Wait, so the XS is at 78*? At least the bike pictured appears to have a pretty aggressive seat tube angle, which is what I prefer.
Likely won’t matter anyway. I seriously can’t justify another bike. Especially one that would only be marginally better than what I’m currently riding.
Based on what I’m seeing, Canyon really isn’t saving the consumer any money with their DTC model. Want savings? Buy a Giant. Canyon did a ton of marketing like 8 years ago blitzing in Men’s Health and GQ saying they save you a ton of money by being DTC. When I compared what I got in my Argon to what I got from them for a price, they were more expensive and out of stock for months if not years it seems.
I think Canyon was benching itself off of competitors like Trek and Specialized.
Their cost issues are a pretty common story in DTC. Lots of startups (Purple, Warby Parker, Bombas, etc.) pitched the huge savings of being DTC and found that not having a retail footprint meant having to spend huge sums on marketing to generate sales. Turns out being in the local mattress store, bike shop, etc. is effective marketing. Many of the DTC guys have since either started selling in existing stores, or opened their own…effectively becoming omnichannel.
See Vuori as an example…Warby Parker is similar…both now with lots of brick and mortar.
I have seen so many argon bikes have the carbon frames break. I’m not sure what the quality control is, but it is the one frame of the bigger manufacturers that I would never get or even ride. The frames that I have seen break are from people that put out above average power and break in different spots.
Well, that’s interesting. And not in a good way.
My local bike shops are all really bad - no stock of anything, no test rides, incompetent at ordering in something as simple as bar tape, bad servicing (charging 5 pounds to tighten a loose headset they say they noticed - not what the bike was in for).
Or there’s the Specialized branded shop, in what must be the worst location for any retail unit in the UK, and again with not even close to a full range of sizes and absolutely no stock in entire categories of product. The UK / EU Specialized experience is absolute garbage compared to the US one it seems…
I was quoted 5 months for any MTB shoe in my size. And they inexplicably don’t even import wide fit models of any shoe at all to Europe.
Even driving to the nearest Decathlon megastore to me is very disappointing. They’ve marketed their new range of high-end road bikes very well by winning tons of races this year. Zero evidence of any of their new range on display, all reserved for their poshest London shop it seems.
Some businesses deserve to fail, or at least to learn to improve what they offer. I see zero benefit to me vs. buying online, and especially no reason to pay 30-50% markup on everything when they don’t even hold stock.
In contrast the independent servicing only places near me are excellent and I have at least 3 places I trust with my bikes within 15 minutes ride.
I understand and sympathize. It’s becoming more and more like that in the States. The brutal truth is that there isn’t any real money in doing it well.
The EU forbids price protections and the online discounters have hollowed out local business. Even when local retailers are really good, consumers use the local dealer for window shopping and buy from the online discounter (whose model is unsustainable as well).
No mistake - there are lots of incompetent and unprofessional retailers in the bike and sporting goods world. But I’ve learned firsthand it is mostly nonsense that people crave a first class, brick and mortar experience. Because when they’ve got it, it doesn’t really change their behavior enough to matter.
Another brutal truth is that the margins of sporting goods retail have eroded, eliminating any margin for error. A new retailer isn’t afforded any opportunity to make mistakes and get better. Once you are underwater, the margins aren’t big enough to allow any recovery.
In summary, I don’t blame you for buying online. As you’ve explained, your local experiences are poor. But even if your local shops were excellent, the incentives for you to shop online are simply too great to justify shopping local.
As you’ve noted, the issues here are intertwined with one another.
The lesson that we got drilled into our heads in the run specialty channel about 15 years ago was this: if you compare our stores on the basis of price and convenience against shopping online, we lose that battle every single day. So we have to make that comparison about something else.
There’s three areas where bike shops can really stand out from an online marketplace: fit, service/repair, and community building.
Fit, in my opinion, is something that has lost the plot since COVID. I think part of that boils down to the shift in consumer behavior that we saw during COVID to more and more online or delivery based models for everything from sporting goods to groceries to everything in between. But I also think that’s a manufacturer problem, too – we (collectively) are not doing a good enough job explaining how paramount fit is to ride experience.
Service/repair: as bikes become more complex, and more of a pain in the ass to wrench on, this has to be a place of investment. I have a local shop in town (population: 22,000) that I’ll take our whole fleet of bikes to. Why? Friendly service, convenient, high quality work, and fair prices. There’s jobs I could do myself that I choose to send to them instead, simply so that I don’t have to spend the time on them. It frees up more of my time to ride when I can – that’s critical.
And community building is a whole other can of worms, which is helped by lowering barriers to entry to group rides, helping with bike infrastructure improvements, and otherwise becoming an embedded location in the community.
Margin isn’t helped by the QBPs, etc. of the world, but unless everyone moves to self-distribution / standard carriers for wholesaling it becomes a bit of a moot point.
This all said, this also hasn’t stopped specialty run from becoming dominated by larger regional chains and/or Fleet Feet. It’s still got pockets of gold in it, but as the boom of people who opened run shops reaches retirement age, they’re realizing their succession plan is to sell to Fleet Feet, another fellow retailer, or let the store die. (This is much the same as what you will probably see with a lot of run and triathlon races over the next decade, too.)
That’s not what Lance says /pink
Well that conundrum has solved itself. I heard back from TPC and the bike is gone. Just as well. Kind of stupid for me to spend money on yet another tri bike when I currently have a Shiv and P2 that will likely outlive me, or at least my triathlon days.