www.fastbikegear.co.nz. Anyone used them?

[birdhandler]

I was rather gob smacked at the 300.00 brake levers to be honest
I have bought 2 stebel horns and some riding lights
I got the next day service as well and I thought there pricing was pretty good
Cheers

[Pumba]

Always ment to come back and make comment on this thread but never did get round to it.

In the end I ordered some Pazzo levers off Liam. Now there was an issue surrounding the supply of the levers,outside of his control, but Liam called me several times and kept up to date all the way through the delays, and even dispached the two levers seperatly to ensure I had at least one for my trip away at Queens Birthday Weekend.

All I can say is that the sevice was great and I will happily deal with Fastbikegear and Liam again in the future.

[Madness]

I bought a set of levers from fastbikegear.co.nz and was (still am) very happy with my purchase, including both the product and the service. I love my Titax levers. The Pazzo's looked a bit too ghey for me with all those fucking swirls in the finish.

[Biggles08]

As per the thread title www.fastbikegear.co.nz anyone used them before.

Looking at getting some Pazzo lever for the Speed Triple.

Alternativly anyone got a good place (read cheap) to get some from?

Yup...he sponsors me Pumba...forget the Pazzo's though, get some TITAX brother!

[FastBikeGear]

Yup...he sponsors me Pumba...forget the Pazzo's though, get some TITAX brother!

I have to agree with Biggles. While we have been selling both Pazzo and Titax levers we do have a preference for the Titax levers and it seems that this is shared by most of our customers.

Many thanks to Biggles and our other customers in this thread for your supporting comments.

[Pumba]

Problem was you wernt stocking Titax when I made my purchase

[Biggles08]

Problem was you wernt stocking Titax when I made my purchase

make another purchase then

[Grubber]

Hmmm good thread....

FastBikeGear is a new business. We have been operating for just on 12 months now and only went live with our web store earlier this year. The business has very pleasingly grown faster than expected.

I am an experienced business owner. I founded and ran a multi-million dollar IT import and distribution business supporting over 500 resellers for 13 years, which I sold in 2005. A number of past customers of this business are avid motorcyclists and members of this forum and now customers of FastBikeGear.

Everybody knows that New Zealand is a small place and you only get one chance with your reputation!

While FastBikeGear does some marketing and we are providing some limited sponsorship to a couple of racers, most of our business is coming from word of mouth. A surprisingly large amount of business is already repeat business from customers.

Our target is to provide fast delivery and competitive pricing. We achieve this by running a professional business with very few unnecessary overheads and selling direct to customers (Although recently we have also started supply a subset of our product range to a few bike shops).

FastBikeGear purchases products directly from manufacturers in Italy, China, America, UK, etc ...and we also purchase some equipment from distributors in New Zealand and overseas where it makes sense to do so. We even manufacture one of our products here in New Zealand.

We make no false or misleading claims on the level of expertise or after sales expertise that we can provide.

It's not what we say or claim that will sway customers, what matters is what our customers experience and what they say about us.

Once a customer has purchased a product from us they can publish their feed back directly on our web site for anyone else to read.

If you want to know what our customers think of our service then visit www.fastbikegear.co.nz and check out what they have to say.

Many thanks to all of our customers for the great feedback so far.

I fully recognise that our business success will be determined by our customers and we know that we need to keep listening to you to improve our business and keep working hard to secure your support and win your business.

Many thanks
Liam Venter

Firstly i would like to make the comment that the above has been written without one snarling comment about their competitors. All very self promotion and direct. Not one sentence has been derogatory towards any of their rivals. Well done i say.
Secondly, i purchased a set of Titax levers form these guys and would have say the service was second to none. Made the inquiry and then the purchase. they arrived the following day. Perfect. They then made it their job to get in touch to see if i was happy with the goods.
I will be back to shop there again for sure.
Cheers Liam, thanks again.

[Grubber]

Hmmm good thread....

FastBikeGear is a new business. We have been operating for just on 12 months now and only went live with our web store earlier this year. The business has very pleasingly grown faster than expected.

I am an experienced business owner. I founded and ran a multi-million dollar IT import and distribution business supporting over 500 resellers for 13 years, which I sold in 2005. A number of past customers of this business are avid motorcyclists and members of this forum and now customers of FastBikeGear.

Everybody knows that New Zealand is a small place and you only get one chance with your reputation!

While FastBikeGear does some marketing and we are providing some limited sponsorship to a couple of racers, most of our business is coming from word of mouth. A surprisingly large amount of business is already repeat business from customers.

Our target is to provide fast delivery and competitive pricing. We achieve this by running a professional business with very few unnecessary overheads and selling direct to customers (Although recently we have also started supply a subset of our product range to a few bike shops).

FastBikeGear purchases products directly from manufacturers in Italy, China, America, UK, etc ...and we also purchase some equipment from distributors in New Zealand and overseas where it makes sense to do so. We even manufacture one of our products here in New Zealand.

We make no false or misleading claims on the level of expertise or after sales expertise that we can provide.

It's not what we say or claim that will sway customers, what matters is what our customers experience and what they say about us.

