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Isent the coust 1085? imo i´ve never tryed a nicer bike then Anders Kolpens Coust, Fournales fork, carbon bar etc, it rides sooo nice. about progressing as someone said, Anders told me he gaind about 5 inches on touchhop just going from Ilions to Coust.
ive also tryed the old XTP short model, its stiff BUT i dident feel a big differance compared to the ilions, its short. shure the XTP stayed on the back feel more easy and so on. but if i had the money for either a XTP or a Coust i would deffinantly get the Coust :D (Weelongpost.com :p)
 
Bloodhound said:
The only thing I dont understand is why the coust is SO stiff if it comes from the same factorys as all the others?
The stiffness has less to do with the factory in which is was produced than with the design of the frame. The rear half of the bike is essentially a truss, that's why it's stiffer.

Kevin, I wasn't the only one with bearings in my frame. I got a few PM's asking me how I got them out because at least two others had the same problem. I was just the most vocal about it.

About the cost of the frame...Graham would obviously be the best person to address this but I'll give it a crack anyway. From concept to consumer, this frame is handled quite a bit, especially considering that there seem to be such small production numbers. The Coustelliers obviously spent a great deal of time developing and testing the design (something which most of us feel Echo is lacking...R&D), they supposedly had ethical problems with their first manufacturing company (costing them more time), the frames then shipped to a distributor (who marks up the price) and then off to a retailer (who marks up the price again). On top of that, the currency with which the trading is taking place makes a huge difference too. The USD has taken a hit to the Euro (and pretty much everything else) lately which makes international trade more costly AND you have the rising cost of transport due to oil prices. I doubt that anyone in the chain is making very much money at all, in fact, I assume that most are "tolerating" the processing of such products because they believe so strongly in it's ability to perform.

If we believe what we read on the internet, Michael Coust has given up quite a bit to get this company rolling. Anyone who takes the time to start up a company wants to see a return on their investment. It's probably reflected in the cost of the frame at his level.


Now that I've had this frame for about a month, I can confidently say that it's the best frame I've ever ridden. I got in on the early deal back in January, otherwise I wouldn't have every considered getting it. At 195lb, the lateral stiffness is really a treat. Every other frame I've had flexed enough to rub brake pads or tire to stay contact when ever I put power down...annoying. As much as I love how the frame rides, I would always be disappointed in the level of frame prep I had to do given the price. Though, It sure is nice having a trials bike again after 8 months off.

Sean
 
pads rub agains rim or tire?
isnt that flex in the wheel/spokes man?
i didnt think it was frame flex was it?
i only get it after i snap a spoke and on that part if i put on power cause wheel is weaker and flexes

and has anyone else noticed that alot of their flex in their brakes is the wheel flexing laterally and not actually the chainstays flexing?
just wondering about that last point
maybe people should work on stiffer wheels than frames??

pav
 
and i have try coust ... i hate this frame... it is very short... i know a lot of english riders like short bike, so perhaps you will like it... but my koxx is : 1085 and i say it is too short for me... but the coust one is 1065...
the coust is 1080 according to the website!! :) 1065 is still consided long in the uk, i love my 1020 wb ashton!!

and this frame is the same of the zoo...(python...) which is better i think !!
they have different geometry, which is what matters and makes them different, they just look similar! i think the pitball has 1060 and 1090 wb options too

mike
 
pav said:
pads rub agains rim or tire?
isnt that flex in the wheel/spokes man?
i didnt think it was frame flex was it?
i only get it after i snap a spoke and on that part if i put on power cause wheel is weaker and flexes

and has anyone else noticed that alot of their flex in their brakes is the wheel flexing laterally and not actually the chainstays flexing?
just wondering about that last point
maybe people should work on stiffer wheels than frames??

pav
I've had this happen but only when the wheel was flexing when some of the spokes were loose and I was putting some heavy power into it.
 
and has anyone else noticed that alot of their flex in their brakes is the wheel flexing laterally and not actually the chainstays flexing?
just wondering about that last point
maybe people should work on stiffer wheels than frames??



