rpenmanparker 

So 2X$300=$600. There should be a way to invest only a small part of that to get the group relayed to you by someone in another country that Ribble, Wiggle or Merlin still ships SRAM to. Maybe a "friend" from BF would do it for you.

dr_lha

Not in stock though.

I was basing the $250 number of Merlin's quoted $600 price tag. Of course, if they don't ship it to you, it's all moot.

quicktrigger

Not likely. If Shimano is dumb enough to do this, then MicroShift kills them both especially on the bread and butter lower to kid-levels. Then you got FSA, Box, and others entering the market as well, including one promising electronic shifting on all groupsets for ~$400. Then add to that Campy is not going to follow as I'm sure they would love to add market share. DUMB move by SRAM.

PepeM

I would think that Shimano's main source of revenue is pretty much every bike manufacturer out there using them for their stock bikes, not BF dwellers buying groupsets from abroad. Microshift won't be killing anyone.

quicktrigger

Ah, I was talking about in that market to begin with, and you make exactly the point that Shimano won't be following SRAM in this dumb move. OEM's are where they make the real profits, and they have no concern over the excess, because they still got paid. So this market is not important to Shimano, in which case there is no incentive for them to follow SRAM, or it's a market of concern, in which case Shimano can't follow SRAM as it opens things up for many other players. Oh, and how conveniently you ignore Campy, and everybody else.

So which is it? You can't pick and choose like you are trying to do. It's a dumb move by SRAM, that's all there is to it.

PepeM

I am not 'picking and choosing' anything. Also, I don't know what will actually happen, what with me not working for Shimano and everything. As to whether it is a 'dumb move' by Sram, I do not know, but I do trust the people that managed to build a very succesful company to know better how to run said company over some bitter person on the internet, but we'll have to wait for time to show whether they were right or wrong.

My comment on other companies following suit has more to do with the following: I think (but I do not know as I do not work in the cycling industry) that the current policies where people can buy stuff from abroad for less and bypass the local sources can't be too good for the relationship between the company and their partners within the country: distributors, bike shops, manufacturers, etc. More and more companies are not allowing this to happen anymore (of the top of my head Mavic, Tacx, Sidi, Sram. Pretty sure there are many others.) Hence, it wouldn't surprise me if other companies (such as Shimano) follow suit. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it; I like cheap stuff as much as anyone else out there. It just doesn't make much sense to me business-wise. I am certainly no business expert though and maybe this will be the demise of Sram et al. Doesn't matter much to me either way to be honest, so if I turn out to be 'wrong' I won't lose sleep over it.

quicktrigger

Personal attack=white flag of surrender!!!

WhyFi

Oh, and how conveniently you ignore everything else.

PepeM

Alright then.

quicktrigger

Bother to read the entire thread, and see what you think.

HINT: Why would Shimano help SRAM?

quicktrigger

BTW, if you think people won't continue to bypass, then all one has to do is look to how much is already being directly shipped from China. Think they are going to play along with the price gouging games? Remember, most of this stuff is made there anyway.

ljp3

I have never bought from them, are they bad?

HazeT

Expensive (Regular US price thought)... Their Force 22 price is as high as a Red 22 from Ribble/Merlin.
But, it seems that you can still buy from Ribble/Merlin. I just bought a mix componentry from the two without problems. For some reason Merlin blocked the shipping when trying to order from work but let it go through from home.

Ordered as follows:
Merlin
Red 22 Crankset
Red 22 Shifters
Red 22 Brakes
Ribble
Force 22 Front & Rear Derailleurs
Force 22 cassette
Wipperman Connex 11sp chain

Both went through and I already got all the tracking numbers from merlin.

Chandne

Alright, screw SRAM then. Has anyone been shopping Shimano on the UK sites? Any good leads on DA 9000 or 9100? I waited to save up some cash and their prices went up a few weeks ago.