Hibike, Starbike, no more Sram to Australia!

tkdbboy said:
Anyone got mates in Germany we can freight forward through?
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I live in the Czech republic half the year but won't be back there until Feb. Happy to forward orders on but I dunno what the postage would cost. I reckon the 20% vat blows out the price, it was never anywhere near CRC once vat was added

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Dozer said:
I haven't bought anything from an online store outside of Australia for years, the pricing and availability on things I use is awesome in Australia.
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With no pressure from alternative import chains, I don't think that will last.

ChrisJC said:
I just realised that Chain Reaction are now geo blocking Shimano!
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This is a real worry. These guys are trying to force us to pay higher prices for literally nothing.

Who's using freight forwarding services to beat these? Can these be beaten by using a VPN in some cases?
 
Dammit, I'd put away my Us-poor-regional-guys high-horse.

I buy online from where ever it's cheapest for what I'm looking for.

I would 100% spend my money at either of the two locals if either of them weren't thoroughly useless or shite at service.

My next closest is three hours south, or four hours to Adelaide, whereas online delivers it my work, where the logistics manager who receives deliveries is also an MTBer :)
 
It may not happen in the next few years but eventually the Chinese will see the opportunity and flood the market with cheaper copies. I have no problem with Chinese stuff. I got a Yishun carbon HT frameset for $450 and it hasn’t missed a beat in 3 years! I’ve given it some punishment too and it just keeps going! It outlasted the Intense Spider frame I had which cost 6 times more!

If Shimano is cut off like Sram has been, I’d give the Sunrace stuff a crack! Even if you want to stick with Sramano for your shifting, it’s only 2 items. Kmc chain, hope brakes, and a dozen other players that do cranks, chainrings etc. Shimano cranks are shit anyhows!

Fuck Sramano!
 
After testing about 15 different countries on Hibike ... the only place that isn't geoblocked and doesn't receive VAT is Russia.

Heli-Shuttles lets go!!

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Not even Russians
 
Binaural said:
With no pressure from alternative import chains, I don't think that will last.



This is a real worry. These guys are trying to force us to pay higher prices for literally nothing.

Who's using freight forwarding services to beat these? Can these be beaten by using a VPN in some cases?
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Problem with freight forwarding is you won't have the VAT removed, plus you are likely to be hit with an additional 10% GST when they land in Australia! Welcome back to the bad old days of retail!
 
ChrisJC said:
It may not happen in the next few years but eventually the Chinese will see the opportunity and flood the market with cheaper copies. I have no problem with Chinese stuff. I got a Yishun carbon HT frameset for $450 and it hasn’t missed a beat in 3 years! I’ve given it some punishment too and it just keeps going! It outlasted the Intense Spider frame I had which cost 6 times more!

If Shimano is cut off like Sram has been, I’d give the Sunrace stuff a crack! Even if you want to stick with Sramano for your shifting, it’s only 2 items. Kmc chain, hope brakes, and a dozen other players that do cranks, chainrings etc. Shimano cranks are shit anyhows!

Fuck Sramano!
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This is the future. Financially punish the big players for restrictive trade practices. Maybe these guys have taken a page from Trumps book on trade.

All this will work for them short term. Long term I hope the likes of Hope, Box, Sunrace and whoever else wants to make good 11 and 12 speed parts, get a good foothold in the aftermarket and steal market share from the shaminio duopoly.

Raise your hand if you think anyone at these two give 10% of a shit about us. Don’t for a second give a shit about them in return.

They don’t want to increase supply, just margins. It’s a lazy business practice.

As someone else mentioned, the strength the online German retails were amassing probably became unmanageable from a supply channel point of view.
 
I don’t care about the pricing it is simply so many little things you just can’t buy in Aus as there is no stock. Some one on here just before Christmas wanted a simple NX crankset in 170mm I think or 175 it didn’t exist in Aus. A friend couldn’t get a simple brake lever instead of buying a whole brake set. That’s the bit I am annoyed about.
 
tkdbboy said:
Wow thats odd ... I've done about 8 orders from them and never had any issue with shipment
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Same, prob 10-12 orders in the past year. This one was stuck in Rodgau Germany for 14 days, then they sent me a new tracking number saying it was returned to them and they were sending it again on the 13th Dec, now appeared in Aus on the 1st Jan and no sign of movement... had a few chrissy presents in there too.

