Cyclist0108

It is challenging to convey sarcasm with only 256 ascii characters.

billyymc

Surly is a QBP owned brand, as are All-City and Salsa to name a couple others. I believe, but could be wrong, that any shop dealing with QBP (i.e. - any shop) can get you QBP brand bikes. They may not have them to demo though.

Paul Barnard

It's also pretty easy to pick out the threads that will be one post wonders. When I read this thread title, I knew I'd drop in to a first post thread and assumed that the OP would check out shortly thereafter. There's another ridiculous thread on the first page that falls into the same category. A little computer forensics would identify some common denominators in these threads.

livedarklions

Sorry, my ability to get the joke doesn't click in until 10:15 a.m.

Tempting as it is to play into the troll thread theme, I won't try blaming you for my brain fart.

indyfabz

That is also my understanding.

Phil_gretz

I'm guessing that this has to do with how discussion board advertising values "clicks" and how the site is monetized. I see this in another forum (unrelated topic) where I'm a member. These kind of "how do I pimp my new _______?" threads are created by new members, who never provide any substantive background and only post once or twice during their life on the board.

My inner conspiracy theorist says "fake thread meant to prompt clicks and responses, thereby creating the illusion of activity on the web forum".

As for the OP, buying this way is best done if you pay cash and order a frame only, and then have another shop build it up with Amazon-sourced components.

I-Like-To-Bike

Does the first would-be forensic sleuth who identifies or accuses another post or poster of being a troll get a gold star sticky/smily/like or just a taste of popcorn?

livedarklions

No, no, just one of these:

DrIsotope

Interesting conspiracy theory, but the number of non-registered guests on the forum generally outnumber the registered users by at least an order of magnitude.

At this current moment for example, there are 129 registered members online, and 1,113 guests. So why do people register, make one or two posts, and never return?

Well, y'all are probably a big part of it. Join, start one topic, get called a troll in the first 10 posts... so they take their ball and go home.

Next time anyone is tempted to call out a perceived troll, remember that posting in a thread isn't mandatory. Post count is like Whose Line? : The points are made up and the scores don't mean anything.

Phil_gretz

Let's explore this question a little deeper. Do people actually make one or two posts and never return? Sometimes. I've seen a few over the decade plus that I've been on this forum. But normally, even these pose an actual problem with enough background to formulate a reasonable and helpful response. Mostly, the poster has found their answer and have no further need of the forum.

Do "non-people" make one or two posts and never return? This question forms part of the theory. Who is a "non person", and why would that individual do this? Answer: They are a stakeholder in the financial outcome of the site. Why? To increase activity, traffic, and participation by legitimate members. That's the whole point.

And, by the way, the Facebook has taken this model to Olympian heights. A substantial portion of all activity is simply meant to drive clicks and stir up responses. It's nefarious in the way that your individual "buttons" are identified, verified and tested, and then actuated by algorithms that run in the background. Sick...

downhillmaster

This.
Another ‘I am completely clueless about the basic principles of being a consumer so I think I’ll ask strangers on a bike forum’ post. Yay

livedarklions

Also, even if the one and done poster is posing a fake question (which is, I suspect, pretty unusual), if it sparks an interesting lively discussion, I don't see how that's a successful troll and I'm not going to feel suckered in if it turns out to be a "fake" post.

I won't name him, but there's a very interesting, quite eccentric poster who constantly gets accused of being a troll because people can't relate to his situation and attitude. I think he's for real, and I think we've learned some stuff from each other chatting in the threads. If he's fooling me, at this point, I would feel like he's done such a good job of it, I'd be thoroughly entertained.

livedarklions

The "whole point" is your reasoning here is entirely circular. You derive the likely existence of non-people posters from what you think is their likely purpose, and the purpose is premised on the existence of non-persons.

Occam's Razor principle--simplest explanation is that there's a large subset of people who don't know much about bicycles AND internet forums, and they occasionally post questions that seem quite naive or somewhat inappropriate.


It's either that or it's the Illuminati.

Wilfred Laurier

First, I have on more than one occasion, started accounts on internet fora to ask a question or getr involved in a discussion, and then forgotten that I had the account a week later.

