Pictures from 2012 Taipei Bicycle Show

Some select pictures from the 2012 Taipei Bicycle show. I asked my friend Winston from http://www.fridayfitness.ca/ to help me take some quick pics while he was manning the RETÜL booth.

RETÜL Booth with Friday Fitness

One day I will take up his offer to attend the taipei bicycle show in person. Hopefully with my very own CAD model of a full carbon mountain bike frame complete with layup specification and fibre orientation and thousands of hours of FEA completed. At the Taipei Bicycle Show it is not just bicycle companies like Trek, Giant, or specialized showing off their latest models for sale. There are also the companies behind the scenes who manufacture the actual carbon fibre sheets or strands who then sell to the factories that make the carbon fibre frames. If you have a design and enough capital you can start your very own bicycle company. One day my dream will materialize.

2012 Toronto Spring Bicycle show

http://www.bicycleshowtoronto.com/springshow.html

So what did you buy? I bought a slice of pizza pizza and paid $13 for parking. That's ok. I got to meet up with friends and shoot the $hit for several hours hunting for deals. Sadly there were no XTR drivetrain parts. Shimano Canada did not have a full booth at the show. But I did track down some Shimano guys to ask them some specific questions on the M985 crankset... More on that later.

Here is what I thought were good buys:

2010 Specialized Epic - top trim. Full XX groupset (brakes/shifters). Includes the Specialized carbon crankset made by Lighting Cycles.It was a "demo bike" but looked to be in very very good condition. $3500

Next deals comes from the Trek Toronto store. I find they always have awesome full bicycle deals "at the show". Some of the bikes there are demos. The others are just left overs from the previous years. But the demo ones are the ones that will save you serious money (Yes they have scratches on them, get over it).

Examples:

2011 Trek Fuel full loaded with all XTR M980/M985 groupset, with top of the line Bontrager wheels and cockpit. $3299.

 They also had 2 demo Trek Elite 9.9 SSL built up with full XTR M980/M985 groupset. Going for $2799, again previously used. But who cares? You are saving huge, and someone already scratched the bike. That means you won't cry as hard when you put a scratch on the bike yourself.

These 3 examples had me thinking about them real hard... stripping them down and selling them part by part on ebay. If I wasn't building up my Rocky Mountain Team Element, I would seriously consider any of the 3 options. The prices were just too good.

As always, you are better off buying complete bikes at the bike show. Also remember, cash talks. If you are dead serious in buying a bike, bring cash. Even if it is $5000. You'd be amazed at the look of the store owner's faces when you start haggling and you flash a thick stack of 50s in their face and how quickly their tone changes when they reject your first offer.

Happy Bargin hunting! Remember my motto. "Don't ever pay full price! I don't."