Messages

1

General Discussion / Re: Surly Cross Check Touring Bike?

« on: November 21, 2010, 07:26:31 pm »

There are other touring bikes. (The Rocky Mountain Sherpa 30 is one example. It's a bit more expensive than the LHT and the triple might not be as low as people might like.)

2

General Discussion / Re: Newbie has pannier capacity question

« on: September 09, 2010, 06:10:11 pm »

Note that having some extra unused space might be useful (eg, for carrying dinner) depending on the kind of touring you are doing,

3

Gear Talk / Re: Salsa Fargo - Lemon of the year!

« on: July 28, 2010, 04:23:53 pm »

njkayaker, again I would mention that in any such argument, a lot of people will jump in and say, "I've had product XYZ for three months now and have had absolutely zero problems," implying that there must be something wrong with the complainer.  If you look at the owner reviews of bikes in general, they tend to be very positive, and this without their having owned the product long enough to mean much.  Especially with a major purchase like that, it's natural for someone to want to think they made the best decision, and to be proud of it.  (I find more negative owner reviews on smaller purchases like cycle computers and tires.)  Saying they haven't had any problem however just means the failure rate is not 100%.  That's not very useful information, whether you're big into statistics or not.

I'm only making a comment about the bad statistics. Nothing else.

The "positive reviews" is another common bias. It's the great middle of people (who don't have problems) who can be very underrepresented.

I am not suggesting that people not talk about their negative experiences about a product (well, as long as they are honest about it).

4

Gear Talk / Re: Salsa Fargo - Lemon of the year!

« on: July 28, 2010, 02:32:59 pm »

njkayaker, I did actually admit my maths error on this, I was in the middle of something else and rushed it off without checking.   ~The maths is, in the post, dreadful but I have already owned up to that.

I'm not complaining about the math error. That isn't the biggest error!

Statistically, however, comparing the number of posters on this site (and I admit that this may not be representative of the every Salsa Owner in the world) who haven't had problems with those who have, still reveals a relatively high percentage.

No, it doesn't "reveal a relatively high percentage" of problems occurring. Such a small and self-selected subpopulation can't say anything about the real rate of the problem in the total population.

To get an accurate measure of the real rate in the, you need a random and unbiased selection of samples (and you need more than 7 samples).

People volunteering information isn't random! The "statistics" are invalid unless the samples are randomly selected.

It's a very well-known bias that people who have problems are much more likely to post about them.

And let's be clear about the nature of the problem, this is not something trivial, this is a bike which in my case was too dangerous to ride and in John's case appears to be equally serious.

There isn't any problem talking about the issue. I don't have any problems with talking about the issue.

It is incorrect (plainly wrong) to think that the data provided in this thread is enough to say anything about the real rate of the problem across all Fargo owners.

5

Gear Talk / Re: which bike to buy?

« on: July 27, 2010, 08:20:40 pm »

25% (still guessing) were on Novara Randonees, sadly now discontinued by REI.

I don't think it's been discontinued. I think REI stops advertising it when they run out of stock. When they get a batch in, they list it for sale.

6

Gear Talk / Re: Salsa Fargo - Lemon of the year!

« on: July 27, 2010, 01:14:23 pm »

4.  Wrapped the top, seat, and down tubes with spare inner tubes.

Never heard of doing this. With all the other things you did, one can't tell if this does anything. (It doesn't seem likely to me of doing anything.)

7

Gear Talk / Re: Salsa Fargo - Lemon of the year!

« on: July 27, 2010, 01:00:16 pm »

Hmm!   This is all getting rather serious.   Looking back over the posts there are 5 Fargo owners who are happy with their bikes and two, Johnnyo and myself, who have had major handling problems.   Add in a couple of defective forks and it's all starting to look rather dodgy.

I don't know how many Fargos Salsa produce and sell each year but with 2 out of 5 experiencing problems, that's about a 40% failure rate.   In terms of product quality that's disastrous!

I think Salsa now need to get to the bottom of this fairly quickly before someone gets spat off in front of an 18 wheeler.

This post is embarrassingly bad.

There is no way that the posts here can be trusted to be a random statistical sampling of "problems". It's also extremely irresponsable to draw conclusions from a sample size of 5!

It's well known that people who have problems are more likely to post about them. That would strongly imply that the rate of reported problems here is artificially high.

This sounds like a high school math problem.  I just retired from 30 years teaching same.  If there are 5 happy riders and 2 with problems, then there are 2 out of 7 with problems, so more like 28-29% with problems, not 40%.  Still not good, but better!

No, the math isn't the real mistake being made with this "analysis"!