Originally Posted by bocobiking

Well, I see you found a nice steel bike, although you had to go to Europe for it from a little known company. I think I meant that walking into a normal American bicycle store, all you see are carbon and aluminum bikes. It seems impossible to find a steel road bike that is equal to, say, a Specialized Roubaix. For that, you need to find a small, non-mainstream company.

Which is what you did. However, the only “advantage” Fairlight has over Waterford is that its bikes are in set dimensions rather than custom. Fairlight wouldn’t work for me because I need a size 63cm bike. With Waterford, a person can deal with a local shop, which will then work with Waterford, an American company, who will then build him a custom steel bike, with a steel fork if he wants (I do).

Also with Waterford, I like being able to call them up at any time to talk to them about my bike. There is always a person there to answer the phone, something Fairlight apparently doesn’t have.

I don’t want to say that Waterford is better than Fairlight; I’m sure the latter builds as high a quality bike as the former. What I want to say is that one needs to go far afield to find a high quality steel frame, and that might mean going custom.

Back to my original reply to this thread about whether a person needs a custom bike: Sometimes he needs custom, not for any particular size, but because the dominant American market isn’t able or willing to supply the type of bike he wants.