does anyone know anything about Leader Bike frames?
a man at the time trial last night was telling me about a time trial specific frame he bought for only 250.00. he was saying that next year the prices are going to go way up…
they sell forks, frames, etc. i could build up a time trial bike for not that much, and it would be pretty fun to do so…
anyone know anything about these bikes?
thanks in advance,
kittycat
They are nothing if not cheap. I have seen their fake Kestrel 200, and it looks nice enough.
I imagine that they are the private label makers for the bike stores like Nashbar,etc.
“they are nothing if not cheap.”
I’m not quite sure what that means. can you explain it in a different way?
what do you want to know? they are located here in town, down in Chula Vista. I know the owner, Sal, great guy who will talk to you on the phone to get you set up right. They are ‘cheap’ priced because he is trying to break into the market, but they are very good quality TT frames.
If they’re not that good, you will not have lost money. But I have seen some around, even for more than a month- I think you may be happy.
Nobody could give me fifty of those Leaders for my Molteni Orange Cinelli Corsa or my Hetchins.
I was curious about them too; there are some reviews on roadbike review.com that rate them pretty well. The only real complaint was that the rear wheel cutout was too big, but that was presumably on older models that didn’t have the horizontal dropouts (in at least one image of their 735TT the wheel looks snug up against the cutout to me).
Only disadvantage I see is no bottle mount on the downtube (but that seems to be a common failing of tri frames now) and low snob appeal if that matters to you (although one of things tricked up right would definitely turn heads).
in a TT i don’t carry water, so that’s no big deal to me. but if it was, couldn’t i just put on one of those behind the seat dealios?
don’t care about snob appeal…
but, in building it up, i was saying to Gary that it would probably cost as much as a Felt S22 (like around 2500 bucks). however, they do have complete bikes which go for about 1300 or so…not bad. i figured they must be giving away the frame and fork, etc. the complete bike looks good–ultegra, profile bars, nice wheelset, etc.
hmmmmm…
being the devils advocate that I am…hands KC the gun…
just pull the trigger sister…pull it
I wouldn’t mind having one of their carbon forks. Seems a little heavy compared to some others but I’m not at all a weight weenie.
I’d love to have one just because it’s my namesake…my last name is Leader so it would be pretty sweet riding a Leader bike. I’ll have to look intot hem a bit more.
i don’t think my bike shop would be to happy if i bought this bike…we’ve been talking about a Felt. I think I’m just reluctant to drop the dough on a Felt, otherwise i would have bought it by now. really i just want a bike to time trial on, and have fun. with potentially needing a new car and some other expenses (whole new IT system and had to hire an assitant), i don’t feel any reluctance about 1300 (in comparison to nearly 3K for the Felt).
cough cough …buy the Leader…cough cough…you know you want to cough cough.
I bought a bike from them last year. It was a close-out of an older model. It has no snob appeal whatsoever, but an all Ultegra bike for under a grand was hard to resist. The bike is solid and stable. It isn’t the TT frame, just a road bike. I had the local bike shop assemble it and tune it. They were not insulted by the task: After all, they are in business to make money. They couldn’t sell me a bike, but they can sell service, tires, gels, and clothing, all of which I buy locally.
I’m happy I took the plunge. The company was very helpful when it came time to size the frame, etc, and their recommendations were right on. Hell, I would say go for it and post pictures of the completed bike!
thanks for the feedback. i’m actually pretty excited about the bike.
If you’re worried about bike shop retaliation, and want a good deal on a component kit, I’d recommend getting your grouppo from GVH bikes (gvhbikes.com). If you send them the frame, they’ll build it up for you, or you can buy it separately and do it yourself. Of course, it’s a road bike kit, so if you want cow horns and bar end shifters, you’ll need to look elsewhere, but you can always e-bay off the road handlebars and shifters/brakes to cover the costs of these components.
Chris
The Felt is prettier.
And definitely way more name brand/snob appeal.
But damn!!! $1350 for an Ultegra TT bike is just silly silly cheap. Yer right, it’s like you are buying the components for cost, and getting the frame for free.
(My buddy has a leader hardtail MTB, and he really digs it, fwiw.)
I looked a Leader, and they seem like a good deal until you do the math.
The 735TT frame is currently on e-bay $359 - and that is a good price is you have a kit laying around to build it with. If you starting from scratch, you looking at another $900 at least for the kit. Now your in the $1300 range. That is more then a Felt S32, and in the range of a Dual, Kilo and others.
Just my 2 cents - but buying from a good tri shop with a good fit pro makes more sense then Leader.
Geeze… put together a Dura-Ace TT bike for under $1300. hmmmm
leader TT bike… $250-350
9spd Dura-Ace gruppo (Chuck’s Bikes) $850.00
Carbon Aero Seat Post (Chuck’s) $60.00
Leaves a lotta budget for some nice wheels/aerobars/seat or you can splurge and get the Campy Carbon Record group for $1750.00
it’s def a better deal to buy the bike already built up. for about 1300 bucks complete with Ultegra, etc. the upgrade is 500 bucks and would give me a better wheelset, profile areo bars, etc. for a few hundred beyond this though is the Felt, with fitting from my lbs.
decisions.
I’m not sure about this but it seems like by the time the LBS gets a mark up on all your components and with labor, maybe it is similar to the margin they make on a new lower cost tri bike??