Endurance Bike made from scratch

[Reynard]

Even were this not so for me also, I think that, like heights, contact lenses, beetroot and clip-in pedals, a carbon bike is simply not...not...you get it.
It would be like riding an Airfix kit.

You'd be surprised the number of motorsport anoraks who say the exact same thing. That a car built around a CFRP chassis isn't a proper racing car anymore.

I've never ridden a CFRP bike (do these things even come in my size?!?!?!?!?!) but I have bum parked in an ex-Prost Williams FW15. Couldn't reach the pedals though, even if Monsieur Prost was a bit, err, undertall himself...

So at the end of the day, I have experience of neither

 

[DCBassman]

You'd be surprised the number of motorsport anoraks who say the exact same thing. That a car built around a CFRP chassis isn't a proper racing car anymore.

I've never ridden a CFRP bike (do these things even come in my size?!?!?!?!?!) but I have bum parked in an ex-Prost Williams FW15. Couldn't reach the pedals though, even if Monsieur Prost was a bit, err, undertall himself...

So at the end of the day, I have experience of neither

I'm not at all saying it's not a real bike, it's just one of those things that...no. When I did my bike mechanics course, one of the guys on it was an ex-Halfords guy, who did generally know what he was doing. He'd ride in to the course on his Pinarello Dogma Sky Team replica...
But the thing which makes my teeth itch is the boxy, plastic sound I hear on people's riding videos. No metal frame I know of adds sound to the mix, yet these seem to, and that's enough to curdle my brains, because it sounds to me like a kid's toy of some sort.
I'd love to have a go, don't get me wrong, but I doubt very much I could live with one.
In any case, my bikes live outdoors under a cover. A carbon one would dissolve...

 

[Reynard]

In any case, my bikes live outdoors under a cover. A carbon one would dissolve...

*GIGGLE*

 

[Arrowfoot]

Hambini is the Durianrider of bottom brackets.

His fix at the end of the open vid makes the bike impossible to build up!

Oh, and he mentions at least a couple of times he doesn't know why the drive side chainstay is dropped.

The drop (more a kink on the right side) before joining the bottom bracket weakens the structure, its engineering 101.

It was designed to take wider tyres and for non-road bikes. The chain gets caught between the wider tyre and chain stay. Something has to give. Its common knowledge that Open is using the same mould with minor variations. They started life with hardtail and now gravel, all require wider tyres. The point is what is it doing on a road bike?

 

[bitsandbobs]

The drop (more a kink on the right side) before joining the bottom bracket weakens the structure, its engineering 101.

It was designed to take wider tyres and for non-road bikes. The chain gets caught between the wider tyre and chain stay. Something has to give. Its common knowledge that Open is using the same mould with minor variations. They started life with hardtail and now gravel, all require wider tyres. The point is what is it doing on a road bike?

Well yes. I was just surprised he didn't know that (although of course he sees the problems with it).

And my impression was that the Open UP is very much more an offroad than road bike (clearance for 40mm tyres).

 

[Pale Rider]

It seems to me Open are trying to flog a ninety quid mega factory frame for thousands by dint of flash paint job and website.

There was a company in, if I recall, Hackney doing the same thing a few years ago - there was a thread on here about them.

Average quality components costing about £400 built into a bike they were selling for 10 times that.

Nice work if you can get it.

 

[battered]

It seems to me Open are trying to flog a ninety quid mega factory frame for thousands by dint of flash paint job and website.

There was a company in, if I recall, Hackney doing the same thing a few years ago - there was a thread on here about them.

Average quality components costing about £400 built into a bike they were selling for 10 times that.

Nice work if you can get it.

Well, nothing much new there. Wasn't there the infamous De Rosa/Ribble carbon framed roady of a few years ago? They shared a frame, from the same factory and specification, and they were made up with the usual Ultegra groupset, Dura if you wanted to spend the extra, 105 if you were tight, wheels ranging from your standard issue Fulcrum up to carbon porn at £thousands, so it went on. Ribble wanted £1500 for a particular spec, the same thing with a DeRosa paint job was twice that. Plenty of people went for it anyway, even knowing that Ultegra/Fulcrum/Selle Royal is the same stuff regardless of what it's screwed to.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

There's a lot of stupid people out there who are suckers for brand names that have no particular quality basis to underpin their price premiums. Globalisation has put paid to the genuine quality rep former in-house national brands once enjoyed. In an outsourced global commoditised market, it's pretty much all the same shoot in a different box with a different logo on it. The USP is just the price now not the actual product. A De Rosa logo on your frame is not going to make you a faster cyclist than a Ribble one, The only thing that will be getting lighter is your bank balance, not the bike!

