mbe820

I'm thinking of getting into road cycling. And I've seen the all city zig zag online for about 2k, is this a good deal? Doesn't seem like there is much out there with 105 under 2k. What else should I look at, allez sport and the similar trek, giant, Cannondale comes in at about the same price with tiagra?

bargainguy

If you're working with a $2K budget for a midlevel bike, I think you're better off in the used market right now, where there are more deals available.

It's a strange retail situation right now. Shops are sitting on years of unsold inventory, but they really can't discount that much, so you're left paying top dollar for new and slightly less for 1 or 2 year old models.

At the same time, the used market is way down. As people sold off their pandemic bike purchases at firesale prices, prices dropped like a tank and have never recovered.

It wouldn't surprise me if you got a used deal with the frame you want and a better component group than 105 for less than your $2K budget.

mbe820

Where is the best place to do this? Craigslist/FB marketplace don't have anything near me. TPC is only stuff over 2k. Are bike blue book and pink bike legit?

Jrasero

I think this is a terrific deal. These were $2900 and I am seeing these for $1845 before tax or shipping.

While you could take a swing at the used market in my problem there are a couple downfalls in doing so. One, more than likely you don't get the original warranty because to my knowledge there are no bikes with transferable warranties and even if the original owner claims it never has been registered you will still need to show proof of purchase which clearly will not have your name on it. Second issue is for better or worse you don't know the actual mileage on an used bike since there are no odometers and even if the owner says they only did 5K miles on Strava that may or may not be true. The third aspect is you really don't know the true condition. You truly don't know if a used bikes PF bottom bracket is ****, if the calipers need facing, if the bike has been crashed, if there is a crack in the carbon, the exact chain/rotor/pad wear levels, how many miles more until the hydraulics need to be serviced, and how many miles on each tire. Now some of this stuff you can gauge by eye or if the owner is honest or really detail oriented they might have receipts for servicing their bike at a LBS or they might tell you they just serviced the bike, but again some of this is just in good faith. Also while I agree there are a lot of greta used bikes out there how many of them are in your size and the type of bike you want? I ride a 47cm-50cm road bike and if I search facebook with a 40 mile radius at a max $2300 budget yeah tons of bikes showup but most of them are not my size and are mountain bikes

Another option at or around the $2K mark would be the Trek Emonda ALR 5 which is more of a race bike and comes with 105 for $2300. Either one would be a great bike but IMO the All City is a better Endurance and even faux gravel bike while the Emonda is a much better road race bike. Both are pretty heavy since the Zig Zag is 20.5lbs stock and the Emonda is 19.92lbs. Both would greatly benefit from a carbon wheelset upgrade down the line with some TPU tubes

Koyote

That's a great deal for a very nice steel frame with cf fork and solid components. If you find the correct size, I would recommend that you not even bother looking at a used bike. When you buy new, you get dealer support and the confidence that there are no hidden problems with the bike.

mbe820

ok here is another question, would it be a jerk move to ask the LBS if they could do the same price? They don't advertise QBP bikes, but I assume they could buy something from them?

Koyote

If you have to ask, then yeah, it probably is a jerk move.

I might ask them to split the difference if the sub <$2k sellers are all online. Brick and mortar stores face additional costs, but those potentially bring benefits to you as a buyer. For instance, my All City bike suffered a wheel failure at 13 months -- out of warranty, Shop still got me a new wheel for no cost.

choddo

I always buy bikes from the LBS. I want them to stay in business. They give discounts but it still costs more than online of course.

Jrasero

I have been a retail buyer going on 15 years but I simply disagree. I am fine if you want to support LBS and I understand if a store doesn't want to eat in their margins or just start taking massive losses just because another store or online vendor decides to, however we live in a capitalistic society. IMO if I was OP's perspective shop I would take the loss, but maybe try and sell them on maintenance packages. If they balk at that then so be it, but I think OP should know buying local, having a shop relationship, seeing the bike beforehand and being able to try out sizes and even get fitted within the shop are all important.

choddo

A capitalist society depends on fair markets. We haven’t had those since about 2000.

Iride01 

Don't spend so much on a bike that you won't be able to afford another bike when you find out what bothers you about any bike you might purchase.

I think it unlikely you will find the perfect one and only bike. So buy with the intention of riding it for a year or two and then getting another bike to address what you find out the first bike didn't do well for you. It might take five or six bikes to really figure out what you like.

Bike preference has a lot of person preference built into the equation. If we could possibly tell you what you should get, then we probably would be riding the same bike. But obviously we don't. So there you go. Whatever you get that you like or dislike will be for reasons only you can figure out.

So to me, that gets back to buying something that you can afford to replace easily.

wheelreason

lol.

wheelreason

Not a jerk move at all, just don't be upset or surprised by their answer. Most shops can't or won't match online discounted prices. YMMV.

choddo

OK it’s completely normal in a functioning market for one retailer to become a near monopoly with a market cap of 1.8 trillion USD.

wheelreason

You really need to get out more, nearly anything you can buy or contract for is owned by a conglomerate that has a near monopoly in it's field, and it's been that way for a long time, and M&As just keep accelerating merrily along.

