Originally Posted by
cyccommute
You may have a Waterford dealer near your house as do I but you aren't likely to walk into the store today and wheel one off the floor. I have Moots dealers in my area as well but I'm not going to be able to pick up a frame from them today.
If all the experience you have with steel is with old flexy frames, it colors your attitude towards steel. Not everyone has ridden a high end steel bike. As for misinformation and myths, there are plenty out there about steel. "It's compliant" and "the ride is smoother" are two of the biggest ones, followed closely by "it can be fixed anywhere".
The point, like with the Waterford bikes, is that you can't walk into the store today and walk out with one. Soma, Salsa, Velo Orange and even Surly are bikes that you can't generally pull off the peg and go ride. I've never run across a store...and I've been in lots of bike shops...that had rows and rows of any of those steel bikes. You can order them but you aren't going to find them in stock. It's rather difficult to comparison shop for a bike that you can't ride until you buy it. It's difficult enough to walk into somewhere and order a Surly frame for $300 to $400, sight unseen. It's almost impossible to walk into a shop and plunk down $5000 for a complete bike that you won't see until it is done and probably can't send back if you are dissatisfied.
I bought my Salsa Casseroll after test riding it at my lbs. Same shop had a Steel framed Surly Pacer on the floor for a long time. They also stock most of the Steel frame Jamis Quests. I even saw a couple of custom built Velo Orange bikes there. There is another shop in town that sells Waterford and Gunnar. I guess I am just lucky, but I figured if you can find steel bikes right on the showroom floor in a smallish Midwestern city like Milwaukee (where bicycle sales plummet in winter chances are pretty good you can find them in big cities like New York or Chicago or cycling Meccas like Portland, Oregon, or San Francisco, and big college towns.