Travis said:Bleve said:That's understandable, but still, I'd strongly suggest that you never
buy a roady (or any expensive bike) without a testride. If the LBS is
going to carry these bikes, then they should be prepared to take the
risk on them. That's why you pay the LBS a premium on what you could
get the same bike from online, for example. As long as you're upfront
about it with the shop then they should be ok with it. In WA you may be
a little limited with your shopping around choices, but still, it's
their problem, not yours.
What Perth bike shops have the best range of road bikes?
I dunno Travis, I'm in Melbourne 🙂
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Its a typical mid-priced bike, aluminium frame and carbon forks,
Shimano 105 10sp crank and gears. The MASI was on special though as a
new brand they wanted to promote, it cost about $700 less than the Trek
1400 which was supposedly "equivalent".
So it's about $1300? That means the frame amd fork is almost free.
$1,399 actually.
Its this model: http://www.masibikes.com/cycles/nuova_strada.php
Quoted message said:Ie:it's very cheaply made.
Is that a given, even if we're comparing an undiscounted Trek at full
RRP against a new brand which supposedly is being sold at a very
advantageous price as an introductory special?
The groupset, if it's full 105 (and it probably isn't, it probably has
a 105 rear mech and the rest is other stuff) is quite expensive, even
to manufacturers, and so are wheels and other bits & pieces. For a
bike to retail at $1400, and the LBS to make a couple of hundred out of
it (at least, or it's not worth having in the shop), you can do the
sums. The frame will have cost almost nothing to make, which means it's
churned out of some huge factory in Taiwan or China (not that there's a
problem with that) in a hurry.
Quoted message said:Unless its some tightly guarded secret, what sort of markup is there
between wholesale and RRP on bikes like this?
Depends on the LBS, but usually at least 3-4 hundred unless the shop is
trying to dump stuff in a hurry. The markup tends to be bigger on more
expensive bikes for obvious reasons. Oddly, there is a very *small*
markup on high end helmets, a lot less than you'd think anyway. LBS's
get a pretty steep price from Shimano for stuff too, but the markup on
stuff like tyres, tubes etc is pretty steep, but yuo have to sell a
-lot- of tyres to pay the rent on the shop.
Here's a tip on negociating a deal with an LBS. They're usually
reluctant to move much on the price of a bike itself (maybe 10%
discount off RRP in most cases) but will usually , if pushed, throw in
a lot of other stuff with it. By pushing, I mean being indecisive, not
being a pain in the [censored]! Eg: free seatbags, bottle cages etc, big
discounts on entry-level helmets and so on. That's because the bits
are pretty cheap, and the markup big, so giving you a $55 helmet (RRP)
only costs the shop maybe $20 and gives you a better feeling of having
gotten a good/special deal, wheras if they lop $50 off the bike price,
it costs them $50 and you won't remember that in a month.
"think like a bike shop, grasshopper" 🙂
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:That's not necesarily a problem, but you should be aware of it.
They're probably carrying this brand to catch the "I want a
105/Ultegra/D-A bike and don't care about the frame" buyers. There's a
lot of them around. IMO, that's completely the wrong way to buy a
bike, but a lot of people buy on groupset. Giant are particularly good
at this end of the market at the moment (anyone remember Shogun? 🙂 ),
but stocking Giant sucks as a LBS, because everyone just buys them on
price and there's always an LBS somewhere trying to dump them, so
flogging them off cheap. We're doing the cheap but good groupset thing
by carrying Inexa bikes. We were doing Raceline (apollo), but they got
too expensive for their quality level, as much as a Trek, but no Trek
.... Like Giant, the low end Inexa's are pretty awful (vague handling,
odd behaviour on descents etc), but the top end ones are ok, and
they're cheap. The MASI's are probably the same sort of deal.
Which Giants are worth getting?
My opinion? None of 'em. But, lots of people here are quite happy with
theirs (including some people I coach, so I have to be careful 🙂 ) The
high end Giants are very good bikes, but for the same money you can get
a superb bike.Actually, that's not strictly speaking true, the entry
level Giants are, for the price, bloody good bikes. But, they *are*
cheap and a lot of compromises get made to make a bike that cheap.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:What wheels does it have? What other corners have they cut?
According to the MASI site...
Hubset / Wheelset Alex DA22 Aero 32h Rims; Formula 32h cassette hubs
w/ alloy QR; stainless spokes radial front/ X3 rear
Ok, they're reasonable wheels, nothing fancy, but not Shimano R500's or
anything really awful!
Quoted message said:Tires Vittoria Zaffiro 23c wire bead
They're ok.
I'd not base any bike purchasing decision on the tyres or seat that it
ships with, both are trivially easy to replace and both will wear out
(the tyres in particular) reasonably soon.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Quoted message said:The LBS by the way was a Bike Force. In WA at least Bike force are the
exclusive distributors of Trek, and now they do MASI as well.
Another bike I looked at today which I really liked the look of (partly
the lines, and partly because it was a bright yellow colour that I
really liked) was a Merida Road 904-20. (This was in another shop, not
a bike force). It also was very competitively priced and cost a lot
less than the "equivalent" Trek.
Any opinions on Merida?
They've been around for a few years (remember a lifetime warranty isn't
much use if the company no longer exists!), but I've never ridden one.
What does your backside say about it? Testride ... testride ...
And this is the Merida model:
http://www.merida.com/s0_global/main_control.php?group0=bikes&group1=roadrace&bikeId=63
Testride it ...
And tootle on down to Ideal and testride their stuff too. Testride,
testride, testride ...
Even take a Shogun for a testride, and if you can, a Huffy, if K-mart
will let you 🙂 (I'm only half serious here 🙂 ) Sounds like Ideal
don't like Trek much (Steve's reference to lance wannabes duly noted).
Don't take their word for it, test ride one and see if you can tell the
difference. You're looking to spend serious money (>$1000) so you owe
it to yourself to find out for yourself what feels good under your bum.