Koyote

If you guys are going to throw around these claims, please tell us which industries you’re talking about and provide some evidence — such as the concentration ratios or the Herfindahl-Hirschman Indexes…or at least demonstrate that their products have cross-price elasticities of demand vis-a-vis all other potential substitutes of zero.

downtube42

If it fits, I think the zig zag is a great bike, and that's a good price for that spec. If and only if it fits. If you aren't sure it fits, then the answer is LBS for sure.

If there's a local All City dealer, I'd go and see what they can do. If it's within a couple hundred, the LBS is a no-brainer to me.

Steel frame, mechanical 105. That's my niche, but it is a bit of a niche. By that I mean, like it or not all the cool kids are on Di2 and carbon. If LBS has one in stock, they might be happy to move it out while gaining a customer. They know you'll be back.

There are likely any number of similarly spec'd bikes for a similar price. The only way to discern the difference is with test rides.

choddo

I was obviously talking about Amazon. How many other 1.8Tr retailers do you know? And I can use “near monopoly” on them without much fear of contradiction and the fact that they can win on price (demand elasticity isn’t zero, it’s why they win) thanks to scale and lack of bricks and mortar costs costs versus traditional retail (plus tax optimisation)
You could argue that retail offers a service they can’t match except so many people look at products in those stores and then order online.
Hollowed out town centres up and down the country is not a sign of healthy capitalism and we are doing nothing about it.

Jrasero

I actually totally disagree. One we have plenty of choices for e-commerce sites whether it be EBAY, AliExpress, Temu, NewEgg for electronics, Walmart, Target, Rakuten and more that work on contracting out their warehouses to simply be a e-commerce middleman however it's Amazon that has succeeded by buying up warehouses all over the world and creating their own delivery service which surpasses anything our government in the postal service or even private companies like FEDEX and UPS has created, while teaming up with other retailers to provide a seamless experience. One Amazon is not always the lowest price and they don't claim to have the lowest prices by any means, since most of the products on Amazon are just being resold from AliExpress or Temu of sorts but why American/Westerners pay more is for 2 day shipping and customer service. Also the death of brick and mortar stores has been happening for the last two decades if not longer, but the pandemic IMO really accelerated this because it really highlighted the two biggest costs for any small business owner is retail space and their employees. If Amazon alleviates a business of warehousing thus a storefront and the need of excess employees who wins? I am not anti small business or brick and mortar stores since I am a retail buyer at a small brick and mortar store going on 15 years but even the store I work for has had to grasp with the fact that people prefer to shop online but they also want great customer service and most small businesses don't have the money to invest into creating and maintaining a robust e-commerce site while storing every product, while staffing a post sales team in the states. The hollowed out town centers again is not Amazon's fault but rather the Western world pushing all manufactures over seas in the hope of lower consumer prices which in turn stagnates if not kills wage growth here in the US, thus people can't afford higher priced American made goods and thus their in no innovation being made in American made goods. So IMO it all comes down to start producing more goods in your country of origin. There was a time Cannondale was "US Made" and they created world class bikes that people were proud us and while pushing production overseas has allowed Cannondale to create bigger margins and innovate in ways, you can argue that besides their latest gen road bikes that just came out, Cannondale has had a horrible track record of quality control and customer service.

I am a big believer we are going to see a massive recession late 2024 or maybe pushed 2025 after the election here in the states. We already seen how the bike industry is heavily struggling and how companies will fold and shops will unfortunately suffer too, however I think it's actually the small businesses LBS that will manage the best because unlike the LBS that were bought by Trek or Specialized that are demanding continuous high sales and margins via their parenting companies, LBS in contrast have always serviced on small staffs, low margins, and cycling through much smaller batches of inventory. IMO the recession is going to brings some inflationary times were prices of goods drops significantly and frankly I think that's for the best because there was a time you would go to a LBS or look online and last years model was cut 30%-50%+ as a holdover. There was a time where car manufactures actually had to compete for your business and manufactures were giving out $5K, $10K, and even $15K worth of incentives. There was a time were you could look on Craiglist or whatever reselling platform and see a very very healthy used bike market so people could afford to get into cycling. The issue for me isn't Amazon in all this, but everyone mimicking them in hope of corporate profit. I think we can have Amazon and small businesses coincide perfectly fine it's just small businesses also has to get better and actually provide more value. When I coffee ride we are always stopping at shops and guess what they tend to have a cafe in the shop. The idea that a LBS is "only" a bike store is simply an antiquated model.

Iride01 

Might need to learn what paragraphs are for.

mbe820

whoa this got off topic

Koyote

Failing to understand antitrust economics shouldn’t stop you from having strong opinions, I guess.

choddo

Do enlighten me.

choddo

Yeah sorry, mea culpa.

Koyote

Your hot take on Amazon has too many issues to address in a bf post — esp since we’re already off-topic. But perhaps it’s sufficient to point out that you haven’t even defined the market for which you’re claiming that Amazon is a monopoly, you’ve not provided any evidence of monopoly power, and you clearly don’t even understand what that evidence would look like.

But you’re welcome to your opinion. After all, plenty of bf’ers have strong opinions on things like bike weight and aerodynamics even though they obviously don’t understand the physics.