gus6464

The whole comes from the same factory so it must be the same schpeel is pretty funny. I guess if BD had a carbon frame that came from the Giant factory it must be just as good as Giant's own TCR Advanced frame. Also their Merida made frames are the same as having an S-Works SL3 but at over half the price.

tj90

I have owned name brand bikes as well as scattante and currently ride a motobecane Ti.

I do notice that I sometimes get treated differently when Im on the "house brand" bike on local club rides. Most recently, I had this guy in his early 20s lecture me on using my core when climbing. I highly doubt he would have given me the advice if I was on a Colnago. I guess brand is an easy way for the presumptuous to size up others in the peloton and quickly determine how experienced you are. However I like the old credo:
"it is far better to be faster on a crappier bike than slower on an expensive bike". It brings more satisfaction to drop riders on a climb, then to be back in the pack with all the other $3000 bikes.

Ive gotten into riding double centuries this year and you get much less attitude on "image" and "branding". The worst is from the young wanna-be pro riders on the club rides. When your on a double, the environment is much more supportive and older. People dont seem to care about style and brand as much. Ride what you bring and lets see if we can do 200 in 13 hours! Comfort and reliability rule - if you can do it for less $$ or low weight then God bless you.

jrobe

You ride it.

But wait, you can't do that on an internet bike.

Palomar01

Nobody said it's the same. I stated that some of the engineering know-how probably spills over.

Palomar01

They have a 30-day Money back guarantee.

Palomar01

If you read the whole review, they do mention things they don't like about the bike. It's not a lot but they will mention if they think the bike is too heavy, or has flex in the bottom bracket, or is not a good bike for racing, etc.

Perhaps the truth is, there are few crap bikes out there in the upper price bracket. Bicycling magazine does not do test on Walmart bikes. I have never eve seen them do a test of anything below $500. I have seen them do comparisons and instead of saying this bike is "crap", they will say this bike is not as good as others in its class because...... I think it's pretty honest without being harsh.

gus6464

How Giant makes their brand frames is a trade secret. Same thing goes for how Specialized orders their frames from Merida and so on. If Specialized found out that some of their trade secrets were on no-name frames they would sue the OEM to high heavens. It is very easy to call up any of those OEM's and say you want a bunch of cheap carbon frames for your Palomar bike brand. Now to think that your cheap frames are going to be the same as their high-end clients is just silly.

datlas 

Oh brother, here we go again.

The comparison between Scattante and MotobecaneUSA/BottecchiaUSA is not quite fair...

Performance does not claim a racing heritage for their brands the way the BD ad copy does. Also, Performance does not inflate the "msrp" of their bikes as much as BD....

Anyway, as we all know by now, there are tradeoffs in buying a MotoUSA bike...be an educated consumer and choose what is right for you.

Palomar01

There you go again.

Did I use the words "the same"?

I'm not here to convince anyone a Motobecane is better than your Specialized or it is the same. But so far, owners of the Motobecane has been mostly happy. I don't own one so what do I know? The beauty of it is, you have choices. You can choose to pay an additional $1,000+ for a brand name with the same components because the frame may be better, or........in the end it's your money and your peace of mind. All I did was show you that Motobecane comes from the same factory as some of the major brands. Take from that what you will. Peace.

umd

Merida owns a large chunk of Specialized. For all intents and purposes they are the same company.

datlas 

Hey, it's BF: No good deed goes unpunished.

SwingBlade

Whether the reviews are in bicycle magazines or golf magazines the underlying concept is the same. If they kill advertiser's products in the reviews they will not get the advertising revenues they need to survive. Enter the concept of "damning with faint praise." Generally, if they positively rave about a product it is probably excellent. However, if they say a number of nice things without any real emotion or high impact phrases and use descriptors like "nice" and "didn't find any problems of note" and then point out one or two minor gripes, it is pretty much average to below average. This known as the incognito slam.

Nobody is offering bikes below an acceptable price point, so get over that. Yes, there are premiums but there are no deep discounts except on junk, old models that didn't sell for whatever reason, and frames and components that didn't cut the QC mustard for the original OEM. Costco anyone?

Factories can manufacture to any quality level. There are huge, huge variances in CF materials, layering and related construction techniques. As someone pointed out there are also manufacturing tolerances that must be adhered to with respect to contracts from the better companies. Giant and their subsidiary brands spec out frames all the way from top premium to below average dog.

