Feel free to replace "best" with "most popular"

Kinda hard to argue with Felt. A great range of products at "reasonable" prices. Both Slowtwitch and Velo have covered there bikes and engineering recently and gave them pretty glowing endorsements. Trek, Specialized and Cervelo make some great bikes, but they are generally more expensive or they don't cover the range as well (e.g., the Specialized track bike is sort of lacking as a pursuit bike).

Next

Ridiculous question with no answer.

Nice analysis. Certainly there is a more popular brand than others??

Aluminum,Klein, Titanium Zeppelin, steel Bottecchia Alan
,

In some sense sure but you'll also see tons of variation across different regions and demographics. And sales numbers don't necessarily tell the whole story.

In the United States. Volume of bicycles sold by brand.

So what everyone is saying is they are all equal? Serious question. Thinking from a bike shop perspective...

Depends on your market.

Starting a local bike shop in the United States. Looking for the highest sales.

The demand in the market of a LBS might not necessarily conform to nationwide bike sales statistics.



Don't think there's much to debate if you're after the highest sales volume. If you get some numbers on it then I'm sure reasons could be pinpointed for the popularity of the various brands.

Custom carbon: Crumpton, Parlee, Landshark, Cyfac, Sarto...

Titanium: Moots, Ericksen, Black Sheep, Firefly, Mosaic, Alchemy...

Steel: Sachs, Pegoretti, Kirk, Zanconato, Baum, Cielo, Hampsten...huge number of small, custome builders.

Bamboo: Calfee

Aluminum: Gaulzetti Cicli

Please explain

Thanks! How about carbon, not "custom carbon"?

The nationwide preference for some brands over others won't be reflected across all areas of the U.S. An LBS doesn't serve the whole nation but only their local clientele and just because Specialized or Cervelo may be generally among the most popular brands it does not guarantee that they are perceived equally in every area of the U.S. Maybe you're located near Felt HQ and there's a local preference for Felt bikes. Nationwide sales are only going to give you a general idea but are not something you should totally rely on in the hypothetical situation of open a local bike shop.

Huffy. Very aero, unbeatable ride quality.

Nonsense. Aero? You call that aero? Without the additional cost of Sparkle tassels and a pair of high quality playing cards in the spokes, you might as well be riding a Big Wheel.

Aero. Please.

I will thank you, sir, to treat this thread with its due solemnity in the future.

Equally you could find that the most popular bikes are a well established market for existing bike stores in your area or for online purchase.

You may of course be starting in an area without existing provision, but if you are then you'll need to compete with the existing shops: service and price obviously count, but so too might targeting more niche products.

Many ways to skin a cat.

ETA: Reminds me of the old joke: how do you end up with a million bucks from running a bike shop? Start with 2 million.

In many places, you're not going to make much money off the bikes. For every high-end $5,000 bike you sell, you'll be selling ten or a hundred $200 bikes. And you'll make more money selling helmets to people who don't have them yet, selling little kids tricycles, and servicing 20-year-old Huffys. So don't worry too much about chasing whatever is trendy these days. Of course, if you open a shop on Wall Street across from the exchange, your clientele will be somewhat different. Focus on good service and products that meet your base clientele's demands -- ie research the demographics of the people who live within 25 miles of wherever you set up shop.