Quote Originally Posted by sarahspins View Post
I'm pretty sure it has the exact same hub I just put on my vintage Mixte.. and I had a wheel custom built for it, and that ran me just under $300 (including shipping). I felt it was a reasonable investment at the time.... and I still do, but if you consider that to buy a mixte frame new (from Soma or VO) is about $500, and if only the rear wheel is another $300, there's an $800 bike before you've added any other components. $800 for the Ticino is really not bad.
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Soma or VO are selling small production steel frames in various sizes, ticino's aluminum mass produced in one size. The quality of a soma or VO frame is expected to be much higher than electra. Your rear was custom built for your bike - the ticino is a mass produced bike, they aren't spending $300 for a custom built rear wheel for it.

That being said, I don't really care - I just found it funny that Zen was saying the price of another mixte was ridiculous when I would find the price of her mixte ridiculous. But it's all relative depending on what people are willing to spend for a bike for what purposes. I wouldn't pay $800 for a townie or an errand bike, which doesn't mean that it's not a perfectly reasonable way for other people to spend their money.