I’m buying my first road bike for the longer rides (planning a ride from Sydney to Canberra in a few months), and a friend is offering his bike for sale.
It’s a Principia Rex Pro purchased back in 2000, with full Shimano DA components & a carbon fork. Apparently it’s just been sitting around since he never really got into riding.
He’s offering it for 400AUD + whatever it takes to ship it from the US to here, but I’m worried about a) whether it’s going to cost too much to ship here, and b) whether it’s going to be super-expensive to upgrade/fix anything on it.
If I were buying new, the Shimano 105 or SRAM Rival groupset would be around my budget, so I’m worried that if it needs some upgrades due to sitting around (BB etc.), I’ll be forced to pay through the nose for everything.
Any thoughts? Is it a good deal, or should I run away?
They were lovely bikes (raced at a top level) sounds like a bargin to me I’d go for it if it fits you. All that nine speed stuff is still around and I doubt anything will be in bad nick nothing a strip down with new cables and clean could not fix.
If you have to you could replace broken stuff with Ultegra or 105 and it really wouldn’t matter much. In fact, change the cassette to a “worse” one because the dura-ace ones have some titanium cogs that wear fast.
The hard part is getting it shipped from the US for a reasonable price. Do you guys have experience with that?
The friend I’m buying it off lives here, so it’s being stored at his parents place in the US. I was thinking I could get the bike dropped off at a local bike shop in the US, and I could pay them to pack & ship it. I’m guessing I’ll need to find a courier/freight company with decent rates?
principias were raced at the top level, im not denying this, bu this was because they were stiff. shit me anything more than 50km on the things is awful. added to that theyre made of alloy thus having a moderately low fatigue life, the last two i have seen through the shop were cracked.
yes you can get 9 speed. is it worth it? no.
because when you cost it out you don’t save much money.
$400, $300 (minimum for shipping), new chain $70, New Cassette $120, new chainrings $140+ (highly likely as older DA often loses its finish), new cables $80, new tyres+tubes+rim tape $150 (for average tyres that don;t ride nice. + other things that are likely fucked(what he says, doesnt mean much), bb, hub bearings, headset, + bike shop labour.
thats a lot of money for a bike that won’t ride especially nice or work very well.
It might ride well, but might not be comfortable. Principia made tri-bikes too, so check its not a tri-bike, cause they’re generally not nice to spend time on (unless you’re into that sort of pain).
Shipping anything from the US costs a packet. Check that out first, cause it might cost you more than a new bike to send it.
I’ve found a bike shop in Cleveland who are willing to pack it for me, but I’m yet to find anyone who will ship it for a reasonable price. This is the same bike, with Campy gear instead of Shimano:
You can get the F95 locally for the same price as on Wiggle. I’m trying to avoid the mishmash of low-end components everyone seems to be putting on their $1k - $2k bikes.
The rate at which bike tech advances, means a ten year old bike no matter how good back then is not really going to be anywhere near a 2 grand 2010 bike. I’d stick with something newer imo especially considering shipping sounds like such a pain.
my bike is all nos steal mid nineties campy and it a shit load better than an off the shelf 2010 $2k bike with average running gear… and not much heaver thanks only to a pretty but very heavy wheelset…
What advances?
Almost all I see is forced obsolescence by the manufacturers.
The way you say “at the rate” you make it sound like it’s an indisputable point. Computer hardware advances at a great rate, bikes do not.
Things that do 2/5ths of not much:
Fancy carbon shit.
Moving bottom bracket bearings.
11 speed gearing.
Perhaps I was over generalising but I was really just comparing in my own mind, my roadie which is relatively new (alu frame carbon forks, full 105 etc) and didn’t cost me much more than 2 grand inc wheels vs the spec of the 10 year old ‘pro level’ bike. I would wager that 10 year old dura ace is pretty similar to current 105 and well aluminium of 10 years ago is prob not much different from today save that alu has a finite life to failure.
Sure I could go out and build a very nice vintage steel roadie, but by the time I sourced the frame, gruppo that is in reasonable condition, and a reasonable set of wheels I’m sure it would cost a more than 2 grand from scratch. Whether its better or not, aesthetics wise, probably yes, but i’ve never ridden mid 90s campag to compare with recent 105 or athena so couldn’t comment.
