Originally Posted by
LarRig
Sounds pretty strange to me. Why not sell you the right size bike instead of hacking parts to "make it fit"?
That was my thinking. But I'm a noob so I didn't know. The idea of grinding on or cutting down a brand new bike makes no sense to me. Maybe if it was a killer deal on a used bike; but what's the incentive not to just order the right size?
Originally Posted by
demoncyclist
Sounds to me like the LBS owner is trying to move a bike he already has in stock, rather than ordering the correct size. I would NOT buy a bike from a shop that pulls that.
It wasn't the owner. The owner was who I spoke to when I ordered my bike. And as mentioned he ordered the 23" Absolute after having me test ride a 21". He was super helpful. This other guy was too, and friendly as can be. But the advice of just buying the 17" and cutting down the seatpost to put the seat closer to the frame seemed bizarre, even to a newbie like me.
Wish we had better offerings for LBS's. It makes sense that if the 13" is too small, and the 17" is too big; the 15" would work. But I would love for her to sit on a 15" model.
The confusion really is over how different those two were. The LBS owner seemed to be of the opinion that frame size was the crucial starting point and he didn't even OFFER to sell me the 21", he actually told me as I came in "If you want that bike you're going to need to order the 23" version". The best part was, he ordered it in for less than the one on the floor (on the floor was a 2015 but Fuji still had 2014's available to ship for a discount). So it was weird to, in the same shop, go from "Don't get that bike, you need that one" to "Eh, we can make it work"