Munk69

No your right Greg. My Cannondale is a Carbon/Alum. So it should be stiffer than my immortal. Also, I should ammend my point about the BD frames. In my opinion, BD markets the bling around the frame rather than the frame itself. Most of the other companies like Cannondale market thier frame and add decent parts to it. As far as the ritchey wheels I could not tell you as I never owned a pair but I put my AC victory's on my wifes trek and she loves them. Of course she is 125 and could not flex them if she tried

I wish I had the time and energy to build a le-champ frame and compare it to my cannondale. I wonder how much difference there would be.

fmw

Normally this results from the quality of management. BD obviously has more effective management. I operate a low margin business as well so I can tell you it isn't easy. BD does it pretty well.

fmw

It isn't hard for me to understand why I ride alone. I don't have to listen to any of it because there isn't anybody else around to comment on how or what I ride. I can just enjoy riding the bike. How or what I ride is what I want, not what someone else thinks is right.

DrPete 

Nah, it's not a reason to ride alone. Nobody ever made fun of my cheap bike, and nobody's ever had the balls to call me an elitist snob to my face when I'm riding a Pinarello. But maybe that's because i ride with good folks who don't judge you by what you're riding.

Generally the people who whine about elitist snobs will only do so under the shelter of an anonymous internet forum.

johnny99

Flyte's (actually Airborne's) original business model was great - sell decent quality Ti bikes at prices well below what the name brands were selling for at bike shops. They made the mistake of continuously raising their prices while Litespeed started to introuduce cheaper models. When the bargain was gone, consumers had no more need for Airborne or Flyte. Note that Habanero kept their original business model and they are still in business, despite their clunky web site.

Weeks

I think that while you might get a few teasing or snide remarks for riding a crappy bike, they're not gonna be able to seriously look down on you if you leave them in the dust.

Your riding ability will be more important to the riders that matter, and be damned to the rest, sir. If you can keep up with the group ride I don't think they can reasonably object to your steed, however whimsical it may be.

Davemutt

I've read elsewhere that the Immortals are softer that other CF bikes. He does have the CF Bottecchias on ebay now...

roadwarrior

You are the perfect BD customer.

Regarding your comment about scrimping on components...that's the difference. In other words, a more experienced rider will notice the difference in a highly engineered frame. A rider with less experience, or one that does not care, will not notice this.

Example...I can sell you a Cannondale CAAD8 for $1,100 with Tiagra. Same frame that Damiano Cunego rode to victory in the Giro. The frame's that good. It was designed to provide what a top rider wants.

Or you can get a bike with a lesser frame that won't ride as well (the one you have is about a Trek 1000/1500 equivalent) and less finish work (the weld ripples for example) with better components.

The difference is that Trek does not make an Ultegra bike off of a 1000 frameset. They know better.

They make nice bikes. But from a shop perspective, it's not hard to sell against.

Ultimately, the customer will decide what they want. Plenty for everyone.

BTW...I put about 200 miles in one week on one of these. I did it simply so I could describe the ride to the customer.

zacster

So, with all the opinions here about whether these are really any good, whether the frames are worth the components put on them, whether the frames compare with the name brand bikes, what do you think about these bikes for people that otherwise would buy a wal-mart special?

I would not buy one of these for myself, but I am looking at them, the cheap Mirage Sport, for my 10yo daughter. She needs a new bike as her smaller twin sister has outgrown the 20" kids bike and now rides the 24" wheel mtb that we have, and she doesn't fit the largish 26" wheel mtb that I have. She test rode a Specialized Dolce in a 44cm that fit her well. Nice bike and all but I'm not spending that kind of money, especially as I see the Dolce as an entry level bike with nice paint. The Moto may not have as nice a paint job, but is the frame really any different than the Dolce? (And the choice of a full road bike is hers, not mine. I don't want to discourage her, but she'd be better off on a flat bar hybrid I think, but hey, she may be the next...)

If I could get a used Trek, Spec, Giant or 'dale for her I would, but the only ones I've seen on eBay have been expensive and have lots of bids. I'd buy new before I'd pay some of those prices. Are the Motos any different from the second tier bikes, like Jamis, K2, or Schwinns you see at some stores?

indygreg

the other side of this is the fact that some buy one of these bikes and then go buy a frame. If you have nothing, something like what I got (full DA with ritchey kit) at $1500 is much lower than I could buy all those parts for. So lets say I go out and buy a CAAD frame or 'insert maker name' frame . . . I am probably still ahead of the price I would have paid to get the end product from the big maker. And I have a very decent alum frame to use for something else.