Once a customer has purchased a product from us they can publish their feed back directly on our web site for anyone else to read.

If you want to know what our customers think of our service then visit www.fastbikegear.co.nz and check out what they have to say.

Many thanks to all of our customers for the great feedback so far.

I fully recognise that our business success will be determined by our customers and we know that we need to keep listening to you to improve our business and keep working hard to secure your support and win your business.

Many thanks
Liam Venter

Firstly i would like to make the comment that the above has been written without one snarling comment about their competitors. All very self promotion and direct.
Secondly, i purchased a set of Titax levers form these guys and would have say the service was second to none. Made the inquiry and then the purchase. they arrived the following day. Perfect. They then made it their job to get in touch to see if i was happy with the goods.
I will be back to shop there again for sure.
Cheers Liam, thanks again.

[avgas]

Oh noes, its the bike sales competition wars in NZ

Good on ya Liam.

[Pumba]

make another purchase then

Why am I not surprised you said that

[yachtie10]

Ive been a customer of Liams for about 20 years and I have 2 complaints
1. He has never bribed me with overseas trips or hookers
2. He has not responded to my request to be a product tester for any his bike products

Will probably buy some stuff off him soon (when I get paid)

[Biggles08]

Ive been a customer of Liams for about 20 years and I have 2 complaints
1. He has never bribed me with overseas trips or hookers
2. He has not responded to my request to be a product tester for any his bike products

Will probably buy some stuff off him soon (when I get paid)

Your doing something wrong then...why just the other day he......

[Bulldog]

I'm just happy to see someone in NZ with the balls to start this type of business. Myself and a mate are senior IT managers and have been running businesses for quite a few years now and have also been riding bikes for years.

We've both been pissed off with parts dealers and the lack of competition in this space hence we see crazy prices, lack of product selection and shithouse delivery times. Don't get me started on service in this country. Most of us end up buying direct and paying crazy shipping as it's still cheaper or you can't be bothered waiting 6 months for the 'next shipment'.

Anyone who is actually providing good service and they're doing all they can to reduce prices and delivery times....I say support them as it will only drive better competition.

Well done Liam & co.

[FastBikeGear]

I am pleased to be able to report that my wheel alignment system is now being manufactured in the US for one of the top racing series!

It was initially designed and manufactured for use in Kart racing but is easily adaptable for use on other types of open wheelers.

You can see information on the system here http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2002/0194742.html

I see a real difficulty in people like myself who have not got a proven track record racing at the top level trying to provide suspension expertise from the sideline. This is why most top coaches in most sports have a background as competitors. If you haven't experienced it how can you fully understand it? Books and classroom time can give you the theory but the theory is only the starting point for analysis and understanding and many of the books repeat fundamental misunderstandings and then these misunderstandings are repeated by the so called 'experts'. For example most motorcycle handling books state that front fork suspension compression causes weight transfer! This is simply incorrect, front fork suspension compression is the symptom of weight transfer. A vehicle with no suspension will still transfer weight to the front whee(s) when you brake or roll off the throttle.

I and a friend (a keen motorcycle racer) redesigned the suspension system of a clubman racer and also modified the chassis significantly. A key part of the success of this project was being able to take it out on the track and test it to find out what worked and what didn't first hand. Some things we did resulted in no measurable performance gain but improved the feedback so that I could drive it more consistently near the limit. No one on the sideline could have predicted some of the things that worked and didn't, nor could they appreciate the value of the extra confidence the improved feed back provided. Incidentally this is probably the only car ever built in the world to feature two transverse Watts linkages and a WOB link on the rear axle. I won the first ever race I entered with this car and two consecutive championships.

I also raced karts for a few years (I got some good results in an older kart that I modified so that the chassis was torsionally adjustable by the driver during the race - amazingly this kart wasn't outlawed - probably because no one noticed the two levers or realised what they did). This first hand experience allowed me to assist others with their race set ups and to develop handling adjustment flowcharts. I pit crewed for a couple of past New Zealand champs. Again without this first hand experience the quality of the dialogue I would have been able to have with the drivers to determine where we needed to go with the setup would have been that much poorer.

When I swapped from racing cars to karts I found that the fundamentals of suspension setups for the two types of vehicles and what was desirable to achieve could not have been more different! Only a little of what I had learned in setting up one type of vehicle was useful for the next.

Motorbikes are again completely and utterly different which is why I claim no expertise, other than some very low value theory. Although I have done the odd track day I will never race bikes at the top level or even ride a bike at ten tenths. As any top racer in or on any type of race vehicle will testify, what the vehicle does at eight tenths is very different from what happens at ten tenths! A vehicle that feels fantastic at eight tenths is sometimes downright scary and unrideable at ten tenths and vice versa.

Given that I will never race a bike at ten tenths I am currently using my back ground in electronics and wireless data communications to explore a new approach to the on-track measurement and data logging of motorcycle suspension systems. This is definitely at the exploratory stage and I am a very very long way away from having a commercially available system for sale.

I think the current approach of mapping suspension movement in relation to time and/or distance only provides a small part of the information required to be truly meaningful.

This project is entirely for my own interest and is unlikely to ever be of any commercial significance.