Usually 10-12 days from order to delivery...
 
Hope makes a nice cassette but only to suit their hubs. No reason why they couldn't make one to suit a standard freehub. Would be cool if they looked into doing more drive train components though!
 
Well this is all shit...I wouldn't mind a shimano XT or Saint crank for a 68/73mm bb with 165mm arms for a 1x10 setup. But do you think I can find one anywhere? Of course not!
 
pink poodle said:
Well this is all shit...I wouldn't mind a shimano XT or Saint crank for a 68/73mm bb with 165mm arms for a 1x10 setup. But do you think I can find one anywhere? Of course not!
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special order.

now so special you will need to meet in the carpark at 1am to perform special sexual favors and hand over CASH big boy.
 
pink poodle said:
You are lucky. Having assembled a few new custom bikes over the last couple of years I've spent excessive time pursuing the best value options. Most of the time the overseas option has won my money because of 3 things:
- Service
- Range
- Price.

I prefer to buy local, but when I can't get at least 2 of these factors from a retailer? It's one thing to fill a large retail space with the porniest of bike porn (and I certainly appreciate the gallery), but if your staff are shit and your prices too high, that sale is going elsewhere. The same goes for having a web site listing bargain after bargain after bargain of items that are all out of stock. Or having a website with poor functionality and a lack of filtering/sorting options.

In contrast most of my recent snowboarding purchases have been made domestically. This has been a big turn around for me after years of ordering from overseas. The snow industry here is easily 10000 times shitter than bikes, but there is now a small number of retailers really stepping up with service and price on a good range of stock.
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Oh, so you have been into Drift lately!
 
slider_phil said:
Hope makes a nice cassette but only to suit their hubs. No reason why they couldn't make one to suit a standard freehub. Would be cool if they looked into doing more drive train components though!
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Hope cassettes seem to review poorly for service life in real world use.

I have a Garbaruk cassette and the quality is really good. I don't do many K's, but it hasn't even blinked at the mash shifting one of my mates has subjected it to a few times. The open machined main gears should clear mud better than Hope or Shimano at a guess too. Super strong for how light it is also, and they're available for Shimano 9-10-11sp and XD driver hubs.
 
Currently running 2 x new Sunrace cassettes, will see how the longevity goes soon... Its a product/component I have never spent a lot of cash on... it either works or it doesn't. Got a 11 speed 11-46 on my Evil and a 11-42 on my CX, seem ok so far.
 
What makes this whole deal hard to swallow is that it’s been allowed to run unchecked for 10+ years. That’s 10+ years of better prices; better service and better choice! Now we’re being told to suck eggs and forced to buy from retailers who have traditionally provided woeful choice; woeful service and high prices! The US market is a lot larger than ours and I can’t imagine they’ll bend over and take it up the arse just because Shitmano says so!

You would think something has to give! Either other players come into the market or the market collectively tells Shitmano to go fuck themselves! Who has more power ...? Who is going to be the bigger loser if Wiggle/CRC/Bike24 tell Sram and Shimano to stick their restrictive trade model and continue to sell outside of the EU?
 
Shimano and sram were successful before the internet purchasing boom. I imagine that if they keep making good quality gear and keep getting specced on new bikes then they won’t be too affected by any short to medium term consumer resentment as a result of this move.

It will only push buyers to Australian online retailers such as Pushys, MTB Direct which will get bigger and hopefully demand better local stock availability from the importers. I’m supportive of that so long as they don’t increase their current pricing which is within the realm of being competitive.

Maybe we’ll just have to stop buying high end gear that we don’t need ?
 
I wouldnt assume CRC et al are happy with the change either. But I'm sure the chosen ones able to supply won't rape this for all its worth. Bring on gearboxes.
 
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