Hi,

I am a new to street bikes and my local bike store sells Marinoni bikes and wanted to get a reality check. They are selling Marinoni Ciclo with 105 group for $1900 is that reasonable? I have no way to get a baseline as no other lbs sell them... Also the sales guy said Marinoni's are hand made and amazing bikes.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Marioni's are a nice bike, but I personally wouldn't pay that much for a bike with only 105. I haven't kept up with them, but at one point they were quality "hand made" bikes from Canada. Whether that is the case still, I don't know.

My advice is visit a few other LBS in your area and price out some similarly grouped bikes and see if you can ride all of them. Then you'll have a basis for if it's worth your money to you. That's all that really matters anyway!

for this price you can get a full ultegra bike with a decent wheelset and carbon and/or alu frame. Tons of choices at this price range.
Most important is fit after that go for best component for the money.

Marinoni makes nice frames--plus I'm guessing the posters above don't realize you're talking about canadian dollars

are you talking about the steel or alu version of that model?

btw, Mike Barry of Mariposa is a Marinoni dealer--that alone says a lot about Marinoni imho

good luck

Marinoni is a very well respected frame maker. As such they make a number of frames from a variety of materials. You might want to check out their web site for more information. As others have noted, frames are important, but components and wheels also have a wide range of prices and quality. At the $2000 price point there are lots of choices and trade offs, but IMHO a Marinoni frame would not be a bad place to start.

There used to be a rule: anything that ends in a vowel is a good frame.
That covered pretty much every italian frame.

apart from ciocc, wilier and moser

So that translates to something like $1675 US. I'm of the mind that a great frame with a decent component group (which 105 is) is more worthwhile than a decent frame with a great component group.

You do have a wide range of bikes available at that pricepoint, so I encourage you to ride them all. You may not, as a newer rider, be able to distinguish which one fits you best (get a professional fit), but you will be able to tell how each frame rides differently from the others, and you will definitely fine ones that you like more. That said, if I equivalently liked a lesser frame with Ultegra at the same price, or was on the fence, I'd go for the Marinoni. 105 is great quality, enough so that one could race with it if they wanted. It's more that enough quality for an entry-level rider. And Marinoni frames are great by all accounts.

Unfortunatly I was talking us dollars

Er, yeah, 1900$USD for a bike with full 105 is a ripoff, plain and simple. You should be able to get full Ultegra at the very least for that price, likely with some really nice wheels and a great saddle. I'd check another LBS, this is a good time to be buying from the LBSs because they are getting rid of their 2006 stock.

Or you could do what many of us here at BF have done and find a great deal on the internet, but that is another thread entirely

Is the $1900 Marinoni Ciclo they are selling sitting right there in the shop, or do you have to order it?

If you have to order it, the thing to keep in mind is that it will be custom built for YOU! They will measure you, and send all that information off to Marinoni. Then Marinoni will build you a frame that fits. To me, that would be worth $1900!!

If it is sitting there in the shop already, I'd negotiate with them because it is obviously not custom built for you, chances are it was custom built for someone else, that someone else decided not to get it, and now they are trying to sell it off.


BTW - I have a Marinoni Ciclo, custom-built, of course ....... and I love him!!

Well since I have seen Marinoni Ciclo frame sets for $1,989.99.

I think we would need to know which Marinoni Ciclo we are talking about?

um, I'm not sure this is the best advice. there's plenty of junk frames available for $1900 or less with "full ultegra"

my understanding is that this particular bike has a handbuilt frame from marinoni

in such a case I wouldn't even consider whatever minute differences there is between 105 and Ultegra

getting a nice frame is more important than the difference between two similar groupsets (and 105 is more than adequate, we're not talking about sora or mirage)

Interesting. Whats a Serotto or Seven or other hand made bike equipped with 105 sell for? What about a $3000 colnago carbon frame, with a tiagra groupo thrown in for free, and discounted to $1900, is that a ripoff ? Whats a scott cr1 team go for, isnt that $2200 or so and comes with 105?

I'm not saying a marinoni frame is comparable to those, but you cant just say that any 2k$ bike must be ultegra in order to not be a rippoff.

This is true, I googled the ciclo frame before I responded and I realize it is a great frame but I understood from the OPs post that the LBS had the bike sitting there for 1900$USD, which seems a fair bit for a bike that is likely not a custom made frame; how could it be if it is not measured for his/her body? Therefore, it must be either a Ciclo that is measured for someone else who changed their mind about buying it and the LBS is trying to make some money back by switching out the components to something lower or this a run-off Ciclo frame that Marinoni is producing on the cheap (would be news to me).

Someone above me pointed this out, if that isn't the case (the OP will be measured, etc) then, yeah, I suppose that 1900$USD is fine but would any of us put 105 on a custom built frame? Seems like an odd choice of groupo for such a high end frame, doesn't it?

go away

now you're making up a bunch of bs speculation/conjecture telling him not to buy it

did marinoni kill your family or something?

you're a moron--go away

I just bought a Basso (ZER) that was a perfect fit for me (after getting a fitting). I had other choices and Marinoni was at the top of the list. I met with Mike Barry recently and he had a few Marinoni models for me to look at.

