A little shy of 700 words this time...
Do you pay for these adds.
Maybe you should.
Personally the key issue I have with Evil isn’t so much reliability/warrantee, it’s their UK pricing. Every time they release a new model the UK price goes up a couple of hundred pounds. For example, the recently announced Calling looks/sounds great and probably everything I’d want from a trail bike……,but I for one won’t be buying one, because of the poor value in the UK. The frame is $2900 in the US, but being advertised at £3200 ($4000) here in the UK.
To put this in perspective, it’s nearly £1000 more than my Following frame which I bought 18 months ago (which is a great bike, I’m a complete Evil convert) and only £150 less than I paid three months ago in Canyon’s end of year sale for a 2016 Strive CF Race 9.0 complete with a Fox 36 Factory, Next SL/SRAM XO1 drive train, DT Swiss EX1501 wheelset etc, etc.
Also it appears that this is not solely down to exchange rates/BREXIT as the difference between US and UK pricing doesn’t seem to be as great with equivalent brands e.g. Santa Cruz, which anecdotally have better reliability histories and better warrantees. So it seems to come down to pricing policy and/or length of supply chain. The reason I mention supply chain is because in the US Evil seem to be selling some of their bikes direct, whereas the UK bikes seem to come via an Evil European Distributor in Spain, a UK Distributor and an LBS. Presumably all of these links in the supply chain have overheads and are looking to take profit, further inflating the UK prices?
I must admit there seems to be alot of do's and don'ts around this frame. As much that I think there's some design flaws. Sorry. If I had one and if failed I'd be seeking a refund. This is from someone who sent eyes wide open into a brand new Commencal purchase.
