had alot to do with Trek's sales, ala Nike and Jordan. Marketing does, indeed drive sales. You said yourself that their quality is no better than other brands, but no worse. I guess people who buy the other brands buy on quality alone?.....I say "poppycock!"

 

[IronDonut]

Lance was right it's not about the bike. With road bikes, the bike doesn't really matter much. Any decent bike that fits you will be just as fast as any other.

I see this play itself out on every group ride I go on. I go on a local interval / hill climb ride that a a Trek shop puts on every week. Me and another guy beat the ever living hell out of everyone else on the ride. He rides almost 20lb Lemond and I ride a old Ti Sports frame from the 1980s with modern components. Despite all the ******** that the shop owner talks about OCLV-bling, bottom bracket stiffness, whippy-old-Ti, blah blah blah not one bit of it matters. If it did I wouldn't end up lapping 2 or 3 Trek Madones every time out. Or spanking that brand new $8000 Colnogo...

The local road racer ride same thing played out a shitload of the highest end hardware made off the back and some guy on a shitty old probably 6lb steel frame from the 1970s finished with the pack.

You spend $2000 on any road bike and it's going to be just as fast (or slow) as any other road bike. Above $2000 and you can double, triple the price of the bike and only receive fractions of a percent of performance improvement.

Finally someone who admits it. No one will not win a race or do worse than their buddies on a decent frame (steel, carbon, alu, unobtainium) with a mid-level groupset (generic japanese stuff or Campagnolo Veloce or Centaur).

All the rest comes down to our egos. And I ride Chorus.

 

[IronDonut]

You know. Thats a good move. It's never a bad option to go with a hand build bike from a small shop that really cares about the quality of their product.

Ironically, I might be getting a Hab Team Ti soon.

 

[astroluc]

Here is my opinion... I dont think anyone would have bought a Trek road bike if it weren't for Lance. And I'll tell you why...

Before Lance won his first Tour, no one really cared about cycling. The main thing was mountain biking, that was the huge bicycling trend of that time. If it didn't have front shocks, no one wanted it.

After Lance won his first Tour, people noticed. But when he won his second, consumers wanted to be Lance Armstrong. And since Lance is an American riding an American bike, well Trek started selling, big. Basically, when people started to shop for their first bike, they had never heard of any of the other brands and knew the name Trek because of Lance.

This still happens today. I've had many people come into a bike shop and ask specifically for Trek because "Lance rides it". People go crazy for Lance products, take for example this new "10/2" craze. In my opinion who cares, why doesnt he have a shirt with the date he divorced his wife to be with Sheryl Crow (I know, low blow but funny, haha.)

Now that Lance is gone from cycling, unless another American wins, I don't think cycling in the States will be as popular as before. Sales will go down, and Trek will lose money.

I remember the day when Bianchi was the end all be all, Cannondale was a relative upstart (opposed to the European companies), Mtn. biking was still only slightly more than an unexpressed itch in all but the niches where it was growing, and Greg LeMond was the name in cycling... I first heard of Trek because VW was giving one away free with every Jetta purchase... pre Lance, but a good marketing ploy. At that time American bikes were Cannondale for road, Specialized for Mtn; Schwinn was still a player, and I was a mere 18 yrs. old...

this is just my experience, yours may be different. I am not saying anything bad about Trek (they are good bikes, for all I know) since I have never ridden one. just my $.02

 

[996vtwin]

Lance was right it's not about the bike. With road bikes, the bike doesn't really matter much. Any decent bike that fits you will be just as fast as any other.

I see this play itself out on every group ride I go on. I go on a local interval / hill climb ride that a a Trek shop puts on every week. Me and another guy beat the ever living hell out of everyone else on the ride. He rides almost 20lb Lemond and I ride a old Ti Sports frame from the 1980s with modern components. Despite all the ******** that the shop owner talks about OCLV-bling, bottom bracket stiffness, whippy-old-Ti, blah blah blah not one bit of it matters. If it did I wouldn't end up lapping 2 or 3 Trek Madones every time out. Or spanking that brand new $8000 Colnogo...

The local road racer ride same thing played out a shitload of the highest end hardware made off the back and some guy on a shitty old probably 6lb steel frame from the 1970s finished with the pack.

You spend $2000 on any road bike and it's going to be just as fast (or slow) as any other road bike. Above $2000 and you can double, triple the price of the bike and only receive fractions of a percent of performance improvement.

jUST because you beat a bunch of tired old cat 5 bags dont mean that we wont spank you in our $7000 euro machines. Your story means nothing!

 

[IronDonut]

You won't do ****. Because you are a *****.

jUST because you beat a bunch of tired old cat 5 bags dont mean that we wont spank you in our $7000 euro machines. Your story means nothing!

