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Dean Bikes Anyone?

Old 12-13-21, 09:40 PM
  #26  
kfried
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Glad to see this thread still kicking around and look forward to updates from everyone during the process of their builds. I recently moved to South Korea and brought my Dean with me. Getting a good bike box and lugging it with me proving to be one of the better decisions I've made. A couple photos from recent rides.


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Old 12-14-21, 09:00 AM
  #27  
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
I think your assumptions about parts' availability is not what might be happening. Frame builders have various demands on them from more than just their customers. I wonder if other demands took over for a while.
This is probably the case but it would have been nice to know what was going on.

Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
I'll also add that I have known of some builders that would drop the customer if they pestered them too much and others who just do a poor job at communication beyond the amount needed to get the design down.
I don't think that I would consider an email (or two) every month or two to fall into the category of "pestering"

Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
I guess that having been on the other side of the shop counter and have had customers state their expectations when some of the situation is beyond my control, I have some empathy for the builder here. Andy
I appreciate your perspective but not communicating project status to customer is not a great way to do business IMHO.
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Old 12-14-21, 09:54 AM
  #28  
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Originally Posted by Steve_sr
This is probably the case but it would have been nice to know what was going on.



I don't think that I would consider an email (or two) every month or two to fall into the category of "pestering"



I appreciate your perspective but not communicating project status to customer is not a great way to do business IMHO.
And I don't disagree with this last point. I'm just saying there can be reasons we don't always know of or give credit to. And that different people on both sides of the shop counter have different expectations and abilities to communicate. In an ideal world this aspect, communications and time lines, would be discussed early on in the process. But just like in our other relationships this stuff is often found out after the investments have been made. Andy
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Old 12-14-21, 10:28 AM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by msr_78
(303) 530-3091
I'll give this number a try. It appears to be for Dean. They seem to have other numbers for Merlin and VeloSports

[QUOTE=msr_78;22339075Mine was just the frame & fork, so it was much faster - got it a month ago approx and finished the build last week - and came down with a flu (pending COVID test) during the weekend, so it remains unridden. Just my effing luck.[/QUOTE]

Wishing you a speedy recovery from whatever. I get boosted tomorrow in anticipation of the arrival of omicron.

Originally Posted by msr_78
Not wanting to be a buzzkill, but I wouldn't expect the build to be finished before next year - I don't know if wholesale has better access to parts (which I imagine they will) but from friends that have been waiting for over a year for Trek Madone's (as an example) to this article I saw the other day
I wasn't really expecting this before hopefully Feb/Mar 2022. $1.5K deposit was paid on 8/4/21 for a bike that I was planning on taking on a 4000 mile cross country tour starting in mid-May of 2022.

Originally Posted by msr_78
All I say it's worth the wait.
I certainly hope so.
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Old 12-14-21, 02:14 PM
  #30  
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Builders are bad about status updates, but if it's a part there is no way for them to know nowadays. Everyone is in the same boat, no parts. Unless there magically are parts. My lbs has a person constantly monitoring all their suppliers for the parts that they need. A builder isn't going to be doing that.
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Old 12-14-21, 05:24 PM
  #31  
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I ordered my Dean just as a frameset and it was done more or less on the quoted timeline. But they implied that was because my bike jumped the cue as I wasn't waiting on components. So the OP may be right that they haven't made progress on it as other frameset orders may have been moved up in priority. Even so, not an excuse to drop the ball on their side. OP's experience generally tracks with mine in terms of communication--it often felt erratic and rushed. And in the end my bike came with a BSA instead of the CAD-specified T47. So just a reminder that when do things start moving to be triple confirm with them some of the specs.
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Old 12-15-21, 09:31 AM
  #32  
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Originally Posted by kfried
Glad to see this thread still kicking around and look forward to updates from everyone during the process of their builds. I recently moved to South Korea and brought my Dean with me. Getting a good bike box and lugging it with me proving to be one of the better decisions I've made. A couple photos from recent rides.


Happy to see you're giving the Dean the world tour it deserves!
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Old 12-15-21, 09:38 AM
  #33  
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Originally Posted by msr_78
I don't know if wholesale has better access to parts (which I imagine they will) but from friends that have been waiting for over a year for Trek Madone's (as an example) to this article I saw the other day
What I have heard from my LBS (who orders directly from Shimano) is that is that ordered parts eventually show up. I can't imagine that Shimano (or other suppliers) would be playing favorites with the larger OEMs at the cost to smaller LBS. Starving the LBS would likely put them and their brand support out of business... which wouldn't be a good long term strategy.
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Old 12-15-21, 09:44 AM
  #34  
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Originally Posted by Steve_sr
Wishing you a speedy recovery from whatever. I get boosted tomorrow in anticipation of the arrival of omicron.
Don't skip it. I ended up testing +ve for COVID and I'm pretty sure it's Omicron, as I still work remotely most of the time, am vaccinated and always wear a mask in public, so I don't understand where I could have gotten it unless it's the supercontagious variety. Annoyingly I had the booster appointment lined up for yesterday, but the frigging virus got the jump on me. Thankfully I'm feeling almost myself now, but I guess that if I hadn't been vaccinated this would have been much worse.

