Orbea, Giant or Specialized?

[batsheva]

and the name of this bike shop is...? sounds well worth a visit...

batsheva

[Jallora]

First for the question on the name of the store, it is Santos Trailhead Bike Shop. Go to the main shop on US Hwy 441, not the Villages shop. I'm not crazy about the people working at the second location. They are running a special through the end of this week. If you finance with them and spend $1000 or more, you get no interest and no payments for 2 years.

I wasn't expecting them to do another sale until Christmas which is why I said I was getting a new bike then. Since they did one earlier, I got my bike earlier. They haven't gotten in a lot of the 2009 bikes yet, but they had two 2008 Orbea's left. They had a Diva and an Onix Dama. The Diva really didn't blow me away. I guess it's a little more "racy" than what I want. Plus it was a little taller than what I need. The Onix Dama was perfect. It was the right size, and it was like a dream when I rode it. I peddled it around the building and fell in in love. I know everyone told me to ride all three bikes before making my decision, but I just couldn't pass this up. Since it was a left over 2008 demo, I got her for $2250. I picked her up Friday night and got in a 10 mile ride before it got too dark. I put another 50 miles on her on Saturday. She's just perfect!

[kermit]

Congrats on the new ride! Sounds like really good people. Have fun! The posting of pictures is neccessary for any new bike purchase...... please!

[sundial]

I picked her up Friday night and got in a 10 mile ride before it got too dark. I put another 50 miles on her on Saturday. She's just perfect!

Oooh, sounds like you really lucked out! What a nice bike for your cycling pleasure. Now that we're approaching fall, you might have to pick up a light (and reflective clothing )so you can do some night riding.

[MauiRockHopper]

Great post, just what I was looking for as these are the brands I'm contemplating. Because of your post, I learned that Orbea had other WSD models besides the Diva, which are more affordable too. Is it true the Orbea wants to climb up the hills by itself? That sounds like a good feature!

I just started looking for a road bike and I've only tried the Specialized Dolce (base model $850) and wasn't too thrilled with it. I figured out that I will probably need to spend about $1500 to $2000 for the bike I want and for my needs. I don't plan to race but I will ride about 100+ miles a week for fitness, with some hills.

My friend has the Giant TCR CW and love it. I hope to try it out soon. She is very petite and had a pro fitting done. They said according to her measurements, she should buy a Giant. Unfortunately she had the fitting done on the mainland as there are no fitters in Hawaii. I'm not gonna get fitted but so far Giant is a big contender. I learned that they make the frames for Specialized and Trek but save the best technology for their own brand. So my thinking is Giant should be better of the 3.

I want to ride all of them before trying, but I think I am almost comfortable buying one sight unseen with enough research, and getting my LBS to tweak it out to fit me.

Question: if you buy a bike from somewhere other than your LBS, can you ask for a discount because the seller won't have to service the bike for 1 year? Seems like the LBS always throws a 1 yr service plan in when you buy a bike from them, so if you are from out of town the selling shop should discount you for the unused service you will pay your LBS for.

[sgtiger]

MauiRockHopper, welcome to TE! The best of luck finding your new bike.

Question: if you buy a bike from somewhere other than your LBS, can you ask for a discount because the seller won't have to service the bike for 1 year? Seems like the LBS always throws a 1 yr service plan in when you buy a bike from them, so if you are from out of town the selling shop should discount you for the unused service you will pay your LBS for.

Nope, sorry! The offer of the one year service is to get the purchaser into their shop on an ongoing basis with the idea that once they're in the store they might purchase other items. That and the service may be free but the new parts for the bike are usually not free, sometimes discounted though, if you should decide to swap out a part to fit the bike to you better. Their percentage of profit on a bike is not that great compared to all the little items that they sell (tubes usually have the highest percentage mark-up). Plus they want a chance to earn the shoppers loyalty so that they'll go back to that shop for any future servicing even after the service plan expires.

[Jallora]

Is it true the Orbea wants to climb up the hills by itself? That sounds like a good feature!

I don't know about climbing the hill by itself, but climbing was a breeze compared to my old bike. I hit the hills for the first time this weekend. The first big hill was a little bit of a struggle for the last little bit because I tried to do it in my big front gear. Stupid me. I just finished the hill standing up. We ran into a guy at the top of the hill that had just climbed up pushing his bike after he wrecked at the bottom. His leg had a very deep gash just below the knee and was bleeding pretty bad. I'm not good with blood, so my husband stayed and used our first aid kit on him to get the bleeding under control. I rode ahead a couple of miles to meet the ambulance at the next entrance to the rails to trails route we were riding. There were a bunch of hills on the way, but I had so much adrenaline pumping that it pretty much flattened the hills out for me if you know what I mean. I met the ambulance, told them where the guy was, and then I got back to them only about a minute behind the ambulance. I was ready to head back to the car and call it a day by the time they loaded him up and headed to the hospital to put multiple layers of stitches in his leg. His poor bike was trashed too.

I can tell you that my husband doesn't have to worry about dropping me much anymore. In fact he said he has to push really hard to feel like he's giving me a workout. He hopes to upgrade to a nice carbon fiber bike like mine at Christmas. I'm glad I upgraded first. His current bike is better than my old one. If he had upgraded first, he would've been board riding with me on my metal beast.