Interesting Trend at Pro's Closet

[Pegoready]

Are they growing too fast? I'm seeing some HURTING bikes on their site.

No bar tape, no chains sometimes. 40 million in VC funding and can't buy the workshop a spool of bulk chain and tape?

Terrible setups like their photographer has never seen a bike before. And they're asking a lot of money, telling me they paid dearly for these bikes.

I'm seeing these bikes pop up in my IG feed all day. Examples:

They want over $3000 for this Bianchi jalopy. OVER THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS. People sell amazingly well kept grail bikes here for $3000. Whoever sold this POS to TPC made out like a bandit. Based on the gap between the seat tube and the tire it looks like someone took a low end sport touring frame, gave it a nice paint job, threw on a non matching fork, and put an eTap group on it with some leftover race wheels. Is that a Mid Reach brake in the rear and a short reach brake in the front I see? Wow, what a clusterfook of a build:




No tape, awful bar position:



Angling the bars correctly would increase the appeal 50% with 10 seconds of work:



No chain, no tape, rats nest of cables:



No chain, no tape, front brake doesn't appear to be hooked up:



I have a feeling the quality of buying and inspections has dropped in favor of getting mass numbers up for sale for the suits.

[prototoast]

I guess the alternate theory is they can sell almost any bike at whatever price they list, so why bother cleaning them up?

[Pegoready]

Originally Posted by prototoast

I guess the alternate theory is they can sell almost any bike at whatever price they list, so why bother cleaning them up?

True. Pride in your work maybe?

[RWL2222]

Sure enough. This doesn't look right but I quickly found the lightspeed https://www.theproscloset.com/produc...peed-classic-s

[Pegoready]

Originally Posted by RWL2222

Sure enough. This doesn't look right but I quickly found the lightspeed https://www.theproscloset.com/produc...peed-classic-s

Sure is a looker huh?

[JedB]

Originally Posted by Pegoready

Sure is a looker huh?

kinda fscked up on the cable routing. One in front and one behind the handlebars is (IMO) how it should be routed.

[AngryScientist]

my biggest irk at pros closet is that they can't be bothered to accurately measure frames. all they would need to do is build a simple jig to accurately and properly measure every frame before boxing it up.

i can look past missing chains and unwrapped bars, and i'm going to inspect and tune the bike when i get it anyway, so i dont care about hbar position, but the fundamental facts i need to know before i buy a used frame are what the dimensions are. in fact i have passed on a few bikes being sold there due to uncertainty of their measurements.

[slowpoke]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

my biggest irk at pros closet is that they can't be bothered to accurately measure frames. all they would need to do is build a simple jig to accurately and properly measure every frame before boxing it up.

Yeah, you figure with the venture capital investment they've received ($40M in May), they would invest in a setup to quickly measure every darn measurement on a bike frame in a snapshot and just share the photo with dimensions annotated. Heck, market it as some cloud-based GPT-3 powered LIDAR self-measuring device on the blockchain. Investors would throw more money at them.

* cottage industry framebag makers have been doing fine with a telephone lens and analog tape measure, but that doesn't get the bigbucks

[KJMUNC]

Originally Posted by slowpoke

Yeah, you figure with the venture capital investment they've received ($40M in May), they would invest in a setup to quickly measure every darn measurement on a bike frame in a snapshot and just share the photo with dimensions annotated. Heck, market it as some cloud-based GPT-3 powered LIDAR self-measuring device on the blockchain. Investors would throw more money at them.

* cottage industry framebag makers have been doing fine with a telephone lens and analog tape measure, but that doesn't get the bigbucks

well, except that the VC's probably asked them "so how much more $$ does that investment on a bike sizer yield? Oh, it doesn't actually generate more money, but it makes it easier to understand what you're buying.....yeah, no money for that"

They seem to be slinging bikes pretty easily with their janky processes, but I agree it would be nice to have.

[slowpoke]

Oh for sure. There's definitely a sales metric they need to hit now and exacting frame measurements for crusty bikenerds isn't anywhere near their list.

I wouldn't be surprised if they move into other areas of used, high-value sporting goods in the next 18 months.

[RoosterCogset]

Maybe for speed of turnover, they're doing photos first, and only cleaning up once a bike has been sold and needs to ship out.

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by RoosterCogset

Maybe for speed of turnover, they're doing photos first, and only cleaning up once a bike has been sold and needs to ship out.

It gives the new owner time to dream about what epic handlebar tape they will pull the trigger on in order to customize it. Brilliant IMO

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by RoosterCogset

Maybe for speed of turnover, they're doing photos first, and only cleaning up once a bike has been sold and needs to ship out.

At first I thought this was a ridiculous idea, because if you're going to take the time to fix up a bike before you sell it anyway, why take the pictures first?

But then I looked at the Black Mountain Monstercross bike in the OP.

https://www.theproscloset.com/produc...onster-cross-l

As he noted, no chain, no bar tape, front brake not hooked up (also no cassette). Then I read the description of the bike.

It's listed as coming with new bar tape, new chain, and new cassette.

So you're right, they just take these pictures before they actually clean the bikes up. Very weird marketing.

[reuben]

Originally Posted by slowpoke

* cottage industry framebag makers have been doing fine with a telephone lens and analog tape measure, but that doesn't get the bigbucks

I own photography equipment that far exceeds the value of my bike equipment, and I don't have a telephone lens. Methinks speelcbeek has struck again. Gave me a good chuckle.

[slowpoke]

Originally Posted by reuben

I own photography equipment that far exceeds the value of my bike equipment, and I don't have a telephone lens. Methinks speelcbeek has struck again. Gave me a good chuckle.

Hahaha.. well have you seen the newly announced iPhone 13 Pro?!