MOBs bicycles - Road

MOB's shop carries a large inventory of bikes. Of course, MOB rides road racers, he is primarily a roadie, and so you would expect the store to be a great place to test and buy a road bike. You would not be disappointed.

There are lots of brands, but the big three are Cannondale, Trek, and Wilier (in alphabetical order). There are a few Giant bikes around, but he is no longer handling them. And the bike I rode on our trip through the marshlands north of Bremen one afternoon was a nice Ridley gravel bike.

But Cannondale, Trek, and Wilier are the main lines of bicycles.
As you may know, bicycle manufacturers offer pricing discount/rebates to stores that sell large numbers of their machines, so a retailer needs to focus in order to get favorable/competitive pricing. The fact that he has 3 major brands ... unlike the "all Trek" store I go back near Komazawa Park, for example, is a testament to both MOB's sales volume and his customer focus.  (Of course, in Europe Trek is not just Trek, it is their subsidiary/affiliate Diamant, which offers many kinds of bikes other than road racers. And even if MOB loves to ride and sell road bikes ... in fact, there are more people coming to his shop to buy Diamant city bikes than there are high end Trek road bikes.)

MOB had very nice things to say about all three of his major brands.

MOB has always liked Cannondale bikes -- he rode an olive green Cannondale when we started riding together in Tokyo, and he also had a Cannondale "bad boy" one-armed-fork MTB as well.

As a dealer, he say that Trek's Switzerland-based team stands out for its wonderful service to its retailers in Europe. The bold colors are, well, very nice, even if not so Germanic. And the Diamant bikes fill out the line.

Aero, direct mount brakes.

Madone -- a classic name. Project One - customization.

These are new since I last bought a road bike - internal cabling adjusters.

Trek even offers subdued colors. They have everything.

And Wilier is his new love -- Wilier make beautiful racing bikes that are very fast and light. The company has revived an old Italian brand in recent years and is based in the countryside north of Venice. French Team Total Direct Energie rode Wilier Cento10Pro bikes in this summer's Tour de France.

Another adjuster for internal cabling ... on the down tube.

The Wilier HQ building -- Italian style.

Next post -- something about the non-road bike part of the shop.