 

[rooman]

You won't do ****. Because you are a *****.

well said...

a bike wont make a better rider, but will certainly make a better rider bad...look at what happened to Basso and Rassmussen in the ITT stage 20 TdeF this year, their bikes were shyte and it showed, both had lousey geometry, they couldnt descend, they were set up just to try and power pedal, well riding is a fcuk lot more than grinding hard.....Llance proved that, it is about smarts, smarts in your set up and smarts when you get on the bike.....

so get smart...set up properly on a bike that fits...not some bling bling eye candy that is all promise to your ego and nothing more.....

then get smart when you ride, save energy, use your skills and the bike will serve you well to deliver the results.....

forget production bikes...get a fit, get smart, then ride smart

 

[baj32161]

I origninally posted this question. Most people here seem to have cognative issues with their responses. THe rhetorical question was asked in several posts, "would Lance ride a bike that wasn;t the best?" that is upsurd. when you have an entire company behind you (ie you are their posterboy), u will have a bike that works with your body to perfection (or near perfection) such as the ttx, sl and the madone, which i remind you ARE ALL THE HIGHEST END BIKES. When you go over $5000 bikes threshold, its more or less six eggs in one basket a half dozen in another, or in other words the differences between bikes gets smaller and smaller. Second, it is easier to comprehend my argument when you use extreams. Lets say that Armstrong was riding a K-mart bike. I believe that many americans would go and buy k-mart bikes. Now don;t jump in my face. I know that trek bikes are very far from k-mark bikes. However, the price/benefit or the cost/quality ratios for trek are far too steep. A comparibly priced giant model would be noticably less expensive.

I think that it is time for the empty congectures to end. Lets see a little evidence to back up your "oh-so-reliable" personal experiances. Lets take $4000. you can get a full composite bike with carbon fsa cranks that is, the trc composite 1 ( http://www.giant-bicycle.com/us/030.000.000/030.000.000.asp?model=11161) for $2,900. With trek 3,000 can get you a pilot 5.2 with an ultegra TRIPLE (http://www2.trekbikes.com/Bikes/Road/Performance_Road/Pilot/Pilot_5.2/index.php). don;t worry you can 3 racers, this bike promises a "more upright riding position" so that when your go for a leasurly 5 miler around the block ur back won;t start to hurt from an unconfortable (normal) riding position.

And lastly, don;t use a straw man argument, insulting me personally by calling me a "tool" or what not, it simply makes you look silly and more importantly, it takes away from ur already lacking arguments.

You may be right about personally attacks looking silly. I, for one, try very hard not to do that....and I hope I didn't here.

But as far as looking silly....if I were you, I would invest in spellcheck or maybe brush up on my grammar....cognative = cognitive, wasn;t = wasn't, upsurd = absurd, extreams = extremes, don;t = don't, won;t = won't, noticably = noticeably, congectures = conjectures, experiances = experiences and leasurly = leisurely. I will give you ur as an AOLese your.

Hey...you brought up looking silly.

 

[baj32161]

Do you guys sell Gary Fisher too? Holy ****... I've never seen so many frame failures in my life. As if the chain suck wasn't bad enough...

Doesn't look like the OCLV holds up that well on mountain bikes either.[/QUOTE

Ummmm...where in my post did you get any idea that I was a bike salesman? There is nothnig quite like telling someone that they bought a piece of **** with their hard earned money.

 

[frenchcycling]

wow this is a popular post. i feel proud.

 

[996vtwin]

You won't do ****. Because you are a *****.

My bike cost 7000k and I know ill drop your ass so what you gonna do....lifes a *****!

 

[TrekDedicated]

My bike cost 7000k and I know ill drop your ass so what you gonna do....lifes a *****!

Hmmmm... weird... My last bike race I beat lots of guys with bikes in the 3000 grand + range, meanwhile, my Trek 1500, which cost me a grand, and I beat them all..

I guess, the rider is much more important than the bike unless you're basically a pro.

cheers!

 

[996vtwin]

Hmmmm... weird... My last bike race I beat lots of guys with bikes in the 3000 grand + range, meanwhile, my Trek 1500, which cost me a grand, and I beat them all..

I guess, the rider is much more important than the bike unless you're basically a pro.

cheers!

Ok really this is how it is. Have you ever seen sheep in a herd grzing in a pasture? All the sheep look the same, in my group of 50 riders 35 of them ride Treks. Some are blue some are red but all are ugly and COMMON! I dont give a **** what I ride but make no mistake half of the peleton will NOT be riding my exact bike. I feel great and original not only with bikes but withe everthing in life. If you feel good being just another white sheep in the herd well kudos for all of you.