There are no free rides. BD? Can you say caveat emptor? Some of their products will be a true quality bargain for the money while others that sound or look better may be overpriced dogs even by their standards. Weld quality, non-destructive testing standards, welder certification standards, aluminum quality, carbon weave quality, number of layers, vibration frequencies, attenuation, and longevity under heavy use are all variables that the buyer can only hope are acceptable to good. Those qualities will rarely if ever be rated higher than good. Depending on the level of use of the product by each individual consumer these may or may not be important considerations.

"Manufactured by the same company or in the same factory"? By themselves alone, those words mean absolutely nothing. Those are feel good words. Those are caveat emptor words. Those are, "There's one born every minute" words.

"You want to order 5,000 widgets for $1.98 apiece that look exactly like the high end $20 widget that we manufacture? No problem. Welcome to Taiwan/China."

jrobe

I think you should definitely buy a BD bike, preferrably a carbon one built at the Trek factory. Then post a good comparison review with several other high quality, well known carbon bikes. Then you would have given us some useful information. What you originally posted is useless information for anyone here making a buying decision.

Velo Gator

Yep.

gus6464

That know-how is also known as trade secret. You can't just call Giant and order a bunch of frames on a generic mold and ask them to use the same manufacturing process they use on their TCR Advanced. The reason why no carbon frame is the same no matter the factory is because the secret sauce will always be different. I can have a factory that produces cf bikes all day long including my own name brand and you are not going to find the secret sauce I put on my frame on any other frame that comes out of my factory.

You do realize that you can patent the specific way you make something right?

tj90

We have very high standards to bike equipment in the united states. Everyone rides record, chorus, dura ace or ultegra on cervelo, CAAD 9, etc etc. Europe is different. Much more mirage, 105 and house brand bikes ridden by avid cyclists. Its a question of priorities - how much money do you want to spend on your bicycle?

Frankly, you will not be equipment limited with the value segment if you are like most cyclist out there - typically long rides on weekend, a few before/after ride workouts during the week maybe a ride/race event periodically through the year. All the frame tech in road bike (nano this, weave that) is just a marketing ploy to get the average consumer to "upgrade" and stay interested in the sport. Id be the first to admit that new gear motivates me to ride more....

wunderkind

To me the issue is with the distributor. I kinda stop calling Trek, Specialized, Cannondale, Schwinn, etc bike mfgs. All they do is spec stuff up with the frame maker and slap Shimano, SRAM, Campy etc on it and basically distributes it to various channels.
Anyhow the issue with the BD as also another distributor is that while the bike frame comes from the same mould as Trek, GT, Schwinn, whatever, BD tend to really cheapen the parts like stems, brakes (Promax wtf?!), crankset, BB, hubs and parts where the general public don't seem to pay attention. Instead they would play up the name game like the RD, FD and shifters. Why, I saw some BD bikes with quill stems! Srsly, aren't those gone since the 90s?! Maybe they are playing the nostalgia card.

tagaproject6

Palomar01

Well the owners of MB bikes that have posted just to this thread so far seem very happy. I suppose that doesn't mean jack to you....

I'm actually now thinking about getting a MB with Dura Ace for $2600 just to go against the conceited snobs in here. That's about the price of an Ultegra set without wheels. At the very least, if the frame cracks in a thousand different pieces then I can just take the components including the Mavic Ksyirium Elites or whatever high end wheels they put on the bike and put it on a different frame. Either way I would still ahead. But then if the frame explodes or catches on fire then I'm screwed.

roadiejorge 

+ a lot

Getting it because you think it's a good value is good, getting it to go against "the conceited snobs in here" not so much.

Lenaxia

You guys are seriously getting trolled...

umd

The popcorn is better for you.

Palomar01

You are mistaking "high standards" against bike snobbery. Many Europeans are not swayed by brand names because they know the value of money I guess. Here in the US, if you're not on a brand name (that goes for everything not just bikes) the elitists snub their noses at you. Just read many of the responses here.....

What do I care? It's their money and their debts to pay...

umd

Cared enough to start a thread about it...

Just saying'

dahut

I just enjoy the cachet of the Motobecane name. Back in the day, they were premier bikes. The fact that the name is worth reviving means something to me. thefac tthat they are jst contractmade framse doenst bother me in the least. I already ride a contract house brand, anyway. Everyday. With pleasure. And you know what? My big Clydesdale butt doesn't know the difference.

So dont fear the Motobecane. Like so many have said its a frame and components, all made under contract. The same thing is done for toasters and DVD players. Review that list - how many have you named that are made by Kinesis? And how many other name brands are contracting out their work to other Asian bike makers?

Seriously, its a frame with off the shelf components hung on it. If you can handle any needed mechanic chores and adjustments yourself - what 'da difference?

Get out and ride on the budget you have, even if it is on a Motobecane - - thats what matters.