Originally Posted by
SlimRider
I wasn't talking to just a "phone rep", I was talking to customer service people at Trek. I was talking to salesmen who worked at Trek dealerships. These are all people you would ordinarily expect to know about their commodities, the actual goods that they're trying to peddle. If you're a salesman, and I ask you a very basic question like, "What's in that basket, you're selling?" and that prompts you to tell me, "Just a moment, Ill be right back", that tells me that you don't know your product. However, that might not necessarily be your fault. Why don't you know your product? ...Maybe it's for the same reason that the content of the product is not posted on your website...Maybe it's for the same reason that you're trying to camouflage your goods by using the word "platinum" to describe some type of steel you're attempting to sell.
A "customer service" person at Trek
is just a phone rep(resentative). They aren't engineers, they aren't product specification experts. They are someone who answers the phone. Yes, if the person had to say "just a minute", they don't know what they are talking about but that's pretty normal for the person who answers the phones.
Trek may have made arrangements with a supplier for a proprietary steel blend and don't want their competitors to know what in the steel. Specialized does it with "M4" aluminum (a version of 7000 series aluminum), True Temper does it with their Platinum OS steel, and almost all carbon frame manufacturers keep their methods of construction and materials of construction under tight control. There's lots of other examples. Just because they won't tell
you the secrets or use a term that doesn't sit well with you, doesn't mean that it's what a phone rep...yes, a phone rep...is the truth or that the person even knows what they are talking about.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
When people in any industry that deal with steel, they all know the difference between hi-tensile steel and chromoly steel. Hi-tensile steel does not not have chromium and molybdenum added to it whereas chromoly steel does. Now we could get extremely technical and measure the tensile strength of all grades of steel and say, "Hey look! The tensile value for that grade is above x, therefore it qualifies as Hi-Tensile". Nope! That's not acceptable, Cyccommute! That's just not how the interpretation goes...
No. "Hi tensile" steel is as much of a marketing name as "chromoly" or "Custom Drawn Platinum Series Steel". "Hi tensile" steel could be pretty any thing, as could "Platinum series steel". Without knowing the grade, you know nothing about the steel. Again, just because a phone rep says that it's 'hi tensile steel' doesn't mean that the frame is made of 1090 carbon steel. You don't 'custom butt' 1090 carbon steel. You probably don't even make that stuff in seamless tubing.
Look at pictures of the product that mechBgon posted. That bike isn't made of cheap tubing. You don't spend that kind of time on welding on cheap carbon tubing.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Walmart bikes differ from whatever other bikes you're referring to, primarily because of cheap and poorly installed components. Their frames are comparable to many other frames made by the big five bicycle manufacturers. Once again, it's their components that suck! Of course, there are many frames built by the big five, that Walmart bike frames could never aspire to reach in quality. I mean, Walmart just isn't a top-of-line kinda place.
No, again. Hellmart bikes differ from a $1000 high end frame in the components
and the frame materials. Both suck. Dropouts are stamped, not forged. Fork tips can be pinched rather than brazed or welded. Welds are sloppy. Go to your local Helmart (I don't darken their door
) and look for yourself.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
The Lane is a bicycle that has a hi-tensile steel frame. It is therefore, not favorably endowed with the technological properties that advances the cycling world of steel, today. It therefore, should not be placed in the same category with Randonee, Soma, and most certainly not the Surly LHT...OMG! I almost choked on that one!
Based on what a know nothing phone rep told you? Seeing mechBgon's pictures, it looks like as good a quality bike...and is probably made at the same factory...as the other bikes I listed.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
I'm reading too much into the subject matter. There are red flags waving all over this Trek Lane thing. There's just too many weird things going on. Sales people not knowing what it's made of...Sales people not knowing where to find the info...Customer Service people not knowing for certain...Websites not clearly indicating what type of steel is really being used...Website camouflaging the actual identity of the steel frame. Many many many things smell of fish, here.
- Slim
Freudian slip? Yes, you are reading too much into this. Call any other company and ask the person who answers the phone a technical question about frames and frame material. I'll bet you get about the same level of information from them. Call Specialized and ask them what the composition of their M4 aluminum. I'll bet you get very similar answers.