Didn’t realize the Allez went Roubaix in 2019. So they added disc brakes? Is this 2016? The Diverge aluminum exists in largely the AL Roubaix space? So Spec just gave up on core the $1200-$2k first nice road bike?
I don’t think Specialized is cool enough to not build a home-base AL road bike. They went peak cool with the DSW, and then just gave up on the 0-$4000 performance road segment. I don’t really disagree, but it sucks.
I think my problem with this bike is that if you’re buying this bike, you should just buy a Diverge (it’s almost the same bike) and buy a set of road wheels/tires. Bikes shops, in general, should have a ‘catalog’ (pre spec’d) way to buy a set of road wheels and tires for basic gravel bikes- Sell them as ‘a bike’ with either road or gravel tires stock and then sell the conversion kit.
(Note: someone out there is shopping for this bike, buy it- I’m complaining about how the market is segmented)
Certainly when Ray started out he used to buy a lot of the gear he was testing so that he could stay independent, and his reviews often make clear that he will either be returning the loaner and/or buying his own as soon as it’s available to customers. He made his name by being directly independent and incredibly knowledgeable and detailed, and although manufacturers now seem to mostly recognise the value of working with him he’s never seemed to hold back when he’s got something negative to say.
I hadn’t connected the dots that Escape Collective was Wade Wallace’s new venture. Now I realise that I agree they probably are as independent as anybody can be in terms of bike reviews, but they’ve also only been going a couple of months so guess it remains to be seen whether the independent, subscription-funded model is viable. Fingers crossed!
You can read the Escape Collective Review linked in the thread. He swaps on a pair of the Shimano 105 carbon wheels with nicer tires and talks about that a bit.
But they are also usually reviewing the bike as a whole package as sold in the shop not it’s individual parts.
I bought this: 2016 Felt Z85 – Specs, Comparisons, Reviews – 99 Spokes in 2017 and it was marked down from $1,400 to $1,000. Great bike. Not that I would expect it to be in that price range today given how things have changed.
MSRP: $1499, that equates to around $1900 in modern USD with inflation.
There is a difference in the components of course (old 11s 105 vs new Tiagra 10s) but I’d argue those are more similar than different. Moral of the story, seems like a reasonable progression to me.
the 2004 Allez sport had 9 speed 105/tiagra mix and cost about $850… with inflation that would be 1300 now.
I think a 1500, 1600 would be more in line… 1800 seems like a nope to me… but hey. I am not buying…
Obviously a significant portion of the market in the U.S. is dominated by privately held companies.
However, just looking through the latest financial statements of Giant, I don’t find the results all that impressive.
It looks like their net profit ratio is somewhere around 7-8%, so somewhere between average and low.
Giant is a bit interesting though, as their structure is quite different than the other brands. So it would be interesting to see similar reporting for Specialized and Trek.
The best I could find for Trek is their UK statutory reporting… which obviously isn’t a complete picture. Even so, the percentages on their stat report look worse yet compared to Giant.
This kind of bike is what the market has been missing and I really support this move by the big S. It is an entry sport bike - which is to say you can go quick on it and try racing if you want IN ALL DROP BAR DISCIPLINES.
Road bike with geo that is pretty upright, but good enough to get someone on the road. Sure it isn’t a dedicated Gravel bike, but with 35s (and maybe squeezed more in) you can give gravel a good shot. It will be totally fine as a tester CX bike and if you are the target audience for the bike it will be plenty.
You can do all of that for the cost of basically one affordable bike + plus some tire changes. I don’t see what it isn’t to love for someone just getting started and not wanting to commit to one discipline. This is the gateway drug, if you will.
There is, dont buy overpriced bikes.
I mean… price is dictated by consumer demand. last few years we had an artificial and not sustainable demand for bikes. All companies jump into increasing prices blaming supply issues.
The supplies issues are mostly gone now, but prices are still high. Now they are all blaming inflation (caused by all companies raising their prices and refusing to lower them).
Its all a sham. They want more money. People are willing to pay it. They will push prices till they break.
The price increases were partly supply/demand and also the cost of shipping dramatically increased. I was listening to an interview with the Revel Bikes CEO and he said the cost of a shipping container from China went from like $2-3000 to like $20000 over Covid. That has started to come way back down toward its original price. So we’ll see if these companies try to keep their prices where they are now that their costs are coming down.
