I registered, literally, just to tell [MENTION=244825]prooftheory[/MENTION] that he's a good person. A good, level-headed person among a bunch of pompous circlejerkers. So, thank you. (I found this thread by looking for the same information the OP was looking for.)
Seriously people, have some self-awareness. It's easy to get caught up in your own positions, denigrating ignorant outsiders and scoffing when they don't have the knowledge it took you years to acquire. None of this information is obvious. If someone wants a stock bike without upgrades, it should be a reasonably simple thing to respond with "Well, I prefer Bike A because of X, Y, and Z, but Bike B does have U and V." Instead, many of the responses really have given no justification for their choices, and the defensiveness at being asked to provide reasons for that choice indicates some level of anxiety at being wrong in providing evidence for that preference - because it sure as hell doesn't take any more time to give coherent, courteous responses than it does to tell OP he's an idiot. I've been a significant, high-profile veteran of forums before; I know how this goes. It's like being at a party talking with your cohort and a new guy comes up and tries to work his way into the circle. There's natural resistance because we're all a bunch of dumb apes who favor the ingroup, even when it's something as nonthreatening as an online interaction.
But If there aren't nuances to add, then why not just put a big sticky at the top that says "BUY A KILO TT AND SHUT UP so we can keep posting pics of our decked-out fixies that we dropped hundreds of extra dollars on to make look like the finest $100 flashy crapfixies out there." That is to say: in the current stickies, there is no clear, quick go-to post that summarizes the pros and cons of the common fixies out there.
tl;dr stop being dicks to n00bs. If there's a clear ranking of stock bikes then
someone should make a post with the pros and cons of common SSFG's and sticky it. It doesn't benefit anyone to have this information hidden away in the bowels of the message board. I implore one or many of you to put this information down in writing in a single, easily-accessible spot. You'd prove that you're one of these "knowledgeable people" scrod mentioned AND you'd cut down on these n00b question threads.
And lighten the hell up.
Originally Posted by
prooftheory
I'm guessing that at least part of the reason why people are not wanting to give OP much information is that it has been covered in a lot of other threads, but the Fixie Record hasn't actually been discussed in any other thread before and I'm not even sure that anyone has actually even ridden it, so OP's question is legitimate, even if we might get insulted that he doesn't just take TT's word for it. To answer, the question of why it might be prefered OP you should looks at the parts list. For example, the Fixie Record indicates that there is room for a rear fender which might be important. The Fixie Record is made out of aluminum which might make it less prone to rust and lighter but also a somewhat harsher ride. It doesn't have any geometry charts posted yet so that is somewhat unknown but it appears to have a somewhat more roadlike geometry with the upward sloping toptube, so that probably makes it more commute appropriate than the Kilo TT and the dawes. All in all, it wins over the clockwork because of the material and the fact that it is cheaper. There is a review of it
here.
When someone answers a question in a way that isn't informative it really doesn't help if you say "I don't mean any disrespect but ..." You really should have gone and looked at the spec charts and been specific: Are these rims better than those? (not really), Does anyone know where a geometry chart for the Fixie Record is? (ask bikesdirect customer service. In fact, asking BikesDirect customer service would have been the best way to go from the start.) Can the Windsor graphics be easily removed? etc.
The computer analogy was apt. Imagine someone asks you to choose between a list of laptops that they are considering with a variety of competitive but differing stats. There will be competing arguments for each of them but you as an expert will have a gestalt opinion without having a fully articulated reason why you think the computer with the lower ram will actually be the better one for the person asking.