Originally Posted by Bekologist
i just picked up the summer '06 copy of the rivendell reader at a local bike shop. the more i read about grant's little enterprise, the more i become convinced no one should deal with the guy, ever.
Rivendell 'membership', 'prebooking' for things not in the country yet, bad advice (example, his flawed and misleading, i might say ignorant, assertion loaded basket bikes handle just as good as a bike packed for touring with the weight down low) and perienally 'out of stock' items aside,
his quickbeams are made by panasonic. his bleriots and some other frames are produced in tawian.I suspect some of his rambouilets are gruppo'd overseas to ship direct to his dealers. not that theres anything wrong with that, it just isn't what a 'custom' bike builder does. those are factory produced framesets. Grant's a marketing machine with some good specs.
a company like soma sells non custom frames for 400 bucks or so, surlys even less. and soma's got lugged framesets this year as well, probably produced at the same factory grant gets his bleriots brazed at.
Sour icing on the cake - in this summer '06 reader, he berated a dissatisfied customer (anonymously) that was unhappy with their Quickbeam purchase using 3 pages of the reader, including a picture of the 'offending' frame.
he found it necessary to print his 900 word defense he was going to send the purchaser about the flaws in the frameset, but deferred to send it privately. instead, he printed it so all his members could see how highbrow, lowlife, P.O.S. or what ever Grant thinks of himself. He went on and on about the 'dust mites' in the purchasers' eyebrows!
he feared being slammed on the internet, and i am happy to oblige him.
what a piece of work that grant peterson is. My dislike for such pretence borders on odious. the guy is pathetic.
The OP probably couldn't get an Atlantis in time anyway.
Maybe he can design a great bike, but i wouldn't deal with his company if i were you.
I can't let this pass. Your post is asinine.
The Bleriot is the one bike made in Taiwan, in cooperation with QBP, the owner of Surly. QBP, the owners of Surly, again, are selling this bike, too. Same price. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, because Bekologist can't read. They are accused of being too expensive, so they work with a major distributor and produce an affordable 650B frameset that's lugged and looks great in the pics I've seen. BTW, the Soma lugged frame is probably at the same place as the Bleriot and the Kogswells, and at the same price, too. Are we complaining about options?
"prebooking"? Buddy, you don't seem to know much about business. This is not unusual, in fact it is quite common among smaller bike businesses to make payments on small volume special orders, or to get in line for a custom. Paying a deposit on a custom is no different.
Memberships exist with REI, Performance, Adventure Cyclist, etc. etc. Basically, it is an incentive to subscribe to their magazine, and for the price a Bicycling subscription you get FAR more interesting stuff to read.
The article you speak of about a customer's dissatisfaction handled a delicate issue delicately, and was very fair to the customer, who remained totally anonymous. Rivendell's owner has always been open about his business dealings and problems.
I will clarify my position here: I think the OP probably should get a LHT or an affordable custom in his region. If he chooses to deal with Rivendell, he will find that the staff and the owner are warm, honest people who often bend over backwards to make customers happy. That has been my experience. I took my wife there to pick a bike, and she received more help and consideration than ANY bike shop I've been to. Since Bekologist can't get his facts straight, nor does he have any personal experience with them to communicate, I don't think his comment are reliable at all. I will add that the anonymous person in the article mentioned was able to return his used bike for a full refund.
I'm not a overzealous fan, but I do not like to see any good business or person misrepresent by some yahoo. Sorry for the interruption of the thread.