No. 22902Kraut 30th September 2014 Tuesday 1:48 pm22902German Industry Representative
Dear lads,
as the representative of the German industry on this board, it is both my suty and my pleasure to present you with the finest works of the German economy. Today, I would like to introduce you to a Bergfahrrad of the German bike manufacturer Focus.
The bike is called "Black Forest" and it is engineered by some of the finest engineers in all of Germany.
Make sure to buy it next time you go shopping.
I am also the owner of a fine German bike from another brand.
I've always found European bike brands to be far better value than the more well known and over-hyped brands such as Trek or Specialized. Pick any European bike under £1000, and it will generally have equivalent components to any American bike £100 more expensive.
Anyone giving recommendations for a bike will often say something like "just get a specialized, you wont go wrong". And pick up any of the major bike magazines, and it's common to see a group review, where the reviewer picks a lot of problems with the specialized, then at the end slaps on a 9/10 and says it's the best of the bunch.
>>22905 You don't know much about modern bikes do you?
It has two wheels, handlebars, and pedals. That's where the similarities end.
Focus are a good brand, but the bikes they sell are about as German as Jaguar cars are british.
The frames and wheels are built by the Taiwanese or Chinese. The groupset, i.e all the important bits, are SRAM - an American company. And their parts are all built in the far east too.
>>22902 Thank you for the introduction. Sadly, apart from Scotland, the Peak District and some dedicated tracks there is not much Berg in the UK so while the disc brakes are very much appreciated in any situation the front suspension is a bit of a niche product. The geometry is not too bad (though I personally dislike long seat posts outside of proper road bikes), but even a Kraut will have to admit that dérailleur gearing is overkill for most. Get a nice 5 speed hub gear set and you'll have mileskilometers of fun with zero maintenance (your Dutch neighbours, e.g. Gazelle, excel at picking the right kit in this regard) and, heck, you Krauts are at the pinnacle with Rohloff's offerings when it comes to hub gears. Embrace it! You lot even make the best mudguards (SKS), and your standards for bike lights are so awesome that any light passing them is good the world over.
I do appreciate the tyres too, mind. 2"+ is not a bad choice at all, though I swear by any of the Schwalbe Marathons. I have a Marathon Plus 26x1.85" leading the charge at the front and Marathon Deluxe Evo 26x2" bringing up the rear. Damn shame you Germans never learned to built a decent folding bike; with your history of engineering it would seem right up your alley.
>>22917 Not to children though. I've never seen any advertiser trying to get kids to commit to a finance scheme/pressure parents to do so on their behalf.
>>22916 Everyone short of bespoke places builds their bikes in Taiwan. The industry and, more importantly, expertise there is huge. If you want one of something, you can get the best for an order of magnitude more in the UK or in Germany (or probably many other places). If you want the best non-bespoke... Taiwan it is. Anything with a production run over 10k bikes a year (Brompton being the only notable exception) builds in Taiwan.
Oh I know that, I just wanted to debunk OP's "german engineering" crap. I've seen British companies that make carbon fibre frames, honestly I wouldn't trust them over even a no-brand eBay carbon frame, because I know if it looks a bit like a Pinarello it almost certainly came off the same line. Maybe I'd buy a British steel bike though.
>>22921 The engineering still happens in Germany, it's "just" the assembly that happens in Taiwan. There's a lot of skill and ingenuity in making these high end bikes at scale, but the design is ultimately foreign. I.e. it's a German bike made (possible) in Taiwan.
>>22916 Regarding the groupset, there is no choice nowadays anyway, you buy a bike with SRAM or with Shimano depending on your personal preference (or campagnolo too if it's a road bike). If the groupset is made by anyone else you don't even touch it.
There are good parts made in Europe/US for other components though, like carbon frames and wheels, in particular there are many Western manufacturers of smaller components like handlebars, bearings, brakes, saddles etc. You just need to start spending over £1000 to get a bike with these rather than Asian parts, and I believe at this price point you hit the law of diminishing returns. Yes it would be nice to have a shiny pair of Hope disc brakes, but no one's going to notice any difference between those and a pair of Malaysian built Shimanos unless they're heading to the downhill tracks in Wales.
>>22918 It's a mountain bike, not a city bike, none of what you have said is the slightest bit relevant. You may as well be complaining that a pair of pliers is no good for hammering nails.
>>22923 I sort of agree with this, but I sort of don't.
The thing about modern bicycles is that they're so incredibly standardised that there is very little engineering that can be put into the design of the bike, the majority of the work in designing a new bike is in choosing the combination of off-the-shelf components. A manufacturer will design their own frame (within a large number of constraints). But while there are good frames and bad frames it will often fall down to personal preference, one guy might love a frame made by one company, another guy prefers the frame from another. A lot of it will fall down to the fact that people are different shapes, even two people exactly the same height can have different sized limbs, so a certain frame will suit each person more than others.
That said, I do prefer German brands over others as I said further up, with any European bike, especially for German brands, you get the most bang-for-your-buck.
While we're talking about bikes, I'd just like to register my complaint about how manufacturers furnish their frames to sell as complete bikes. I see a staggering number of bikes advertised as having, say, Shimano 105, with 105 in the name of the bike, yet the derailleur and STi are Tiagra and the crank is FSA. I understand wanting to hit a certain price point but even on much higher end bikes I've seen them scrimp on certain things. If you're not willing to sell your frame to me to build up, you shouldn't be offering me a mismatched build.
In fairness, the mongrel groupsets tend to be better value than a 'pure' groupset. It's not so much scrimping as it is spending the money where it matters. I'd much rather have a rear mech that shifts more crisply than a front mech that is a few grams lighter, for instance. Even the ProTour teams do it - pretty much every team in the peloton uses Ultegra/Force/Chorus level chains and cassettes.