Originally Posted by Steve_sr
I wasn't really expecting this before hopefully Feb/Mar 2022. $1.5K deposit was paid on 8/4/21 for a bike that I was planning on taking on a 4000 mile cross country tour starting in mid-May of 2022.
4000miles? Wow, that sounds amazing - I now understand you being "stressed" about delivery times - it'll take you a couple of rides to get it dialed in and get used to the ride, and you don't want to start an epic ride like that on a new, untried bike.
Let them know (if you haven't already) - when I mentioned I was thinking of using mine for a gravel race if I got it in time, John said they'd try and speed up the build time - actually I told them not to worry for kind of the same reasons I mention above - I would have needed a couple of rides to get all dialed in and time was just too tight.

Good luck with the trip, post pictures here!
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Old 12-15-21, 09:48 AM
  #35  
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Originally Posted by Steve_sr
What I have heard from my LBS (who orders directly from Shimano) is that is that ordered parts eventually show up. I can't imagine that Shimano (or other suppliers) would be playing favorites with the larger OEMs at the cost to smaller LBS. Starving the LBS would likely put them and their brand support out of business... which wouldn't be a good long term strategy.
I don't think this is what is actually how the priority of suppling works. The aftermarket is not what Shimano depends on. It is the OEM brands that buy the bulk of Shimano's production and what helps Shimano to better forecast their future manufacturing. I do agree that Shimano does think about the aftermarket suppliers needing product, just not so much that their bigger customers get shorted. A cynical person might also postulate that it is better for the big customers (and thus Shimano) to sell more bikes and a draught of repair parts (or their higher costs) will motivate some consumers to not wait for the upgrade parts and instead just get all the improvements a complete new bike has. Andy (who sometimes can be cynical)
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Old 12-15-21, 10:10 AM
  #36  
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
I don't think this is what is actually how the priority of suppling works. The aftermarket is not what Shimano depends on. It is the OEM brands that buy the bulk of Shimano's production and what helps Shimano to better forecast their future manufacturing. I do agree that Shimano does think about the aftermarket suppliers needing product, just not so much that their bigger customers get shorted. A cynical person might also postulate that it is better for the big customers (and thus Shimano) to sell more bikes and a draught of repair parts (or their higher costs) will motivate some consumers to not wait for the upgrade parts and instead just get all the improvements a complete new bike has. Andy (who sometimes can be cynical)
Flat mount anyone?

I tend to agree with Andy here - if Shimano was prioritizing (or even thinking about) the aftermarket they wouldn't have f***** all of us introducing flat mount, non compatible RD and shifters not only across mtb and road ranges, but also across years or even group levels, etc., etc. Not that SRAM is any better, but I feel they are slightly less of a d*** when it comes to cross compatibility.

And that was my rant of the day against the lack of industry standardization.
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Old 12-15-21, 04:27 PM
  #37  
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Originally Posted by Steve_sr
I can't imagine that Shimano (or other suppliers) would be playing favorites with the larger OEMs at the cost to smaller LBS. Starving the LBS would likely put them and their brand support out of business... which wouldn't be a good long term strategy.
From what I hear, this is very much the case and they are really hurting small shops right now. The guys at Shimano USA have their heart in the right place but I don't think they are calling the shots and Japan really doesn't GAS about small shops. Their actions have been pushing small shops to go with SRAM since before the pandemic. Especially mountain bike oriented shops.

As far as introducing new "standards" Shimano has never cared about that in the time I've been watching them, which is almost 50 years now. It does work for them, look how everyone has adopted what they decided to push, particularly flat mount. I like flat mount for forks, but Hayes used to have a rear mount like flat mount and it died out for a reason. Probably because none of the big manufacturers could make it reliably, just like they do a horrible job of making frames with flat mount. As far as some of these changes to the bike industry, a lot of them were started before the pandemic hit when the industry wasn't doing well. So they are just the typical make something new so people will buy it gambit. But I'm a bit floored companies keep coming out with new stuff when the old stuff is in such poor supply.
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Old 12-22-21, 05:59 AM
  #38  
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I don't know anyone that works for Shimano, therefore I do not know the company's motivations behind introducing new things outside of introducing new tech for the riders that geek over it. I do know when Apple changed their OS and did not make it backwards compatible in the same way they had before and everyone in geekdom freaked out, but after the dust settled the new OS platform has survived and evolved.
The point is, if people want the latest and greatest they must be willing to be flexible and accept the fact that standards must change to enable the latest and greatest to be developed. If not willing to adapt we are stuck with friction shifting and sidepull rim brakes.
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Old 12-22-21, 01:14 PM
  #39  
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I just deleted a long rant about shimano that was full of misspelled obscenities. Just spell the ******g obscenities correctly and the forum software will take care of it. They don't pay me at all, so I'm not going to edit your posts to make them follow the forum rules.

But this thread just barely belongs in this forum anyway, do we really have to sort out Shimano's business practices? They have been doing exactly the same thing since they started making bike parts in 1867, I don't think they are going to change because of a thread on bikeforums.net
For that matter, Dean's business practices are pretty uninteresting as well. Maybe if the thread had been started in General or Road, that might be different. But this forum is about building frames, not business analysis.
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Old 12-22-21, 01:54 PM
  #40  
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Replied to your PM

Except for the obscenities, which I did on purpose trying precisely not to be crass, my mistake, the rest I don't agree on - but as I said, your house, your rules.

Goodbye
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Old 12-22-21, 08:30 PM
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Okay, I think this thread got too far off track, so I'm closing it.
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