Ostuni

hi fred! good to see you back, albeit under unfortunate (though familiar) circumstances!

roadwarrior

Have you looked at the KDR 1000 by Trek? It's around $500ish, road ready with clipless (SPD) pedals. Really nice bike.
It's basically a kid's size Trek 1000.

matanza

Put a Trek or Pinarello decal on a $50 walmart bike like they do in Mexico. Sell it for $1000 and you've got a MOTOBECANE etc...

fmw

Thanks, Ostuni. What unfortunate circumstances are those?

fmw

No kidding. After 1/2 a century of bike riding I'm still not experienced. I can't tell an expensive frame from a cheap one by riding it. I can tell one that doesn't fit. I can sense differences in geometry but I can't tell a "highly engineered" frame from a less "highly engineered" one. Maybe in another 50 years.....

sced

It would be a good thing if the people who respond to these kinds of threads, which look for opinions about buying bikes on-line, state whether they have actually bought a bike on-line and from whom. I have read several posts that misinform people who seek and deserve accurate information. Examples are overstating the "fit" thingy, treating it like it's brain surgery when it's really easy to get it right; and the crappy frame saw when even inexpensive aluminum frames from Taiwan can be more than adequate performers (I just read that Pinnarello (sp?) only has a few design/fab engineers and all of their carbon fiber frames in good ole Taiwan, just like Motobecanes - kinda like bike Silicon Valley with all the talent job-hoppin all the time).

I have purchased two bikes from BikesDirect and plan to buy more from on-line sources for members of my family. I have noticed other store fronts on Ebay that sell low to mid range ($) bikes that have very good feedback scores. The economics of buying on-line are extremely attractive. The two bikes purchased are very nice to ride and came with excellent components. One of them came with a defective chain ring. I sent an Email and a new replacement part was over-nighted to me. I can think of no reason not to buy a Motobecane.

indygreg

Very well put

Ostuni

yet another contentious motobecane thread...

zacster

She'll outgrow a kids bike in no time and she's just big enough for an adult bike. Besides, at $650, not $500, it is more than I want to spend and BD has a few for lot less. I'd buy the Dolce at $770,or the Trek WSD 1000 before I'd buy a kids bike that she'd outgrow in a year. She rode the 24" mountain bike I have twice before she felt like she wanted a "real" bike. She's only 10, 4'11", and is still growing.

I have mixed feelings about putting her on a road bike, but she wants it and I think it'll be good for her to feel like she can handle it. (She's a twin, but her smaller sister has the mouth if you know what I mean, a total smartass, although they both do equally well in school. Even their older brother complains about the mouth on that girl, he can't keep up with her and he's no dummy either. The mouth is pretty, blond and blue eyed, I'm in trouble.) Anyway, I think that she'll do OK with it.

sced

Nuthin harder than raisin kids;-)

DrPete 

Not entirely correct. The Paris carbon is laid up and assembled in Italy, as are all the Onda forks and stays. The F4:13 and F3:13's front triangles are laid up in Taiwan and the frame is assembled in Pinarello's factory in Italy. Not sure about the Galileo and their other lower-end offerings.

And yes, I've bought a bike online, from Flyte. In retrospect it was long enough in the top tube that my weight was a little too far back on the bike and handling was a little slow compared to my current bike. At the time I bought it, I didn't know the difference. But that's kinda part of the point, isn't it?

mblk6062

Alright, Doc, I see your point. I'm sure alot of people who see me riding my Roubaix think the same thing about me. Sorry for what seemed like an insult - it really wasn't intended as such.

Cheers

rubin2u

I have 2200 miles on my 2005 Immortal Force. Flawless.

sced

"Not entirely correct................"

Pardon my patheticness, but in Road Bike Action (July/August, pg. 60) Fausto Pinarello says, "Our development team consists of the rider, me, the bio mechanical expert and the engineer....and today we just can't make carbon fiber bicycles here in Italy. No one can really make carbon fiber here...Pinarello has a special agreement with Toray, the Japanese textile giant, that we exclusively use Toray carbon fiber fabric.....We couldn't possibly make carbon fiber bicycles here in Italy; you need 100 people, there is a lot of industrial equipment and know how, not to mention the toxic materls that are used. In the far east they have the infrastructure and material that comes from Japan".

DrPete 

I stand corrected. That's not what I'd heard/read in the past, but I guess Fausto knows what he's talking about.