The build quality is amazing and the fact that you can have it custom built and even select the scheme and paint you want direct from Marinoni is a big plus. I won't discount that group sets and such are important (along with price) but I wasn't as hung up on them as I was on getting a bike that fit me properly.

I would get a fitting and see what a custom frame and certain component sets would cost you, then work out a deal that you're happy with. That's what I did with the Basso and I'm very happy with what I paid for it, the overall quality, and how it rides. And I'm totally new to a road bike as well.

In late 2002, I started my hunt for a Randonneuring bicycle.

I searched all the websites I could find that had road bicycles which were not racing bicycles and not touring bicycles. I wanted something in between. I also had a whole list of requirements. I found approx. 50 decent-looking choices ... 50 different brands from different companies.

After looking over those choices, I decided that I would narrow the field by going with a custom-built bicycle, or possibly one that was a common name among Randonneurs. That narrowed my choices down to about a dozen.

Then I looked at price, since I am not made of money and already knew that I'd be forking over a fortune to participate in my cycling events.

Marinoni came out at the top of the list because I could get the exact bicycle I wanted (custom, as I mentioned before) within my price range. In fact, it was the least expensive of all the custom bicycles I looked at!!

I drooled over a few others but I'm not convinced they would have been worth the price. Take Seven for example. They made my list of a dozen because I could have gotten exactly what I wanted with them, but when I saw the price, I had to cross them off my list. They aren't called Seven for nothing!! I think the one bicycle I was looking at from them was something in the neighborhood of $7000!

My advice would be to have a look over several websites with comparable bicycles ... and make your own decision.

Meanwhile, I have to say, I am VERY happy with the choice I made. Machak has a custom frame, right down to the paint job, and I've continued to customize just about everything else on him too. He's definitely not an "off-the-rack" bicycle!! I've ridden him about 35,000 kms over the past three years here in Canada, where I live, and also in England, Wales, France, the US, and Australia on everything from little round-the-block rides to 1200K randonnees to a 3-month fully loaded tour ... and he has held up remarkably well through it all.

What do you mean you googled the Ciclo frame?
Which Ciclo frame?

Just in case anyone has not heard of Marinoni and wants to know what we're talking about ... here's Marinoni's site:

https://www.marinoni.qc.ca/

There are three different Ciclos right now ... a Titanium, an Aluminum, and a Steel. When I bought mine, there were only Aluminum and Steel ... so of course I bought the steel one. But looking at the site right now ... that Titanium one is VERY tempting!!

I think there is a steel carbon also.

A scott cr1 is one of the lightest weight production carbon frames made today. The same frame is used by racing teams in tdf, and others. its definatly a high end frame. It comes in various versions, from full dura ace, down to 105. I own a 105 version. So i guess in answer to your question, yes some of us do put that odd choice of a groupo on a frame

Oh another straw in marinoni's cap. If you go to the european site that tests fatigue life of carbon frames. I dont have the link but you can google it. Any carbon frame that reaches the top level of tests gets put on the public results page. Scott CR1 is one such frame, Marinoni's carbon is another. There are only a few frames that made it to the public page.

Hehehe, yeah, I have a vendetta against Mr. Marinoni, oooooooookay I am not making it up, it is my opinion and you've decided it is incorrect but I am not going away. Welcome to the internet, accept that people share opinions other than your own.

The OP said that he is new to "street bikes" and that he wanted to spend 1900$USD on a bike that has a 105 groupo. Roughly, that means the frameset is about a 1000$USD, right? I am giving the LBS the benefit of the doubt that they will outfit him with a good set of wheels, stem, handlbars, etc plus the 105 groupo for roughly 900$USD, is that about right? Isn't that a friggin' expensive frame-set for a beginner? Perhaps money isn't an issue for him/her, maybe the OP will expand upon that but, 1900$USD is too much money for a bike outfitted with 105, and, in my opinion he could do better pricewise for a bike with 105. Maybe the OP will expand on that too.

I live in Toronto and am very familiar with Marinonis as they are a popular brand here, albeight expensive. I know you won't believe me but I in fact owned a Marinoni back in the early '90s, but only for about a year as it was too tempting for thieves and at the time I didn't have a very secure lock-up situation, so I sold it. But yeah, I think 105 is a great groupo, my Ciocc is full 105, but I also think it is an odd choice for a frame of that calibre; my Marinoni was full Dura Ace but I don't recall much else about the tubing etc, probably SL or something, I bought it second-hand[/end-internet-argument]

I wanted to get an idea of the frame before I responded.

edit: I've been looking for a decent steel frame for a commuter bike and my only criteria is that it is lightish and has eyelets for fenders....I just checked CL and there is a Marinoni Ciclo being advertised and it seems like it would fit! Very weird that this thread would get me thinking about Marinonis and now I might be buying one myself