 

[Reynard]

There's a lot of stupid people out there who are suckers for brand names that have no particular quality basis to underpin their price premiums. Globalisation has put paid to the genuine quality rep former in-house national brands once enjoyed. In an outsourced global commoditised market, it's pretty much all the same shoot in a different box with a different logo on it. The USP is just the price now not the actual product. A De Rosa logo on your frame is not going to make you a faster cyclist than a Ribble one, The only thing that will be getting lighter is your bank balance, not the bike!

It's not just bikes that applies to...

Food is another case-in-point - supermarket own brand vs big brand.

Take 2-finger kit kats for instance. IIRC it's about £1.60 for a pack. Tesco's own brand is 80-something pence. If I were to be blindfolded, likely I couldn't tell which one was which in terms of taste. In fact the only discernible difference is that the chocolate is slightly thinner on the own brand ones.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Food is another case-in-point - supermarket own brand vs big brand.

Take 2-finger kit kats for instance. IIRC it's about £1.60 for a pack. Tesco's own brand is 80-something pence. If I were to be blindfolded, likely I couldn't tell which one was which in terms of taste. In fact the only discernible difference is that the chocolate is slightly thinner on the own brand ones.

You're preaching to the converted. Lidl's own-brand choc attack kit kats are about 75p a packet, and I can't really tell the difference.
Own brand anti-dandruff shampoo is <£1 a bottle vs head & shoulders at £3.50- £4.00.
A lot of own brand products are literally half the price and at least 90% as good as the premium brands. It's a no-brainer, just like grabbing the reduced yellow sticker stuff if you are going to use it up quick enough before it goes off. Why pay top dollar?

 

[Arrowfoot]

The Open frame is not an issue of paying top dollar for a well known brand. Open has no reputation, legacy, brand identity etc to speak off. Yet it is one of the most expensive frames. So it is not about buying Kit Kat and paying Kit Kat price. Its buying an unknown and paying Kit Kat price. It is not about frugality.

 

[DRM]

You're preaching to the converted. Lidl's own-brand choc attack kit kats are about 75p a packet, and I can't really tell the difference.
Own brand anti-dandruff shampoo is <£1 a bottle vs head & shoulders at £3.50- £4.00.
A lot of own brand products are literally half the price and at least 90% as good as the premium brands. It's a no-brainer, just like grabbing the reduced yellow sticker stuff if you are going to use it up quick enough before it goes off. Why pay top dollar?

Just as a point to the above, Aldi do a biscuit called Wacko, it indistinguishable from a Fox’s Rocky, which is understandable as they both come out of the same factory.

 

[Reynard]

You're preaching to the converted. Lidl's own-brand choc attack kit kats are about 75p a packet, and I can't really tell the difference.
Own brand anti-dandruff shampoo is <£1 a bottle vs head & shoulders at £3.50- £4.00.
A lot of own brand products are literally half the price and at least 90% as good as the premium brands. It's a no-brainer, just like grabbing the reduced yellow sticker stuff if you are going to use it up quick enough before it goes off. Why pay top dollar?

Hah!

You *are* talking to CycleChat's yellow sticker-er extraordinaire, you know.

 

[battered]

There's a lot of stupid people out there who are suckers for brand names that have no particular quality basis to underpin their price premiums. Globalisation has put paid to the genuine quality rep former in-house national brands once enjoyed. In an outsourced global commoditised market, it's pretty much all the same shoot in a different box with a different logo on it. The USP is just the price now not the actual product. A De Rosa logo on your frame is not going to make you a faster cyclist than a Ribble one, The only thing that will be getting lighter is your bank balance, not the bike!

They know, they don't care. It's not about the performance, it really *is* about the brand. Look up Veblen goods.
Bear in mind that Pinarello are owned by LVMH. Yes, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. So when they are not selling handbags, champagne or brandy, they're into bikes. Obviously they are about as interested in bikes as I am in diamonds. But, as someone very famous once said about a different aspect of cycling, "it's not about the bike".

 

[T4tomo]

You're preaching to the converted. Lidl's own-brand choc attack kit kats are about 75p a packet, and I can't really tell the difference.
Own brand anti-dandruff shampoo is <£1 a bottle vs head & shoulders at £3.50- £4.00.
A lot of own brand products are literally half the price and at least 90% as good as the premium brands. It's a no-brainer, just like grabbing the reduced yellow sticker stuff if you are going to use it up quick enough before it goes off. Why pay top dollar?

You go to shops for somethings, not just bin-dip?

I prefer a lot of Aldi stuff to the things they copy..