[Closed] Carbon Covert

Btw the $2500 was just a guess

@nols - like done, strictly it's an owners group though and I'm not one ....

toons - Member

Btw the $2500 was just a guess

Will be interesting to see - I'd be hoping for closer to a £500 premium on the alloy bike (still not cheap...) but fear you might be right.

Hmm... 18Bikes reckon it's going to be January before they're available. BOOO.

@jambalaya well, if you're a fan of the brand you're more than welcome.

We'll be doing some Tr.OG members only deals and stuff soon. It's still early days for the facebook group, but we're being supported by Surf-Sales. It all came off the back of the recent uplift at FOD. Thought it would be a good place to get everyone together to share info etc. I'm currently building an ali covert and the plan is to keep a diary of sorts for the various models. As soon as we have a discount scheme set up info will go up on the site. Currently trying to get the next uplift sorted.

@nols - all good. I test rode a Covert and by the time I dallied about whether to buy the demo frame they'd sold it.

alloy chainstay? FALE

alloy chainstay? FALE

I know the factory. They are great.
I'd better crack on with the El Guapo carbon. Though ours will have bigger wheels

No no no no Brant.

What we want is a 6.5lb carbon bike with the exact same geometry as the Nukeproof Mega and possibly a true four-bar setup.

Or a 6.5lb 650B Mega with VERY similar geometry, if you really must hop on the bigger wheel bandwagon.

Pwreddy prwease?

We are taking pre-orders for the first batch of mediums but they are going quick!
http://www.tamedearth.com/product/transition-covert-carbon/

any questions please do get in touch.

Or a 6.5lb 650B Mega with VERY similar geometry, if you really must hop on the bigger wheel bandwagon.

Crikey, £2400 frame only and Xmas delivery, nice bike but I think I'll let someone else have the opportunity...

£1000 premium over the aluminium? Nasty.

tamedearth - Member
We are taking pre-orders for the first batch of mediums but they are going quick!
http://www.tamedearth.com/product/transition-covert-carbon/

any questions please do get in touch.

Is that an official price? Seems massively expensive - £1015 more than the aluminium version?

Even Santa Cruz only put a £750 premium on their Carbon frame,s and that's before you even consider the whole sterling/dollar situation.

mm would want a try before I buy demo

honourablegeorge - Is that an official price?

yep that's the official retail price... makes the 'standard' Covert seem even more of a bargain I guess 😉

Pawsy_Bear - mm would want a try before I buy demo

$2500 = £2500

Sorry but that's a ridiculous price, never mind the funny launch video

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks 2400 is a bit much. 2k is a reasonable markup. i love my Covert and want tr to go from strength to strength but SC and yeti can charge more as they're still a more desirable brand.

found your web site, looks good

I have an alloy 2011 covert and I flipping love it. As gorgeous as the carbon one is, I don't think I could justify selling vital organs for it, especially as mine was an ex demo frame at a ridiculous can't-say-no price!

@Ti456 - did you buy the frame from Nirvana, I test rode it and loved the bike ? I spent a bit too long thinking about it and by the time I went back it had gone. Doh !

@jambalaya - it is worth noting that US prices don't include local taxes to the buyer. still... i hear what you are saying!

The 'standard' Covert is still an amazing bike and not to be underestimated just because there is now a carbon version.

@tamed - yes I'm aware of the no taxes, but the fact is if you buy mail order in the US from out of state you don't pay any tax.

I was in Nirvana Cycles yesterday and we speculated the Carbon Covert would be £2000. I'll be getting a Ali one next year funds permitting, just kicking myself I let the ex demo get bought by someone else, it was £650 with Hope BB and Headset.

tamedearth - Member
@jambalaya - it is worth noting that US prices don't include local taxes to the buyer. still... i hear what you are saying!

$2500 is £1616 - Sales tax is about 7%, not 50% - there's no justification for the pricing over her (not just Transition, this applies to all the US brands)

Bit disappointed with this - liked all the geometry, the shock size is spot on for my Vip'r, bike looks great - but for the pretty much the same money, the Nomad Carbon is three quarters of a pound lighter.

