Frankenberg

WAHAHAHAHAHA

Typos is plural. Typo's is possessive. The typo is not owning anything. Fail.

Chainrings. Blades. How much does it weigh? How much does it weight? Tubeless. Tubless. Trail. Trial. Is it really worth fighting the less literate about this?

Uh... what are "standard" Mavic wheels? Or any brand for that matter?

Some tire/rim combinations can be easier than others to set up tubeless. But for the most part, the conversion is pretty straightforward. I went the ghetto route on both my bikes, with 2.4 Conti's, one pair UST the other non-UST, on Mavic EN520 rims. Worked like a charm, with a floor pump. 18 months later, the occasional top up of sealant, and still hundreds. Trying to do my friend's WTB Speed Disc rims and a pair of Nevegals (not ghetto; used a legit kit) was like wrestling a bear. Even with a compressor, it would NOT seat, and sealant was pissing out everywhere. Eventually got it to work, but after a long battle that went well into the night, sprinkled with a generous helping of colourful language.

The "experience of browsing the classifieds". Interesting choice of words... you make it sound like a mushroom trip or something In either case (rest of my comment not related to your quote), anything labelled as the 'classifieds' section of a website or other publication immediately puts into context what the aim of that section is: to buy, and to sell. People sell for two reasons: a) to get rid of crap, and B) to turn a profit. Turning a profit requires marking goods up. If someone wants to pay for it, then awesome. If not, they're ultimately forced to reduce their price - regardless of timelines. If this were about helping other people then create a section labelled "Feelgood Fred's helping hands and charity" section.. that way, there's no ambiguity. And the self-righteous people who create or contribute to a topic largely because they couldn't market their goods properly or secure a better deal for their goods, no longer have an excuse.

Just checking in and then remembered how much certain people and their predictability bore me. Hence edited my post.

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This would be a whole lot less likely to happen if consumers had the freedom of ordering products from online stores and not solely through an agent. A competitive market drives prices down and creates consumer intelligence around variety and price. Getting rid of the exclusive agent system would go a long way to preventing or at the least minimising this sort of behaviour.

LOL Also a symptom of this forum being dominated by one discipline - XC. The more you ride other disciplines, the more you appreciate different bikes to do what they're actually designed to. As opposed to some knob riding a 160mm Spez enduro, with Chain Guide, at Northern Farms. And then commenting about its 'abilities'. And Patches - you can calm down. Was just making reference to a 'south african' brand guilty of the same behaviour. Morewood make good bikes. In China.

Dude - is that honestly what you believe? You know how many brands of frames are made by Giant (and LOADS of bikes are made in China, including the hub's Beloved Morewoods), right? And Giant have won: XC (Adam Craig on an 1x10 Anthem, AND recently a Trance), and Danny Hart Beating the hell out of Sam Hill at Champery Downhill last year on His Glory. Santa Cruz are good at trail/all-mountain and brilliant at downhill (Minnaar is testament to this; as are Cedric Gracia; Steve Peat; and the rest of the Syndicate riders). Their Nomad and V-10 are truly brilliant bikes. As is a Giant Reign. As is a giant Glory. Furthermore, the argument later on that "Trek has taken years to develop their geometry". What a load of fanboy rubbish. Geometry is the EASIEST thing to copy. From rowing boats; to cars; to bikes. Remember when Scott was a low-down brand? Remember when GT was an Elitist brand? How things have changed. Not due to fancier engineering; but due to team riders who can actually work magic with ANY bike and make the brand look good.. as well as relentless marketing. And it's also worth noting that there's no point comparing a Dunlop bike to a Giant or a Santa Cruz. Or a Specialized, or a Rose, or a Mondraker. Or or or... Its not even comparable or worth adding the the argument. Pinarello have now joined the MTB league. Jusdging by what it looks like, I would MUCH rather trust a Giant than a Pinarello. Does the value of the name carry through here? Absolutely not. The idea that a Santa Cruz is hand-welded in a cosy workshop by the cycling equivalent of Gepetto, whereas a Giant is a production line effort by robots; is a pipe-dream. It comes down to engineering and manufacturing; and the costs of each. And for the record - I loved my Giant as much as my santa cruz. They had different purposes. And are both pieces of brilliant engineering and workmanship. I just ran out of bike (Anthem) and couldn't find a Reign X in my price range. So I got a SC instead.

Nope. It can be considered anti-competitive though; and there are recent cases of exact such situations having gone to court. However, you'll find that most distributors are incentivised on bottom line - so again, if the rate of sale goes up and they make their margins, all the better. It's not in their interests to restrict market supply, especially with very niche products... Price wars are generally best avoided though - even though the consumer wins in the short term, it really doesn't do anything positive for the equity of a brand and the quality cues of a product in the long term. Whether a manufacturer condones this sort of behaviour depends on exactly what they're selling, I guess.

That's not price fixing - retailers are free to price their product exactly as they like; and producers are allowed to target any retail selling price they like - even if it's the exact same as their competitor's. It just means they have efficient sales reps. Price fixing is an agreement between manufacturers to divide/share a market through various pricing strategies. A pretty big difference.