Doohickie

Actually, the one at the LBS arrived with a flat which they were changing this morning. If I got one of those the first mod would be to put in thick walled tubes.

wahoonc

Not as quick as a coaster brake or QR multi speed, ... I dropped the front and rear wheels on my roller braked Redline R530 this morning, in fact had to do the front wheel twice because I forgot to skin the paint off the drop out for the generator hub grounding. I highly suggest Kevlar belted tires and heavy duty tubes. I actually have used slime tubes in the past on flat prone bikes that I service

Aaron

I-Like-To-Bike

My daughter's Calvin, made by Biria is an excellent bike. Bought it new in Germany in 2000 or 2001 for DM565 (about $300) fully equipped with Sachs 3 speed coaster hub, fenders, lights, bell, rack, basket, frame lock etc. Still has the original Nokian 622 x 47mm tires on it and my daughter has never had a problem with it.

I-Like-To-Bike

"re and re"? Remove and replace?

Tourister

Now that's a nice looking bike... No prices or ordering info though that I could see..
That back weel can't be much worse to change then my Raliegh Roadster.. You have to
pull the brake pads off, unhook the shift, fender brackets etc to get it off.. Then hope you
don't mess up the two wheel position adjustment settings in the process... I run thron resistant tubes, liners and Ugh slime in that sucker so I don't have to do it often..

Dan Burkhart 

Sure. I deal with gearhubs and roller brakes all the time. No big deal there. Throw in a full coverage chain case and rack and fender mounts that slip over the axle and you are in for a fun time.
The only thing I've dealt with that was worse was a Gazelle, which in addition to all the above issues, also had a kick stand which mounted on both ends of the axle.
Dutch bikes. Bah!

Dan Burkhart 

No flies on you.

graywolf

Well, I did lose a zero, they go for $150 in China (that is from the wiki, but I do not know if that is retail or container lot wholesale). Let's see $5K to ship a short container, call it 300 bikes, so $17 shipping that makes $167, add 50% markup for the distributor $250, add $80 shipping within the US. $320, add 50% markup for the dealer equals $480. Of course a few years ago the dollar was worth twice what it is today on the world market. So anyone with a spare $50K or so can go into business. Note: I actually looked into importing roadster bikes from India about 3 years ago; that turned out to be $43 each for a 20' container of bicycle parts completely unassembled; so I would have turned out to be a bicycle manufacturer rather than a bicycle importer.

The parts probably will fit. The finish is probably not up to the quality on your roadster.

Tourister

Something wrong there... My latest Giant Sedona St came from Tiawan (container), delivered to a distributor and then shipped to a dealer and sold for under 300.00... And it wasn't a single speed either...

Doohickie

That's about what the Birias are going for at my LBS ($450-500).

badmother

Trying to fix the link: https://sheldonbrown.com/harris/sturm...tml#smallparts

graywolf

Most likely because I was talking about a minimum order, and the bike you are talking about was part of a much larger order. After all Walmart sells bikes for <$100. There just isn't that big a market for roadsters here or Walmart would be selling them for $100-125 each. For some strange reason factories seem to be willing to give you a better deal on 25000 than they are on 300. Also the roadsters that they are selling here are loaded up with accessories, a stripped version like intended to sell in Africa is about 1/2 the price FOB factory. Also a 50# roadster costs more to manufacture than a 30# mountain bike say as well as fewer fitting in that container.

You can check right on the web, the landed price in a USA port of a 40 foot container from China is currently about $8000, so $5000 for a 20' container delivered to a warehouse someplace inland is a pretty close estimate. If you are contracting for a whole ship load at a time like Walmart your per container price goes down a lot. A thing to realize also is that there are all kinds of fees involved in that price that you do not think about until you actually do a bit of reseach. So my point holds, the people bringing Flying Pigeon Roadsters and the like in are making a decent profit, but they are not ripping anyone off.

Tourister

I agree with what you say to a point... I think bigger factors are volume and compitition... If your only selling 100 Roadsters etc a month you have to charge a lot more then the guy selling 1000 comperable bikes a month to cover a comfortable overhead... Also if you are the olnly person selling the bike model you can charge a lot more then those selling "common" bikes.. I would bet that from Tiawan/China the volume cost per unit is not that much different between a thousand and ten thousand bikes... But then this is all speculation since we don't have the numbers.....

Juggler2

Maybe a mod could move the economics discussion to it's own thread? Just a thought.

graywolf

Why, we have pretty much exhausted that issue?

In case folks read this thread that do not understand what 3-speed bike are about I would like to suggest this report on the Pepin Three Speed Tour that I think catches the spirit of these bicycles rather well.

https://twocitiestwowheels.blogspot.c...idday-sun.html

puppypilgrim

Thanks for posting the blog graywolf. I enjoyed it!

Tourister

Same here... I really enjoyed reading that.. Went out and put another coat of polish on my Roadster :-)

politicalgeek

Anything I should be looking at for a 3 speed conversion of a Schwinn Le Tour?

graywolf

Should not be a problem. the LeTour has horizontal dropouts, or at least the '77 model I bought new back then did. so all you need it the long axle to fit the wide drop outs. A note however, I bent three of those frames before I gave up on it, they were not the most sturdy bicycles. Hit a chuckhole at speed and it is history.

politicalgeek

Thanks. Velo Orange has some nice handlebars I'm looking. Should be a fun project.

San Rensho 

It looks like this is what Yellow Jersey did.

https://www.yellowjersey.org/EASTMAN.HTML

Tourister

Looks like you have done some research... Much more then I that's for sure...
A question if I may though... Why is it I can buy say a Giant Sedona ST (Mountain bike) for half that from a dealer... Seems like that bike more or less follows the same path yours did ???... Certanly quantity can't make that much of a differance ???.

Looking for a new set of 28 inch wheels for my Roadster... Mine work ok but the chrome where the brake pads rub is wearing thin and the brass or whatever (it's brass looking anyway) is starting to show through... Last resort I guess I can get them rechromed somewhere but would really prefer a new set...

10speed

I own 3 :a 1959 schwinn ladies ,$5 a mint ladies colombia tri coaster $15 and a west german exectutive $10. when you can find cheap used ones who will pay for new?

wahoonc

You have to live somewhere they can be found...all that shows up around here on CL is the overpriced used once superduper carbon wonders. In the thrifts? WM specials at 95% of full retail. I haunt the local thrifts, yard sales, etc. In the past 5 years I have purchased 3 bikes none of them spectacular finds. Best deals so far have come from my LBS that sells used bikes. I picked up a Staiger (German trekking bike) that was fully loaded with a dyno hub, lights, racks and fenders for $175. I have not seen a Raleigh 3 speed for sale in my area in over 20 years.

Aaron

Sci-Fi

A bit OT. Was looking to upgrade the old single pivot brakes on my 60's era 3-speed and was looking at Tektro's R730 long reach and clicked on JensonUSA's web site (must be a mis-print...lol...can buy a new bike for $764):

https://www.jensonusa.com/store/prod...rs.aspx?cc=MXN