OK, how does the wheel flex when it's between two brakepads forcing against one another? My maggies flex the everliving out of my Pure seatstays, but my wheel doesn't move, am I doing something wrong?
 
No, youre doing something right, youve set up the brakes to hit at the same time and your wheel is trued well and spokes tight, good job. :) My wheel flexes a bit on my PX, cant get the brakes to stay set, they mal-adjust after 10 or so minutes of riding. I need to get new bolts because the crappy maggie bolts are losing their heads for good allen key fitting, then I could get everything sickly tight and maybe theyd stay.
 
Discussion starter · #28 ·
I'm not saying these welds are uber crap or anything. Of course you have no idea how strong they actually are. This is just going by looks (which means very little) but everyone was quick to point out the nasty looking welds on the zoo and i've heard the cous welds aren't all that nice LOOKING either.

And the xtp and the cous are the same price on faction bike...hmm

And saying the geometry is what makes it cost so much has got to be the most ridiculous statement ever. Thats like saying a size 11 shoe is better than a size 11.5
If Michael Jordan wore a size 14 then everyone should wear a size 14 wooooooo.

I was just interested in seeing why your average frame could cost $950 bucks
 
I love how everyone agrees when someone talk shit about the welds on a zoo!. But when someone mentions the welds on a cous doesn't look to good then they start arguing that you can't see how good a weld is by looking at pictures.... This site is so full of elitists it's not even funny.
 
Dave, your Megamo is no cheap piece of shit either... what's you issue with the Coustellier bike? I got mine for a lot less than retail anyways. Most people did when they pre-ordered it.
 
I agree wth Dave on this one. to a degree that is. I've seen frames that cost way more than a thousand dollars, but just not trials frames. The average trials rider will keep his or her frame for maybe a year or so at the longest, and cannot justify spending a thousand or so dollars on something they INTEND to BASH UP. Granted a lot of R&D go into these frames, and maybe a lot of handling , but the prices are still a product of the trials environment. Saying that the geometry justifies the high price is kind of absurd. Am I wrong or are most of the frames inquestion made in China, or Taiwan? I think almost all of them are, Zoo, and Coust included. These are nice bikes, and definitely superior to most made by ither companies not so in touch with the trials community, but still overpriced in my opinion. The reason I see them being so dang expensive has more to do with limited quantites, availability, customs duties etc.... but the final word on all of this should be that if you can afford it, and feel you like it more than a frame of lesser price then go for it, if not, than DON'T. It's pretty simple. I'm ridng an old bike right now, but would like a newer slightly longer one i think, but cannot justify spending all of that money on a Coust. Sorry, just my opinion.
 
Well I'm no welder, but the welds on my Zoo looked pretty good and the welds on the Coust looked pretty good as well. A bunch of stuff is nicer on the Coust (head tube, brake mounts, chainstay yoke), which would account for the higher cost. I don't know how you could tell the difference between the welds. Nothing to complain about with either bike.
 
Discussion starter · #34 ·
Yea if I was paying retail for my Megamos I definitely wouldn't have them.

But since the Cous is the fad now I decided to pick it apart.

The same can be said for lots of bikes. Montys are a good example of expensive crap too.

What really made me start thinking about this is my friend just had a custom frame made by peyto. Reynolds 853 tubing, custom geo, perfection all around. for 1100 canadian. The cous frame is 1300 canadian straight exchange then factor in customs/brokerage bullshit and in the end i heard they would end up retailing for 1400+.

And also I thought the forum was gettin kinda slow so I figured I would put an anti cous post up because they seem to get lots of replies
 
pav said:
pads rub agains rim or tire?
isnt that flex in the wheel/spokes man?
i didnt think it was frame flex was it?
i only get it after i snap a spoke and on that part if i put on power cause wheel is weaker and flexes

and has anyone else noticed that alot of their flex in their brakes is the wheel flexing laterally and not actually the chainstays flexing?
just wondering about that last point
maybe people should work on stiffer wheels than frames??

pav
I can't argue that the wheels don't flex, they undoubtedly do. But I'm talking about torsional flex in the frame that causes the rubbing. With two fixed points (relative, at the hubs) and your cranks acting as a lever (through the bottome bracket) essentially trying to twist up your frame around itself (the imaginary line from axle to axle). If you've ever ridden a road frame that has been fixed into a jig at the axles (say to measure power output) you can see the same effect. I had an old steel Paramount that I could flex into the pads when mounted up.
 
