Luckily, we saw what was unfolding and stopped doing business with them long before things got really out of hand.

It's not strictly personal. Leader did just about everyone dirty, including their own team riders. I honestly don't know how Sal Lombroso can look at himself in the mirror.

Damn I'm sorry to hear that

Ahhh no wonder all their team riders are hawking their Leader **** on FB....makes sense now

Well since I have you here, what's a quality frame you'd suggest? With a budget of 6-8 hundo.

Dude that seriously sucks, but you're SOL. I know even when they still had all their pages up people couldn't get problems settled with them. Have you taken a look at Cinelli Vigorelli's or All City Thunderdomes? Are you only looking for Aluminum?

Yea preferably Alu

I'm aware Cinelli is top tier. They have great frames, but I'm more into the aero design (I know. basic. lol) and I have yet to see them offer something like that.

I haven't looked at All City yet tho. Ill check them out

I love my Aventon Diamond frame. I think I saw the 2017 Diamond complete for $699 at RG, but I don't see it there anymore, so it must've sold out. I'm sure you could look through the interwebs and find it. The new colab with Highsnobiety just dropped and it looks pretty sick. But probably sold out.

The Cordoba or Mataro completes run around $450-$500

First time i heard about Aventon was 2 years ago. The owner of SGV bikes out here in LA was pushing em hard, and i thought they were low level and dinky. Since then ive heard nothing but great things. Theyve come a long way, have a huge presence in the crit scene out here and are making big moves.

Thanks for your input, ill be looking at their products more closely!

Frames I'd buy in that range:

https://www.dolan-bikes.com/dolan-tr...eset-2017.html

https://www.colossicycling.com/produc...ial_track.html

https://www.retro-gression.com/colle...rdome-frameset

https://www.retro-gression.com/colle...block-frameset

Sorry. Probably not much help on the aero AL front. Steel is real.

On my 3rd season of track racing with that frame and its held up excellently. Sees street use occasionally as well, no problems.

Never understood all the Leader fandom. They always had problems of one sort or another.

Is Colossi still making frames? I've always thought they made some pretty stuff, but I'd heard that getting delivery from them was sort of challenging at best.

Dunno. I've wanted one for a while. [MENTION=164476]Scrodzilla[/MENTION] would probably be of more help.

This just got posted in the deal thread too.

Look Velomine.com : Worldwide Bicycle Shop, fixed gear track bike wheelsets campagnolo super record vintage bike

Thanks man. That Dolan is real purty

I emailed Brotures last week and got a reply from them today that stated they have a new US distributor that's going to be carrying the 2018 Leader lineup, if that matters to anyone. My 725 has still held up just fine after over a year, riding street and track, and I think the new frames look sick. To each their own. I dig em.

*shrug*

If RG doesn't sell it, I don't want it.

2018 models? How? (was Leader Bikes U.S. just a distributor?)

The short version: Leader Bikes (Sal Lombroso) screwed everyone over, went bankrupt and was purchased by Brotures so they could continue to sell them to the Japanese market.

Apparently now they're going to try doing some damage control and bring them back to America. Cut the head off the demon, a new one grows...

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Bianchi Super Pista frameset yet.

Yup - Aveton makes a fine bike. A great successor to Leader

First gen. Mataro, which were very problematic. The fork on that bike was prone to cracking at the crown too. Aventon has improved by leaps and bounds since then.

Unlike Leader, Aventon has learned from their mistakes as a young company and worked hard to actually get better instead of just building hype and ****ing people over.

Scrod,

I'm curious about your thoughts on the Cordoba limited edition frame. It's not super expensive, but it has a tapered headtube. I know it's track oriented, but could it be good for a comfort bike with a longish head tube?

Dave

Hi, first post here. Usually riding not posting but gotta call bull when I see a good company and friend being dragged through the dirt.

I rode for Leader for years and I know a lot more than most of what went down and how people behaved. Sal is the owner of Leader and he did so much good work for all his team riders, and tried to help any rider who approached him for that matter. To hear otherwise made me laugh and then pissed me off. He gave everyone on the team every opportunity he could afford, and then more. He's one of the most generous guys I know, and if you know the bike industry you'll know there are a lot of stingy guys at the top of companies.

Yes Leader is gone bust. I'll tell you why. Heavy Pedal. Like many cheap/lazy bike companies they never designed their own frames, they just picked a mold off the wall in a Chinese factory. Sal has been designing Leader frames from day one and never went that route. The guys at Heavy Pedal decided to knowingly rip off the Renovatio mold from the factory (who is also partly to blame for letting it happen). Leader had to go to court to get Heavy Pedal to stop selling their Axiom frames (Which are Renovatios originally designed by Patrick Thames and Sal which HP threw a new paint job on). Turns out HP have some friends with extremely deep pockets and drawing out a legal battle just to be dirtbags is what they did. So that is the main reason Leader is bust, won the battle but lost the war. Now you have one less company designing original frames and one more company still stealing people's work and contributing nothing of value to our world.

To say throw ur Leader frame in the trash is stupid and sad. Obviously Dave Scrod and Sal are not friends and have some personal **** going on and I don't wanna get involved beyond saying that there is a lot of lies flying around. It's silly to sell HP stuff on ur store but say you should throw a Leader frame away when they're so nice HP had to steal the frames, repaint and sell them.

I've been to Sal's house, been to his work, met his family, seen his frames as sketched designs first hand, ridden his bikes, won tons of races on them. I know him a lot better than anyone posting one here. He's an extremely kind and generous guy. I've watched him suffer through cancer and beat it, still always be generous and caring about everyone around him, seen how people turned their backs on him as soon as the money dried up (eg. the now Endo Concept guys who are only in it to look cool, always take and never give back).
Instead of listening to one guy who has some personal beef he can't let go, go and ask a current team rider about the bikes they ride or the guy who made and supplied them. I'm talking about guys that train and race at a high level, not just people who talk more than they ride.

It takes a lot more work and costs a lot more money to design your own stuff, then still sell it a price point that is equal to others who do none of that hard work. We need more people in the bike world doing that so we don't end up with only generic, uninspired, crappy geo bikes. Sal has been doing that since 1999, and it pisses me off that a bunch of no ones are trying to talk dirt on him. What have they designed? What have they created? How many riders have they supported and given amazing opportunities to?
They're the ones screwing someone over, not the other way around.

Go ride ur bikes!

Maybe this would be a good time to lock this thread ?

why? because someone disagreed when other people were talking **** on someone? why not lock it when people started saying that a bike company owner "screwed everyone over"? why wait to suggest it when someone else says "that's not what happened."?
genuinely curious.

thats a really long winded explanation for "i rode a garbage bike because someone gave it to me"

i dont classify "the heavy pedal" under a legitimate brand either.