What Price Advice?

Tallyarver

Hi Everyone

My friend and I are on the verge of buying a Trek 1.9 from a local dealer.

We had about £1000 each to spend. My colleague was desperate to get on the first rung
of a carbon frame bike but it seemed just out of reach. As you knowledgable people will know, the 1.9 is aluminium, albeit, the dealer tells us, just about as good as it gets in non-carbon. The bike feels light, had good quality components and we are going to upgrade the wheels.

Another poster on this site got us looking at Planet X where bikes are built. It puts carbon frames in our reach but my view is that if you are a novice to Road Biking (which we both are) its probably best to stick down the dealer route and accept he has to charge for his advice and overheads? Any good /bad experiences of this site or other "build" sites?

Am I right to think this way? I realise it is a highly subjective question- there will be good and bad dealers out there- but clearly we are going to spend over £2000 so its important to make the right decision.

One final point- this "professional fitting" issue. Fairly sure our dealer isnt offering this. Does it really make that much difference? Surely if you are in the shop any competent dealer can judge if a bike fits you or not?

Thanks for reading this- any comments?

alfablue

The LBS route does make more sense usually, but how can you turn your back on the Planet-X ultegra offer? Likewise the Focus Cayo from Wiggle. Both have excellent reviews, and Planet-X have a good reputation for fairly personal service. Wiggle don't give a personal service, but they do offer a 7 day test-ride policy, so it seems pretty foolproof - you don't like it, they take it back, no quibble.

LanceAS

Interested to know thoughts on whether the Planet-x offering at £999 is a cheap carbon frame c/w the alloy frame on the Trek 1.9. Is £999 too cheap to be looking carbon?

alfablue

I have no personal experience but I have only heard good things about it on here

BeaconRuth

Tallyarver wrote:

................. but my view is that if you are a novice to Road Biking (which we both are) its probably best to stick down the dealer route and accept he has to charge for his advice and overheads? Any good /bad experiences of this site or other "build" sites?

I think a lot here depends on your level of competence for sorting out issues with your bikes yourselves. Many many cyclists (and even very experienced ones) take their bike back to their LBS at the first sign of a mechanical issue, for regular services and even for tyre changes and pre-event checks. For these people, their relationship with their LBS is of paramount importance - and what better way to start off a good relationship than to put business the way of the LBS when you buy a bike? Many LBS's will make all sorts of concessions and be extremely helpful for their regular customers with whom they do frequent business. This can be invaluable help IMO.

However, other cyclists (even relative novices) are mechanically-minded enough to do a bit of reading, ask a few questions of experienced mates and sort out the vast majority of their own mechanical issues. So maybe you're best to ask yourself how much help you think you'll need if, say, a wheel goes out of true in the first few weeks, the gears are not changing smoothly and you decide you'd prefer a different range of gears? Your LBS won't be at their most helpful if you walk in with a Planet-X bike and ask for teething adjustments to be sorted out - though admittedly they're unlikely to turn down the business.

One final point- this "professional fitting" issue. Fairly sure our dealer isnt offering this. Does it really make that much difference? Surely if you are in the shop any competent dealer can judge if a bike fits you or not?

It doesn't take a professional fitting service to fit a bike to a rider but advice from someone who knows what they're talking about is pretty important. Any decent LBS should ensure that you buy the right size frame for you and should help you to get your position more or less sorted. If they're not willing to do this, take your business elsewhere.

Ruth

giant_man

As per LanceAS's other thread regarding the Planet X vs Trek, it's Planet X all the way IMO.