WhiteRavenKS said:
xtp vs cous- head tube angle, bb height, chainstay length, weight. the cous is stiffer. but yes, go ahead and throw on some thicker tubes on the xtp, make it heavier, make it instantly ten thousand times better than the cous.

it has no fancy machining- neither does the xtp... its not that fancy, some cnc mill can crank out 5 xtp yokes in a minute.
Yes the XTP is quite different from the coust, same basic geo/style in mind but definately different.

"fancy" its relative. Compared to the coust (and any other trials frame for that matter) the XTP (at the least the new one) DOES have 'fancy' machining. After you pay for the design or the yoke, the material for it, the mill, the cost of running the mill, you have run up a cost that I have no clue is high or low it is, but its undeneyably an effort not made on other frames.

Without having ridden either of the above mentioned frames, based on what i can see, any history i know, and what i know to be true, I would choose the new XTP if the prices were equal.
 
you have to understand that when you get stuff like headtubes, yokes, dropouts, etc machined in taiwan, it hardly costs any more than regular tubing. the material is dirt cheap, and designing stuff means drawing it out and giving it to someone to program in the mill (again, very cheap over there) and running the mill is cheap as hell there too. just because the xtp has more machined parts on it does not necessarily mean it's all that much fancier. the machining on the xtp i had was cool and all but compared to the machining i see on dh bikes, it was almost (ALMOST) disappointing. you can accomplish stuff with tubing or machined bits for virtually no cost difference in taiwan.

when your pads run under power its form frame flex, not wheel flex. your spokes would be practically falling out of the rim in order for spoke wind up to pull your rim over into a pad. so stiff wheels is not the answer over stiff frames.

i dont think i have ever once said "oh my god, the welds on that zoo are so gay" or anything like that. it's pretty blatantly obvious if you have a frame that was rushed if there are several fisheyes in the welds all over and the puddles are god aweful uneven but i have yet to see that with the zoo stuff. i would like to think i know better than to say "oh those welds are .2mm off from even puddling on the zoo, they must be weaker than little girls!"

people keep bringing up "most people" with regards to expensive frames... guess what, these HIGH END frames are not meant for "most people" they are meant for people who take trials seriously and, even if they dont need it, demand the highest end goods. the target market for these godly expensive frames is not the average joe who smashes his frame up and needs a new one once a year. they are made for people who ride and train so hard that a new frame every year is considered a reasonable expenditure.

the internet is so rediculous.
 
Nicolai has machining down to an art. www.nicolai.net

the new xtp is obviously not made by the infamous Pulo plant. it is made elsewhere, and that is self evident when you look at the frame. there was some serious consideration that went into the design of that frame. you should all thanks vincent for being so awesome.
 
I can understand why people would spend a huge amount on a trials frame. Our trials careers aren't known for lasting too long, so go for broke is guess. If you've ever ridden trials on a peice of crap you can appreciate quality.

Out of all the people in the US that bought the coust how many paid actual retail? Not the $50 off for pre order dealy.

Seems to me that a lot of the people on this forum that ride more expensive trials frames get stuff for cost. (myself included) If i had to pay retail i would probably not have a koxx, but maybe something with Chinese origin.

Is that post correct that the XTP 2 is $2600?:down:

And the R+D behind the coust is somewhat of a question as its the third company to use that gusseted three tube seat design. Fourth being the sometimes, actually most hated Zoo!.

The coust frame competes head to head with the XTP, not the Zoo! pitbull like everyone seems to believe. The pitbull would compete with the pure, boa, lb etc. Hmmm $550 vs. $950:wuteva: I don't think so...

Looks like Koxx has new stickers with all types of perty colors.:yum:
 
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