Second, I do know of instances where a shop ordered a bike from a manufacturer whose bikes they did not normally carry. However, it was not a Trek dealer ordering a Giant or a Specialized dealer ordering a Cannondale - in Canada, many smaller boutique brands do not have a strong network of dealers or distributors - the volume they expect to do in Canada (1/10th the population of USA) is not worth it to them or their distributors to jump through the necessary hoops. So if you live in a smaller center and want a Santa Cruz or Moots or Ventana or something, a local shop will often work with the manufacturer to bring one in for a paying customer. They will generally not bring in a few in different sizes as those would almost definitely collect dust on the shop floor until they finally managed to sell it at a loss.

Paul Barnard

I am a member of a lot of other forums. Kayak, fishing, hunting, motorcycling, microskiffs, RV, boats and more. Posts of this character are seldom seen there. They are regularly seen here.

Nyah

Well their websites (two different large shops, each with multiple stores) offer the bicycle for sale in all of the sizes, as well as even just the frame/fork. I'll call first to make sure the sizes I need to try are in stock.

livedarklions

Sounds like a good plan to me. Most LBS websites make it pretty hard to figure out what sizes are actually in stock, so if it's a long drive, I'd definitely call first.

Notso_fastLane

The registered/unregistered thing is probably bots/crawlers (not russian bots, but internet indexing bots). I run a very small (less than 20 registered members, all people I personally know) forum, and there are always at least ~60 unregistered 'guests'. I can look at the stats and almost always tell that they are just crawlers indexing pages.

This part is true. I'm sorry for my part in it, but I was just trying to actually lighten the thread up with some snarky humor.

Also, bonus points for a Whose line is it reference.

I-Like-To-Bike

Alleged "trolls" and "non-people" and other posters outed with smarmy J'Accuse! posts can expect no mercy from self appointed "forensic" sleuths who make up the BF Star Chamber Court.

livedarklions

And your usual subtle understatement soon follows....

Liked your artillery in the other thread, btw.

BlazingPedals

I'm not calling "troll" or "click bait;" but OTOH, I'm not holding my breath expecting friendlyguy1234 to ever respond back to this or any other thread. It will take a lot more than a single off-the-wall question and a generic username to make me think he's a real person.

Cyclist0108

Let me play troll's advocate for a moment:

One way to read the OP is that it is a question about protocol. Most people recognize that is it not the done thing to stroll into a Honda dealership and ask them to order you up a Tesla. But if you simply don't know anything about the bike industry, it might be worthwhile to find out if it is unacceptable to ask a bike shop to order a brand they don't normally carry. Yes, of course they can go in an ask, but it has the potential for embarrassment, and also you run the risk of pissing off the shop people, which might be worth avoiding, especially in a small town. So looked at from that point of view, it might be a totally legitimate question.

I have a somewhat similar one: Would it be wrong to ask a LBS to price-match what I find on-line for a part? On line vendors are cool with this, but I worry that I'll just piss off my LBS if I ask. So I will just buy online, and avoid the uncomfortable question. But it is entirely possible that they would prefer to price-match than to lose a sale.

livedarklions

Which probably says more about the differences between bicycling and those other activities than it does about the "secret" marketing agendas of whoever it's supposed to be.

You get a lot of people trying biking again after not having done it since they were 16. It's a very low barrier to entry activity. People don't just pick up an RV at a garage sale and start using it, or pull the motorcycle out of the basement after 15 years of gathering dust and rust. The nature of bicycling is such that it has a disproportionate number of people at any given time that are basically beginners.

livedarklions

So if he is a fake, who cares? If his topic is interesting and you post, what's the harm? If it's not, just don't respond.

There's just been too many troll calls made at newbies who ended up being real posters and actually pretty good ones for me to think that anyone's guess is more than that.

I'm especially fond of the threads where op doesn't follow up for a few days, gets called a one and do troll, then comes back and responds to everyone. Never seen anyone apologize for the false troll claim there.

Sy Reene

Personally, I'd say that it depends on the online source you're thinking about asking a matched price from. If you're in the US and ask them to price match something out of Bike24 (Germany) or Merlin (UK), then no -- wouldn't do it. If you were asking though to price match perhaps Excel or Texas Cyclesport, then perhaps, as at least they seem like they have a physical shop presence in the US.

Another consideration would be if you're asking for a match on an item that the LBS has already on their floor. Eg. if you're looking at a 12-25 6700 cassette at an online seller who wants to get rid of it because it's not selling, vs your LBS who'd have to order it from the distributor, then I'd guess successfully getting a match is more unlikely.