soma frames

Ben’s Cycle have these too which look quite nice. frame, fork and headset for US $350 plus shipping:

sure you don’t get to pick your colour but they are quite a bit cheaper than some other similar frames. from the sound of it, they are more road like in their geometry though. they don’t look too bad built up either (mainly the bare one):

http://velospace.org/node/16110

if only the dollar hadn’t died so badly :roll:

my take on somas: they’re understated, simple, respectable, and relatively solid. for most cyclists it will be all that you need. classy fork, which can’t be said for most mass-market track frames these days. however, my housemate/coworker recently, after maybe two years of having it & messengering on it for all but six months of those two years, started growing a crack down the back of the seat tube. granted, alex has horrid luck with breaking shit, but - unless i’m mistaken - there didn’t seem to be any distinct rhyme nor reason for the crack’s arrival - no catastrophic wreck, no rust, no nothing. just tons of riding… which is a bit unsettling to me.

the aliens are probably the highest class to cost ratio.

spartans, from chile, are ok too. lugged steel - unknown tubing, though - with nice threaded forks… $350.

haven’t heard any horror stories about those, but i also didn’t have any friends who rode them until yesterday.

whoa, those lugged SE’s are way nicer than the shitty taiwanese motobecane/masi/mercier SE lagers… i don’t really like the cable guides & bottle cage braze-ons, unless you’re planning on building it up as a singlespeed… in which case, it’s awesome that it comes with those.