Holdsworth 725 Steel Frame - Classic or Exploitation?

I must confess to not having seen the Reynolds 725 Holdsworth frame before today, I seem to remember press releases about it, but didn't realise it actually existed.

The bike I saw in a shop was on display half way up a wall, so I wasn't able to pick it up or even look too closely at it, but equipped with all Campag running gear, it did look every nice.

The question I have to ask myself though, is at £2,500 (£1,700 in offer from the Holdsworth web site), is it value for money? Or is it just a Taiwanese made frame, with a historic name? After all I can get a Genesis Equilibrium for an awful lot less.

Ridiculous. By the standards of frame construction it's not an especially expensive tubing or difficult to work in any particular way, it's just a thin walled cro mo. It's a cynical attempt to cash in on old gits who revere the Holdsworth name and who think that a higher Reynolds series number is automatically better.

Plus at that price you could get an actual vintage Holdsworth with some money left over

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/tech/bik ... -ride.html

Missed this one in the mags.....

Cycling equivalent of Dale Winters and just the same colour, shameful

Shaun

The general consensus (if you can have a consensus of three) is exploitation then.

I think the fact that they have dropped the price and there are still plenty left sort of tells its own tale, shame really as it looks great.

I've seen one of these being used in anger and the emotive appeal is there. I saw it from about a hundred yards away and even from that distance you could see that it was a new bike rather than a well preserved 1970's Professional - and there's something wonderful about someone going to the trouble of re-making something which had its day before I was born. But the combination of price tag and Taiwanese manufacture rule it out as an option for me. Had it been made in the UK, it might have justified its premium price.

Without a doubt is a really nice looking bike and is very well put together and detailed, but in the shop I visited, they had the Holdsworth on one wall and on the wall next to it was the Raleigh Team TI replica, which is several hundred pounds cheaper, so while I like what Falcon Cycles have done, I think they over estimated the swell of retro nostalgia, which is sort of born out by the fact that they have dropped the price from £2,500 to £1,700 on their web site.

NeilM":350pjmbo said:

Without a doubt is a really nice looking bike and is very well put together and detailed, but in the shop I visited, they had the Holdsworth on one wall and on the wall next to it was the Raleigh Team TI replica, which is several hundred pounds cheaper, so while I like what Falcon Cycles have done, I think they over estimated the swell of retro nostalgia, which is sort of born out by the fact that they have dropped the price from £2,500 to £1,700 on their web site.

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The Holdsworth is in a different league to Raleigh's retro team replica, which in places looks a bit cheap & nasty. The Holdsworth could probably hold its own as an actual race bike at amateur level, though I suspect that at an original RRP of £2500, going to a specialist UK frame builder and specifying something near-identical in Reynolds 725 (decent tubeset, think Columbus SLX New without the spiral-butting) would have worked out cheaper. The prototype Holdsworth replica was actually 853 with a Columbus fork, but the final version clearly had its production budget slimmed down hence the 725 frame/Aprebic fork combo.

The Genesis Equilibrium isn't an out and out race bike but as you say, probably delivers more for the price point. I'm still eagerly awaiting the Genesis 953 Volare (Dean Downing had a good day at the office on his during Tuesday evening's round of the Tour Series) being made available to Joe Public....not that I can afford one!

David

The Falcon 'exploitation' was a seed sown by Ernie Clements, so at least they are being consistent. Buy in bulk from the far east and sell at top price all decaled up with the names of the latest company acquisitions.

To me its not a Holdsworth and never will be.

David B":2q2a0ue4 said:

I'm still eagerly awaiting the Genesis 953 Volare (Dean Downing had a good day at the office on his during Tuesday evening's round of the Tour Series) being made available to Joe Public....not that I can afford one!

David

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You and me both. I have been sitting on my hands waiting for the Volare and the 853 Equilibrium to (finally) be released.