Originally Posted by
smallwheeler
well, firstly, you can see in "completed listings" that they have sold more than one recently. the completed listings view doesnt go back far enough to show others i've seen sell prior to what's shown.
i don't understand your points here.
1. why is it not fair to compare the two bikes?
2. how many need to be left available to make a recommendation to buy a soma instead a nano?
3. how is buying the nano and spending a lot of money and time upgrading it "for less than the original price" of the soma relevant when you can also buy the soma at.. half the original price? that would seem to argue in favor of the soma and not against it.
4. using the old "406 = wider range of tires" argument is tire-some. i like to call it the, "but, muh tahres!" argument. there are "ranges" of tires for every wheel size that i know of. there are plenty of tires to choose from for both 406 and 451. clearly, the soma is designed as a road bike and has the right wheels for that application.
i guess what you are really saying is that although most of the components from headset to derailleur are crap, since the nano has 406 wheels it's a better choice?
Here's the deal: had the Soma been available for five hundred (525 at your link, unless you're doing local p/u in Chicago) at the time many of us bought the nano, we likely would have purchased the Soma. However, the price difference was substantial-- about 700$ at the time I bought mine, IIRC. If you had some part sources and were a reasonably good mechanic-- which you really needed to be anyway buying a Nano (see my prior posts on this thread) the bike was cheap enough so that most of the parts could be considered throwaways. The wheels and the mechs were decent enough; past that, I think the only other original parts left on my frame is the seatpost clamp.
I upgraded my Nano for under 300$, but I know what I'm doing. I probably would have bought the Soma if the price difference were what it is now, but it wasn't.
It looks like the Soma was pretty much a failure on the sales end, given the substantial price drop. I doubt there will be more, so if I were giving a recommendation to someone now on a mini, I'd tell them to snatch a Soma. If you're contemplating this, do it now, because I think you're seeing the last of the production run now. In a year or so, they'll be harder to find.
I would have upgraded the Soma too, and I don't think anyone is denying it is a nicer set up.
The headset's Roadmaster Mt. Fury quality, Odie-- and it is, confoundingly enough, JIS.