SingleSpeeDemon

But...the bareknuckle is made in Italy and the Madison hails from a sweatshop in Taiwan. Nonetheless the fork is damn sexy.

dorien

anyone have a heads up as to where i can pick up a madison in the NYC area?

SpiderMike

Here is the link to the Schwinn dealer locator. https://www.schwinnbikes.com/locator/mqlocator?link=find

My search of NYC came up with 10 different places.

silent1

Kind of off topic but while we are discussing this I might as well ask. I have been trying to decide between The Hour from bikesdirect.com and buying the Madison. They have the same crank and formula hubs and everything else is pretty much comparable in quality. The only difference seems to be the Madison comes with two brakes and levers and the $250 price difference. I am looking to race at Indianapolis or Northbrook next year, any input? I know they are both kind of bottom of the line and I don't really care about name brands just looking for something to push me over the edge one way or the other.

Doctor Who

My, you're nasty.

SpiderMike

Have you looked at this thread? https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ht=budget+bike It was good idea, but as you can see started going downhill

silent1

Yeah I looked through the budget bike thread but it kinda got off topic and I don't think there is a lot of traffic there. I searched the forums but really didn't find a whole lot of useful information. I been waiting for FFG to put up their review but no luck yet.

SpiderMike

Aside from which bike, ask yourself would you rather do your business click or brick? There are pros and cons to that as well. Do you have a LBS in your town that can order one(Madison)? Do you have the tools and know how to build a bike you order online? ..... I went with supporting my LBS and ordering a Madison. I'll have to wait til Feb, vs the shipping time of online ordering, but I support my friends.

silent1

One of my friends is a manager at the bike store so I try to shop there when I can. I do all of my own work so I really don't use the LBS except to buy the parts. I have been riding a couple of different conversions for a couple of years but they won't allow them at the track. Honestly, I like the look of the Madison but it's tough for a broke college kid to shell out $600 bucks for a bike without a little feedback if possible.

Aeroplane

Unless something has changed, the Hour and other Bikesdirect bikes do not come with Formula hubs. The Redline 925, Raleigh Rush Hour, various IRO's, and Schwinn all do though.

SingleSpeeDemon

Actually I was trying to be funny and failed miserably. Not like Michael Richards though.

In Absentia

Check the website. The Hour comes with Formula track hubs. I've actually considered getting one since I saw that.

RDRomano

See, I dig the sticker scheme. Reminds me of the Knight Rider era. I wonder if I can go to grad school for an interdisciplinary Master's in Knight Rider, A-Team, and He-Man, with a focus on intergration into post-modern Thundercats. I think they have that at Berkeley.

Hang on...does Schwinn actually not exist now? If not, why not? and then whose catalog was I given by the LBS sales-dude? Is this a test by Schrodinger?

AGH! I just want to ride, amybe lose a little wieght! Why is this so darned hard? I'd like fenders, a rack, 35mm-38mm tires (cuz I'm fat, and not a ricer, er, racer) a "relaxed road" fit (not, like, a laid back pink cruiser with My Little Pony stickers and plastic streamers...not that there's anything wrong with that), and I have about five hundred bucks to spend. I know, this ain't the forum for "What shoudl the newbie buy?" I'm just venting.

Geez, I hate it when perfectly good pasttimes get lost in a snow drift of esoteric minutiae, only to be told by the self-appointed arbiters of gnosis that if I would only spend a little time beating the learning curve, I'd be l33t like them, and start wearing god-knows-what out in public...If I'd wanted that, I could've gone to grad school (with the bow ties, smoking pipes, tweed sportcoats/leather elbow patches and all.)

<Thread rederailed.>

Landgolier

Schwinn is like Raleigh or Motobecane or Mercier or whatever bike company you want to name, or Ben and Jerry's for that matter, the original company got bought out and now it's just a label slapped on bikes by a larger company. So there you go.

About one turdzillion of the exact bike you're looking for were made from about 1968 to 1988, and some of them even don't suck. You might have to add the rack and fenders, but at least they mostly have mounts for them. Or you can drop 4x that much on a rivendell.

Riding bikes is a great pasttime, I encourage everyone to do it. But we're not doing that, we're BSing about bikes on the internet, so what do you expect.

Also, I still think the EAI and Madison fork crowns at least came out of the same mold. Heck, the Madison forks may be made in Italy, Taiwan could probably TIG weld a ham sandwich to a dictionary these days but it's been a long time since they were doing braising.

SingleSpeeDemon

Why is that so funny to me?

Landgolier

-1 me for continuing to spell brazing wrong, even in posts containing dictionaries.

edit: SSD, you have one of these things, know anybody with a bareknuckle you could compare forks with?

Aeroplane

Dope. All it needs is a threadless headset and the KHS/Mercier fork and that is the big winner.

fender1

Buy any Trek (in your size) from 1980 to 1984. You can check the serial # at www.vintagetrek.com to check the year and model. Hand made in US, Lugged Steel, Silver brazed & and won't cost you big $$. But still a great frame. Most will take 35mm w/ fenders (I know I have done it), english threaded bb, so you can spend your $$ on nice wheel set/ cranks etc. Most have braze ons for rack mounting and many models were made from Reynolds 531 Tubing. Ishiwatta 022 tubing is also common and bit thicker which may work better for your weight. Please consider this thread completey off track.... ( no pun intended)

SingleSpeeDemon

I've tried...no one with a BK wants to do that for fear that the fork is the same. Well...no, not really, but it does look identical and is appears to be very high quality. Anyone in Pittburgh want to show me their BK???

RDRomano

Would you give me the skinny on EAI? I found their website, but other than a few small parts, there's no info. Where would I get one and what kind of money are we talking about?

Landgolier

EAI is kind of a weird company, they're basically just a distributor. There are vendors who carry them online, Yojimbo's in Chicago usually has a bunch around but I haven't been in there in a while. The F&F is $560 or so, definitely very nice bikes and a good step up from the $500ish completes.

https://www.businesscycles.com/trfram.htm#nessuno
https://www.thebikebiz.com/product_p/bk-trk-eai01.htm
First site tells you a little more about it (the bikes come with BN and Deda stickers, badge it as you please), second has a customization widget, I built up a sample with midline parts and it came to $1400, but that seems stoopid high. If you can build wheels and assemble bikes you could get that thing together for $1200 no problem.

SingleSpeeDemon

A quick Photoshop debadging of my bike. I'm going to get her powdercoated this winter, so this is a quick preview.

SpiderMike

SSD, Is the headbadge riveted or glued on?

joshuastar

oh, that's pretty.

SingleSpeeDemon

It's held on with double-sided foam tape. I don't know why I haven't yanked it off yet.