£2400 is a joke unforuntately - it's not even a fully carbon bike ffs - no way a carbon front end should add £1k to the frame price over the alloy version. If I was in the market for that type of bike I'd spend an extra £100 and get a NomadC - 3/4 lb lighter and VPP2 is betterer than the shock actuated single pivot rear end on the Covert anyway... 😉

@ bennyboy1 - it is only the chainstay's and rocker that aren't carbon. not the whole rear triangle. on the published figures of both frames it is 222g (just under half a pound) 'heavier' than a Nomad C. That will almost certainly pretty much all be in the carbon rocker on the Nomad. As for the suspension ride feel of the two systems I have owned both nomad versions (non carbon) before i was involved in selling any bikes... i can 'hand of heart' say that i prefer the ride feel of the Covert (alu). IMHO. Of course you also get the added benefit of having less bearings to replace.

As for sales tax and UK vs US pricing, that's not one we are ever likely to get a break on. unfortunately.

sorry - double posted. oops.

TBH I dont think a few grams make much difference its how a bike rides thats important. I dont notice the reverb given how the added improvement

@Pawsy_Bear - agreed.

@tamedearth - will you be doing anything to ease the pain? If I was to order one from you, would there be a headset & BB Adapter thrown in, for example? 🙂

honourablegeorge - Member
@tamedearth - will you be doing anything to ease the pain? If I was to order one from you, would there be a headset & BB Adapter thrown in, for example?

more than happy to talk. call me. 😉

tamedearth - Member

more than happy to talk. call me.

🙂 Let me mull it over for a bit*

Would need a large, so won't be an immediate decision.

*ask the wife

tamedearth - was being rather tongue in cheek earlier, I agree with posts above, I'm sure it would be pretty tricky to notice any real difference between a 222g frame weight difference although its always nice to lose some grammes if poss! 🙂

bennyboy1 - ...although its always nice to lose some grammes if poss!

...that's what i keep telling myself. one or two less pies should do it. 😆

To be completely honest the whole 'Santa Cruz can charge more' concept is one I dont really get... Yep they make nice bikes, (I had a Bullet as my first Alps bike) but they're also making far greater numbers and have a bigger market share. Transition are a far smaller company with much lower operating profits.

Carbon bikes are in a rarified atmosphere, and lets face it, if you're spending over 2k on a frame for an All MTN bike then a couple of hundred quid here and there isn't going to make a big deal to you. Ultimately you're going to be buying the one you want. Chances are you'll be putting a £900 fork on the front of it - so its all relative.

Saying that though, I just read that Spesh's new carbon s-works Demo is going to be over £10,000 😯

@nols, our point is it's nearly a £1000 premium over the Alu bike. You've got to want the Carbon one very much, that extra pays for a new fork and/or other bling on a alu Covert.

Nols - To be completely honest the whole 'Santa Cruz can charge more' concept is one I dont really get... Yep they make nice bikes, (I had a Bullet as my first Alps bike) but they're also making far greater numbers and have a bigger market share. Transition are a far smaller company with much lower operating profits.

well said.

Quote from Kyle from an email I had earlier this year:

I hear ya on pricing. it is tough game for sure. our costs keep rising... and the made in Taiwan thing is more about what we can accomplish rather than the price we can do it for. but yah i hear ya. something we'll be focusing on more in the next couple years is making an offering at affordable prices. We've gained so much experience in what we do that the natural thing is to build the best thing you can and of course that costs money. ha. from there though i see is getting more back to our roots of having killer high value product for the lower price segment. anyway, don't count us out of that game yet cause it is still close to our hearts here!

I think part of the problem is that the the standard covert is such good value for money considering what it costs them to produce it. The carbon frames are being made at the limits of their capabilities and with a completely uncompromising approach. Its understandable that they're going to be big money.

on the published figures of both frames it is 222g (just under half a pound) 'heavier' than a Nomad C.

Not sure where you got those numbers, but based on number on your site & the published number from SC is actually 310g. For what it's worth, there are an awful lot of Nomad C's out there that come in well under that weight too.

