Surly + Bikesdirect = ?
 

When did this happen? Why did this happen? I tried searching for info here, but only found a thread in general with no real information.
http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...teamroller.htm
http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...rosscheck2.htm
I kind of like BD - in fact, since I left the world of bike shop employment and employee discounts, some of there stuff has looked increasingly attractive. However, this does not give me a happy feeling inside. More than anything, I am just curious how this went down from a distribution standpoint. I used to live in the Twin Cities - never knew any of the Surly guys or QBP guys, but ran into them from time to time at various functions. What is the deal?

business is business.

on a side note, I think the 800 buck fantom cross is better deal than the surly.
cf fork and better wheelset

however there is a lot of truth that 'steel is real' and fantom cx is aluminum. harsh to the assbone

I'm pretty sure it's the same Surly it's always been, it's no secret that pretty much every frame you aren't dropping a grand on is made by the same guys in Taiwan anyway and parts are parts.

I'm not sure what your question is. $899 for a Crosscheck is pretty much full retail.

BD generally offers smokin deals, but $629.95 is not really much of bargain for a Steamroller. I can find it elsewhere for similar prices.

I'd rather have the Kilo TT for nearly half the price.

This is prolly more just a distribution deal for Surly complete bikes. Instead of getting it through Jenson/Performance/Nashbar, get it here instead/too.

Have to say though... putting your FG bike on the same site as a company selling a very similar product for half the price might not be the smartest move? Either that, or it's brilliant...

isn't Surly just a creation by QBP, and not an independent ?

"
Surly Bikes is a division of Quality Bicycle Products (QBP). QBP is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Surly is based in nearby Bloomington, Minnesota.

Surly's stated mission is to provide quality products at reasonable prices. To this end, every Surly product undergoes lengthy field testing and sometimes several stages of prototyping.
"


so, if you judge things like people judge BD, Surly is 'just a made up company, made up brand'

"
The "Surly Brand" has a certain punk rock, DIY, cut the crap, have fun on your bike, get things done on your bike, don't spend an ungodly amount of money on your bike uselessly, don't be a jerk but feel free to be an ass, kind of appeal. Surly framesets have been offered in unusual colors such as Bubblegum Pink, Camp Stove Green, Hot Dog Mustard (yellow), and Skidmark Brown.
"

I have 2 surlys and I love them


/2 cut and pastes from wikipedia

surly started out as an independent company that imported and badged frames. now they're a subsidiary of qbp.

my shop has complete crosschecks for $850.

Right.

And again, I have nothing against BD. My point was more along the lines of what mconlonx said - why would QBP sell their stuff through BD, when a lot of the BD fixes are more or less competing with Surly for that "entry level fixie" market. There seems to be a perception that Surly is a step above BD in terms of quality - or at least durability. How much of that is fact and how much of that is brand image is debatable.
But by putting a steamroller next to a Kilo TT (despite the fact that the Kilo TT costs half as much), it puts the thought in one's head that "surly is a BD-quality bike."

I was always amazed at some of the distribution stories and drama that went on back when I was privy to such information, and I was really just trying to see if there was any dirt/gossip about this deal. It very well could be as boring as, "they are trying to make an extra buck." But maybe someone at QBP ran over the cat* of someone at Eriks with a Pugsley, prompting the person from Eriks to shout, "Those tires are huge!" but the person from QBP thought the person from Eriks was talking about their girlfriend, and decided to retaliate by selling a couple models through BD. Maybe that is what happened.

*Because of the large tires, the cat was fine.

QBP probably had an overstock of these models and wanted to dump them off to pay the bills but they state they're 2008 models. Strange.

You are incorrect.

I haven't been keeping up very well - is 2008 the first year they are offering Steamroller (and the Long Haul Trucker) as complete bikes off the website?

wouldn't be the first time. which part?

Surly was begun by QBP employees and has always been a QBP company. It is housed in the same building as QBP. All Surly frames and most products (barring things like flasks and wool hats) have always been designed in-house, ridden on hard, and produced in Taiwan.

Surly was never independent and has never rebadged an off-the-shelf frame.

It was my understanding that Surly started out as an independent, as stated by dirtyphotons, and was later bought up by QBP - similarly to what happened with Salsa, etc.

Therefore, you must not know how much your shop sells a CrossCheck for.

Of course, I could be wrong, too.

fair nuff, thanks for clarifying.

was it salsa then that started out independent? or am i just misinformed altogether.

p.s. skip's a surly employee i believe, so i'll consider him an authority.

I am willing to bet
every bike part you ever owned or touched came from QBP
and QBP supplies the parts for every bike BD sells since the dawn of time


I mean, it's either QBP or 'fill in the blank'

Ooops, now I not only look wrong, but slow.

Thanks for the info.

Yes. Salsa was started in the early 80s as an independed builder in Petaluma, CA. In the late 90s Salsa was sold to QBP.

ah, it all makes sense now. thanks skip!

To answer the general question of this thread, Surly is available to just about every one of the bagillion or so bike shops QBP sells to. QBP is as thorough as they can be about selling only to folks with brick and mortar bike shops. Many of these also have online shops. There is currently no rule against selling online as long as the MSRP policy is followed.

That's what I was after, thanks Skip.

I don't think this is so, I recall reading that Surly sold out of all their complete builds in 2007. In any event, I see nothing to indicate that these are 2007s, rather than a 2008 model, like they claim.

Most shops will sell a Steamroller complete for around $650-$675, plus tax (8.75% where I live). Since bikesdirect is selling it for $630 total, including tax and shipping, if I were to order one from BD I guess I'd save between $75-$100. I'm usually a support-the-local-LBS person, but I guess if you can have the exact same thing as what you'd get from your LBS shipped to your door and save $75-$100, and if you are experienced enough with bikes that you can put it together yourself without any difficulty (the headset and bb/cranks come installed already on BD bikes, right? so it's just a matter of putting on the stem/bars, adjusting headset, putting on cog/lockring/chain/wheels, greasing the seatpost and everything else, and riding?), then I can see why someone would go for this. The Steamroller is a good bike.

I had a Steamroller for a couple of years before it was stolen, before they offered the complete build, and I spent a lot more than that to build it up (granted I had nicer components). Still the components that come on the complete build seem decent and able to take some abuse (e.g. Surly hubs are probably a bit nicer than what comes on the Kilo TT, but I really can't say for sure), and it's sooooo much less expensive than doing it the way I did it. I wish the complete build would have been available back then. I totally would have gone for that, and just upgraded when things wore out.