Originally Posted by Patriot
TREK... big evil corporate montser.
If you had to deal with them from a business perspective you'd know how correct that was. See if any of the letters to the editor are posted on Bicycle Retailer's site. There's been some good ones recently.
Back in the day, our shop carried Fisher but not Trek (as this was the rule at the time, you couldn't do both). Another shop not far from us carried Trek and suddenly had Fisher. We called Trek up to see what was going on and if we could now get Trek. They told us no, we were to close to that other dealer. Brilliant.
As Snicklefritz mentioned, they place some pretty good demands on dealers, and in large markets, have been known to open a concept store right in one of their dealer's back yards if said dealer doesn't meet their demands (this would be the subject matter on Bicycle Retailer).
Originally Posted by mtnroads
I think it's nice to see an American manufacturing company that is competitive, doing well and turns out solid products, many of which are still made here by American workers. Not just the high end stuff either. My 2100, 520 and 970 all have frames built in the US. Good solid bikes, no problems, no complaints.
For years Trek was great at playing the game of having the frames manufactured overseas and shipping them here, assembling and painting them, and calling them made in the USA. I was never a fan of this practice. There's hardly any American manufacturing with Trek these days. The rep in our area was saying the 2100 (and family) are now overseas, leaving the OCLV series the only ones made in the US. I haven't confirmed this but figure that if the rep is saying it, he knows what's what.
On a personal level, I find the marketing of OCLV to be somewhat disingenuous. Everyone has some sort of process wherein they try to minimize the voids in their lay-up. What's funny to me is that through their marketing, many people seem to believe that Trek's carbon fiber is entirely different than that other manufactures are using, when the reality is that their CF is the same stuff used by one of the more popular suppliers in the golf industry. Also, I don't really care for the ride of their carbon bikes, nor their full-sus mountain bikes. All personal preference and everyone has different needs/inclinations, but they're not for me.
Wow, that got to be rather long. In spite of what I've said, I can't believe there are idiots bashing Trek for Hincappie's crash. I'm not a Trek fan, but I'm not about to take pleasure in his crash. One of the best American riders got hurt when in prime position to win Paris-Roubaix. There's no good in that, especially when you consider the impact this could have on his season.