tomato coupe

Short memory?

genejockey 

Right. So you drew the conclusion that Blackburn was a Walmart "House Brand" based solely on seeing them dominate the bike kit section at Walmart. But you also apparently shop online from Jenson USA (Me too. That's where I got my BIanchi), and if you search "Blackburn" on there, you'll see LOTS of Blackburn products.

terrymorse 

I did a little comparison between "big box" Walmart and "specialty cycling" Colorado Cycling sites. Blackburn products are on both sites, and the prices seem to be identical (so much for Walmart being the low cost supplier).

There are some diferences. Walmart has a larger selection (it looks like they list the whole darn Blackburn catalog), but they only stock the cheaper products in store. Colorado Cyclist doesn't offer the cheap stuff. Different product selection for a different customer. Makes sense.

Im guessing that Walmart does drop-ship orders for stuff they don't keep in stock. That's a pretty common practice for online stores.

genejockey 

Yeah, that makes sense. I don't think you're going to see your local Cat 1s and 2s shopping for bike stuff at Walmart, nor the guy who's just "getting into biking" on the pedway shopping at Colorado Cyclist.

tomato coupe

I think your comparison shopping doesn't reveal anything useful. The fact that Walmart shows the "entire" Blackburn catalog is irrelevant -- they do that with a lot of products that they will never sell. For instance, they show nearly 500 Campagnolo products on their website, including individual bolts, brake levers, spokes, springs, etc. They don't stock any of that stuff and they will never sell any of it. It's just taking up space on a Walmart hard drive.

VegasJen

If I search a website, I tend to search items, not brands.

rsbob 

I don’t know about a ‘cycling tax’ but I regularly pay the ‘stupid tax’. That’s when I cut a corner, buy something cheap, or make a boneheaded move and it bites me in the butt.

terrymorse 

Um, it reveals to me that Walmart offers a lot of products that they don't stock, and that the stuff they do stock identifies the type of customer they market to. It also suggests that ordering from Walmart may include a delay, as they will likely do a drop ship order. I have ordered items from Walmart when I couldn't find them elsewhere (or when they had a very good price), and while it took a while to get them, they did arrive.

These facts might elicit a "yeah duh" from you, but it was not obvious to me.

BTW, stating that Walmart will never sell a certain item is opinion. You can't know that. Walmart must have a business reason for listing all that stuff.

tomato coupe

Really? You think there's a business reason for listing the following?

1. Square taper Campy Chorus bottom bracket with Italian threads.

2. 14 tooth Campy cog for 11 speed cassette.

3. 2.4mm "Q" spacer for 10 speed Campy cassette.

4. Campy ultra-shift right thumb button.

The list goes on and on. There is no business reason for listing these items -- it's just Walmart IT workers run amok.

genejockey 

But a 5 second search would have answered the question of whether Blackburn was some Walmart house brand.

Anyway, yeah - what you're experiencing is what happens in every sport as you get deeper into it - the "stuff" gets more expensive as it gets more specialized. Also, a quick search on google, and I found an old thread here on BF that says you can get 130 psi in a 23mm tire from a 16g cartridge, so a 12g should get you 97 psi, which is certainly good enough.

genejockey 

Then there's what we call the "A**hole Tax", or, why you shouldn't yell at a car mechanic while your car is still in the shop.

Koyote

I guess by some people’s logic, that makes Campagnolo a Walmart house brand.

terrymorse 

I'm impressed that you have such insight into Walmart's business decisions over its online store.

Or are you just stating opinion?

Sy Reene

kinda apples to oranges, buying a bulk pack of 50 cartridges and comparing the unit price to a 5-pack, isn't it?

Koyote

The OP stated that she wished she’d bought fifty of them at that price.

rsbob 

Let’s see if we can find a useless point of contention and exploit it.

genejockey 

That is our way, hallowed by time and long use.

livedarklions

I think a better description of what's happened in the past couple decades is that LBS can no longer mark up their parts and accessories because they are competing with online retail.

To the extent that prices are getting too high in a particular area, I think the issue is too little competition, not too much. Shimano has something very close to monopoly power in derraileurs and shifters. I think there may be beginning a dramatic shift away from that, however, with Microshift, et al. taking some of the low end away and SRAM competing at the high.

indyfabz

Smashing success for the OP.

livedarklions

I buy pointless quibbles in bulk.

livedarklions

Wrong. Most of those are actually being sold by other vendors through the Wal-Mart website. Amazon does this as well. Wal-Mart is trying to compete with Amazon for having a one site to buy everything system.

terrymorse 

I think you're right, price competition from online is probably the biggest thing squeezing LBS operators. Followed closely by the cost of retail commercial property. In this area, the rental prices for commercial property are nuts.

VegasJen

Regardless of whether Blackburn is owned by Walmart, they are the de facto house brand now. Walmart has began to stock exclusively Blackburn items. Competing buying options are gone, so Walmart may not own the brand, but if Blackburn makes that item, you won't find a competitor at Wally World now.

But to your point, I appreciate you actually engaging in the discussion regarding 12g v. 16g cartridges. I have wondered what they will inflate to, but I don't have a gauge that reads off a Presta valve. At home, I run my garage compressor up to the pressure I want to put in my tires, typically between 90-100psi, and shut it off. That's how I gauge it at home. Out on the road, I hit it with the CO2 inflator and hope that's enough.

I did have a flat a couple days ago and I had 16g cartridges in my tool bag. I hit at 23c tire with a 16g and it was so hard it scared me. I was worried the tube might explode if I had even a small impact.
I see a regular cast of characters that like to take a single point, that may or may not even be the crux of the situation, and focus on it to the exclusion of any and all related issues.
You presume to know what motivated me to post this thread.

shelbyfv

Yep.

Koyote

Your claim that Blackburn is the “house brand“ of Walmart has been refuted to death, so I won’t even address that part of your post. In fact, you apparently don’t understand what “house brand“ even means. So that’s problematic.

As for the other part: your initial post asked if there is a special “tax,” or surcharge, applied to products that happen to be used by cyclists – just because we’re cyclists. The two examples you gave have also been soundly refuted. Without those, you don’t really have a “crux” or central point.