Originally Posted by
illdthedj
i could be totally wrong, but i was under the assumption IRO made better bikes than mercier....plus everyone has kilos....if it were me i would spend the extra money on the IRO partial build. but thats just me, and im a newb to the fixed gear world. perhaps you shouldn't listen to me and i shouldn't be posting lol
Depends what you mean by 'better.' Iro full builds do come with much better wheelsets than the kilo, but apart from this the parts are fairly comparable. And this does not justify and $300 price gap between a basic kilo and iro.
As for the frames themselves, they each have their pros and cons. IROs are made from slightly better quality chro mo but the kilo has a prettier crowned fork. And personally I think that the kilo has a much tighter, agile, and fun geo as compared to my friends Mark V, which feels a little bit more like a road bike. So the frames are definitely competitive with one another, its mostly based on preference.
When decided to go fixed I had to decide between an IRO and kilo, but after a few months of evesdropping on this forum, I couldnt really justify the extra cash on the iro apart from the fact that a lot of people have kilo tts. But hey, they are popular for a reason, I love my kilo.