Looking at a road bike on EBay Motobecane Mirage Pro

These any good for a starter?

"chris c" wrote in message
...
These any good for a starter?

If it fits you and you like it, then yes.

In article ,
"chris c" wrote:

These any good for a starter?

Modern Motobecanes are Taiwanese-built and have no connection to the
original French manufacturer.

Other than that, no problem! It's a generic Sora-equipped machine, but
that's a fine thing for $400 shipped.

The usual caveats, however, apply: the support of a _good_ local bike
shop, especially for your first bike, can be invaluable. If you are a
rank novice when it comes to bike set-up, or miscalculate and this frame
just plain doesn't fit you, then it's not a good deal.

--
Ryan Cousineau, http://www.wiredcola.com
Verus de parvis; verus de magnis.

"chris c" wrote:
These any good for a starter?

From the eBay ad:
"Motobecane is one of the top names in the bike business - 80 years old,
winner of the Tour d' France, winner of several world championships,
inventor of the moped and of dual suspension bicycles."

That's all true. Motobecane WAS one of the top names. That Motobecane
stopped building bikes about 20 years ago. The rights to the name were
bought by another company. Make your choice based on the bike, not the fact
that someone won the TdF on a real Motobecane 25 years ago.

Also be aware that your height alone does not determine your proper frame
size as is implied in the ad.

Art Harris

"chris c" wrote in message
...
These any good for a starter?


The bikes are basicly "no name" generic types built from parts for the name
brand companies.
So there is nothing really wrong with them. Usually the parts are leftover
from name brand bike production runs, or last year's surplus parts.
But the caveats are really about your mechanical aptitude skills.
The bikes come in OEM to dealer boxes, partly assembled. No instructions.
For a bike dealer this isn't a problem as the bike mechanic has been
assembling bikes for a long time and can put one together in minutes.
For an individual this can pose a challenge, as although there are lots of
instructions about working on bikes on the internet and in books at the book
store, there are no detailed instructions for the specific bike you happen
to have just unboxed.
The multilanguage instructions for the Shimano deraileurs and brifters that
come with the bike are nice, but those too assume the person assembling the
bike is a dealer's mechanic too.
Basically you need to mount the handlebars, put on the pedals, hook up the
brake cables, and front deraileur cable. The cables may or may not require
you to
thread them around the frame and put on the different size cable housings in
the right places.
Of course you will need to tension and adjust the cables too.
You will typically need some real bicycle tools, a set of "good" metric
allen wrenches, a bicycle cable cutting tool, a phillips and maybe a flat
head screwdriver (good ones too), a few thin metric wrenches (mainly a thin
wrench for the pedals, as a regular metric wrench is too thick, but you
could grind one down on a bench grinder). You only need to use a pair of
pilers to pull and tension the cables, for adjusting things and to crimp on
the cable end caps after cutting off the excess cable.You may also want some
spoke wrenches or at least one that fits the bike, in case you want to true
up the wheels a bit more.
The wheels are built up on a really spectacular automated wheel building
machine, and it does a really good job, and is absolutely amazing to see in
action too. But a completed wheel after sitting for a while and settling
down may be just a smidgin out of trueness. Plus they only get the wheels
trued down to about 1/2 millimeter anyway and seldom go farther, as it is
mass production of who knows how many wheels.
Last but not least is if you can't figure out how to get it together or
working, you can take it to a dealer or LBS (local bike shop) and pay them
to fix it up for you. They won't do it for free though unless they owe you
favors.

actually i got a new fuji bike in 2002, in a box, and it was assembled
to the point
that i didn;t need 'real bike tools', only allen wrenches.

[metric]

hardest thing was the headset.

had to put on pedals, wheels, also. not hard.

did not need to assemble cassette, bottom bracket.

oh well maybe i did have to adjust the derailleur indexing, though the
cables
were already attached to the levers and routed.

wle.

"wle" wrote:

actually i got a new fuji bike in 2002, in a box, and it was assembled
to the point that i didn't need 'real bike tools', only allen wrenches.

hardest thing was the headset.

had to put on pedals, wheels, also. not hard.
did not need to assemble cassette, bottom bracket.

oh well maybe i did have to adjust the derailleur indexing, though the
cables were already attached to the levers and routed.

Some other things to consider:

Even assuming the frame is the right "size," the user still has to know
enough about fit to adjust the saddle for proper height, fore/aft and tilt.
For a first time road bike buyer, this may not be trivial. I've seen many
bikes with saddles and bars tilted at ridiculous angles.

May have to adjust the handlebar height and reach (possibly including stem
replacement).

Wheels almost certainly need to be tensioned, trued, and stress relieved.

I would also check brake and derailleur adjustments, hub bearing
lubrication, BB and crank tightness.

If problems develop (spokes breaking, clunking sounds in drivetrain, etc.),
how does one make use of a "Motobecane" or "Windsor" warranty?

Art Harris

These any good for a starter?

I believe you're looking at the following bike-

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...8554 509&rd=1

If so, everything in my prior reply regarding the Windsor (inserted below)
applies. In fact, they may be coming from the same place.

Things that look too good to be true often are. You can start with the
absurd claim that "The bike is brand new and I think fairly priced in a bike
shop for $750". This bike most assuredly wouldn't sell for anything close
to that. $550 bike at your local bike shop come with better equipment
(particularly the fork), are fully assembled, allow you to test-ride them
for fit *and* suitability for how you're going to use it, offer component
substitution where it might be needed (tire width, for example)...

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

I've been wanting a new cx/tour type drop bar do-anything bike for a
while, but haven't had the bucks for what I consider the entry level bike
in that category--the Novara Randonee.

Now this guy is selling "Windsor Tourists" on Ebay for $550usd brand new.
The spec is exactly what I want: cromo frame and fork, components are a
mix of Tiagra, Deore, and Ritchey. Perfect.

I don't mind buying on line--sizing is a non-issue as I
measured my current well fitting bike and it jives with the Tourist, and
I'm a good wrench myself and if it arrives with maladjusted anything, I'll
be able to tweak it. My LBS sucks and I would rather eat glass than buy
something big from them.

Is this like those "Asian Motobecanes" that are too good to be true?

550 for a 1500 (list) bike is mighty tempting.

We just built one for a customer who bought one on-line. It's not even close
to a $1500 value; not nearly as nice in build quality or componenets as, for
example, a Trek 520 (which sells for $1100). I don't understand why people
would trash a bike shop for whatever reasons but not find such deceptive
advertising practices to be a giant red flag.

If we were selling such a bike on the floor, I'd guess it's retail value to
be around $750 or so, once it's fully set up. Of course, at a bike shop,
that $750 includes a warranty. My guess is that you'll have a much tougher
time with a frame failure (getting it taken care of) on a Windsor than on a
name-brand bike. Best thing there is to run things backward and find out who
actually imports them, how long the business has been around, what else they
do, and whether you can get them to write a warranty that ties into
something other than just their on-line persona.

As for being like an "Asian Motobecane" well, that's exactly what it is. I
don't have the box in front of me, so I don't recall if it was either Taiwan
or Chinese in origin. Not that either of those is bad per se, but it bears
no resemblance to the Windsor of old.

If you want a project to work on, you'll have that, as it comes in a box
"assembled" in the same manner as all such bikes. In our shop, that means
about 2 hours of assembly and check-out to make sure everything's the way it
ought to be. It's not something to be done by someone who's never trued
wheels or set up brakes. If you've done overhauls on your own bikes before,
no biggie.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"chris c" wrote in message
...
These any good for a starter?