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Old 11-06-12, 01:49 PM
  #10  
graywolf
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Boone NC USA
Posts: 622

Bikes: Bianchi hybrid. Dunelt 3-sp. Raleigh basket case. Wanting a Roadster.

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Well it arrived. Not so impressed.

The frame seems OK, and it has horizonat dropouts so could be converted to an IG hub. The tires are Kenda Kwick 20x2.0, which I think are a mid-grade tire. The rest of the components are the cheapest stamped steel junk I can imagine. So the frame, tires, and carry bag are on the plus side. The components are on the minus, unless you were planing on upgrading them anyway.

At $266 + sales tax, I don't know whether I am going to keep this. It ought to do to bop around town, and a couple of hundred bucks would make it a kind of nice bike. I was kind of thinking of replacing the rear hub with a SA 8sp with drum brake and the front with a drum brake hub (I don't know if you can get a narrow drum brake hub, or would have to replace the fork to do that). The rear dropouts look to be 135mm. I had already planed on using my Brooks B66 on it.

I do know that if I had paid $350-400 shipped, what most sites are selling it for, I would be really upset.

How does it ride? I do not know, I need to tune it up first, the front spokes are too loose and everything else needs adjusting. Besides that it is snowing out there right now.

I wrote a more realistic review of this Kettler Verso Cologne on amazon.com. 3-stars instead of the 5-star ones already there. And I put up a first impressions post on my "Subject to Change" blog, and will probably do a detailed review later.
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