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Help Bike upgrade project

OnRoad

Warming-Up
May 24, 2010
28
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Hi folks

I've had this town bike for 4 years now and was thinking of 'upgrading' its parts to make it a near-to-form crossbike or roadbike. BUT i don't know if its doable and if the costs will turn out less than buying an entire road bike. The frame size is 42 or 46 i think. Both the frame and fork are chromoly. Any suggestions?
 
Buying piece meal (wheels, brifters, handle bars, etc...) can get pretty expensive. Once you start, its also easy to want the next upgrade ad nauseam. If you are not into "bling", my thought would be to pick up prior year road bike on sale or pick one up used; and turn your current rig into a rain bike/commuter.
 
Buy a new bike that fits exactly what you want and keep this as your shite weather beater bike. upgrading generally costs more than replacing.
 
After speaking to a few friends and getting information from the internet, the best bike for my use would be a single/fixed gear bike. Unfortunately, the local SEO shops near my place don't have the specific bike model I want (Giant Fixed R). They do have specialized, pinarello, masi, jamis, and GT but not in the size that fits me. Guess I have to order the bike directly from Giant Japan.
 
I noticed that a new Giant store is opening soon underneath Futago-tamagawa Station. There's already one in Meguro. Neither particularly close to Chiba I'm afraid...

--HF Mike--
 
thank you for the heads up Mike. The issue I have with buying directly at the Giant Store in Tokyo is that SEO will charge me extra for services if I bring the bike to them (obviously I can't bring the bike for servicing at the Giant Store).
 
No thats not the case, SEO will charge you the same price regardless. What they won't do is give you the free service within 6 months of the purchase date.
 
I wanted to buy at the SEO Funabashi Garage store but the shopkeeper I spoke to said they only sell what's on display there. He would have sold a bike yesterday when I came but didn't offer to even order the unit at Giant (because it wasn't on display).
 
Sagami Cycles or Stage1 guys...... seems that the best bike stores are over Yokohama way.

Went in to STAGE1 on Monday to see if they could get a 56 or 58 Pinarello Lungavista Track bike for me. Within 5 minutes they had the price and estimated date they could get one for me (3 days).

Thursday lunch time got a call from STAGE1 telling me that they got a 56 and 58cm in for me to try to see which one fits better. They know I pass the shop twice daily on my training rides.

This is after me telling them that i was ONLY thinking of getting one and they know I import alot of stuff from wiggle and other online retailers.

Excellent service, they think out of the box (Very un-Japanese) and always happy to see me. They also have a habit of while you are looking around to go over and tweak and adjust your bike for you and top up your air pressure.

As for Sagami Cycles.... this place has to be one of the best bike shops I have ever been to in Japan! Mike will back this up!
 
Isn't it infuriating when retailers don't seem interested in selling stuff!? Bizarro.

The problem is they can't (these days) just order one bike unless they charge you a fortune...

The manufacturers have the shops on these weird purchasing plans.
They have to agree to sell 5 of a model in a year. Or something like that. They also have to get rid of all their old stock before they can commit to ordering 5 more or they end up with a lot of stock and no profits.
The bikes they have in the shop are probably because they had to order 5 to sell 3.

SEO probably gets all the left over bikes from other SEO shops and sends them to Funabashi...
 
I wanted to buy at the SEO Funabashi Garage store but the shopkeeper I spoke to said they only sell what's on display there. He would have sold a bike yesterday when I came but didn't offer to even order the unit at Giant (because it wasn't on display).

Have you visited the SEO shops at Lalaport as well? There are 2 inside that mall.
 
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