Price wise, well, we shall see but at that price you're in the realm of Ibis/Santa Cruz/Yeti/Intense carbon etc which are (rightly or wrongly) perceived very much as high end boutique brands, where historically Transition has been at the cheaper end of that market.

At ~£2k I would have thought they may have been on to something. Still, if past years stock are anything to go by, there are normally a fair few Transition's kicking around with hefty discounts to get shot of them 😉

Hob Nob - Member
Price wise, well, we shall see but at that price you're in the realm of Ibis/Santa Cruz/Yeti/Intense carbon etc which are (rightly or wrongly) perceived very much as high end boutique brands, where historically Transition has been at the cheaper end of that market.

At ~£2k I would have thought they may have been on to something. Still, if past years stock are anything to go by, there are normally a fair few Transition's kicking around with hefty discounts to get shot of them

It's always a mistake for a vendor to enter the fray of a pricing discussion, but here goes..

At 2k?.. Well they are 2k, the 400 you pay to the Vatman, not much we can do about that, and in any event there are unlikely to be many more than 100 pcs made for worldwide consumption this go round I'm led to understand so, cutting the price and margin to achieve volume would be a pointless exercise.

Carbon is carbon and if the process aint done right, I for one wouldn't want to a) Ride it or b) sell to another fellow rider, as it was personally I had my reservations about even bringing them into the UK.

So, the week the Transition guys spent riding with a few of us dispelled any doubts we might have had and I'm now head of the queue for one of these bikes, prior to this I'd just spent the winter building a boat at one of the few specialists that offer half decent carbon repairs to bike frames and we'd had a not brilliant experience with carbon race frames from that now defunct Pronghorn company, hence the doubts.

As to the comparison with what we would refer to in a banter environment as 'yesterdays brands', our intension with Transition is to build a community, with more uplift events and rider get togethers going forward, so as well as a bike hopefully your buying into a bit of a brand culture, with folk of like minds and rider attitude, with us at Surf Sales backing your play, so whilst we aint ever going to be the cheapest around (we wouldn't want to ride or sell stuff that was) we won't force a huge race team marketing budget onto the consumer price, hence the relatively reasonable value of the metal frames, we're going very much with the 'bro's not pro's' free ride culture with an emphasis on additional skills training with the growing travel to the mountains market.
Our snow and surf background always has an emphasis on knowing enough to keep you injury free, nothing worse than down time off the hill/water/snow due to stuff that could be avoided with a little help from folk who have been there before you.

So in that way we are raising the brand profile, prior to us being around Transition was a direct to market via a shop and the service I gather wasn't as it should be, with us in place backing our retailers as well as consumers play there will be an on cost for that sort of service, if you don't want/need that kind of thing then that Brant chap seems to have a solution, there is nothing if not choice in life..

Hope that clears things up a bit.

The only way that could have cleared it up less is if you had Steve Jones rewrite it for you.

there are unlikely to be many more than 100 pcs made for worldwide consumption

I doubt this very much.

if you don't want/need that kind of thing then that Brant chap seems to have a solution, there is nothing if not choice in life..

This is the problem a lot of smaller brands have. It's a problem Titus had, which is why it's now in our hands, and not distributed through a distributor/retailer distribution chain.

Margins are being eroded right left and centre. The deals that direct marketeers can offer are huge - I am constantly amazed at the pricing coming out of Canyon, for instance.

I think Transition is a fantastic brand, and the stuff they are doing is brilliant. The regular posters on this site are by far from a normal cross section of the buying public and I'm sure the Covert will do very very well in it's carbon version selling to people who want a piece of that Transition brand. Which Surf Sales have done a great job to build and promote in the UK.

Canyon and Rose prices are very good value for money. But there are pros and cons. I have looked at Strive and Uncle Jimbo. Impressive spec but no demo, difficult to find any reviews.

Covert Carbon = £5k
Spicy 916 = £5K
2013 Spech Enduro = £7k-8K

If your in the AM/Enduro field then the above are very similar price wise, spec and geo. Time for a covert demo I think.

Time for a covert demo I think.