The price for the Stumpjumper carbon was $4200 in February and the alloy version was $3500. Now the alloy is still selling at $3500 and the carbon bike sells for $4700. I bought the alloy as the extra $1310 for the carbon frame was not worth the slight saving in weight and possible gain in performance with the different rear suspension.
If cost was the primary consideration I would have bought a mail order bike from a place like Canyon but I prefer to support local owner operated businesses and keep the money in the community.
One thing I have learned in my recent searches for bikes is that I need to phone around to find out what is actually in the dealer's inventory. Often a bike was in their storage facility but not shown as available or they could transfer it from another store. In one case a local dealer sold Giant bikes but is not listed as a dealer on the Giant website. Same store owner mentioned that Specialized had put the wrong phone number for their store on the website and a lot of potential customers thought that they had gone out of business.
If cost was the primary consideration I would have bought a mail order bike from a place like Canyon but I prefer to support local owner operated businesses and keep the money in the community.
One thing I have learned in my recent searches for bikes is that I need to phone around to find out what is actually in the dealer's inventory. Often a bike was in their storage facility but not shown as available or they could transfer it from another store. In one case a local dealer sold Giant bikes but is not listed as a dealer on the Giant website. Same store owner mentioned that Specialized had put the wrong phone number for their store on the website and a lot of potential customers thought that they had gone out of business.
