UPDATE: Received both my orders, all's well that ends well. A lot of details below for anyone considering ordering from either company. (Neither is a scam, and if you do order from either your experience may differ significantly.)
TL;DR I bought from CRC and bike-discount, and paid $683, see spreadsheet for what from where
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This is a bit of a different post from most of what I see in the deal forum, but I did a lot of research into different places to order gear from to order a full Deore XT set, including the RT86 Icetech rotors, M786 derailleurs and the 2x10 config I wanted.
Every build kit I would find would have an issue. Things like only a triple crank set, or the "Ice-Tec Disc Brake Pads" with RT66 rotors instead of RT86 rotors, SLX crankset, long deraillieur only, the bottom bracket was included but wasn't a press-fit, I had to buy the same size rotors, etc. (Good deals, but not great, and not what I wanted.)
I spent a long time going to a bunch of different sites and eventually figured out the only way I was getting what I wanted was to order everything individually, a build kit wasn't going to work. (I wanted RT86 rotors, 180 front, 160 back, medium deraillieur (M786), press fit bottom bracket, 2x10)
I put together a spreadsheet of all the options I could find, and then narrowed it down to large, legitimate stores that were clear about what they had in stock. It won't surprise many of you that the best prices were in Europe, and since I don't mind waiting a few weeks for the gear to show up, I figured the savings was so substantial that I'd go for it.
I had signed up for Chain Reaction Cycles during my search, and they sent me a coupon for $10 off $99 that made it easy to choose them and bike-discount.com as the two places I'd order from. Here's a list of what their prices were when I ordered yesterday:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B5rZA1MlJN3IAFuTxaJNb1if-i7VH5b5qnQzzNFOKxY/pubhtml
With the $10 off, it was $682.92.
I asked Biker Bob, who I can't say enough good things about, if he could be in that ballpark, and his response implied that no legitimate US Shimano reseller would be in that ballpark, and that if I was willing to take the risks of ordering from the two stores in Europe, that was a very attractive price.
I don't know if that will help anyone else, but after doing all that digging myself, I thought it might help someone else who's interested.
If you're thinking about making a similar purchase, my recommendation would be to sign up for CRC and give them a day or two to see if you get the $10 off $99 coupon in a welcome e-mail like I did.
TL;DR I bought from CRC and bike-discount, and paid $683, see spreadsheet for what from where
-
This is a bit of a different post from most of what I see in the deal forum, but I did a lot of research into different places to order gear from to order a full Deore XT set, including the RT86 Icetech rotors, M786 derailleurs and the 2x10 config I wanted.
Every build kit I would find would have an issue. Things like only a triple crank set, or the "Ice-Tec Disc Brake Pads" with RT66 rotors instead of RT86 rotors, SLX crankset, long deraillieur only, the bottom bracket was included but wasn't a press-fit, I had to buy the same size rotors, etc. (Good deals, but not great, and not what I wanted.)
I spent a long time going to a bunch of different sites and eventually figured out the only way I was getting what I wanted was to order everything individually, a build kit wasn't going to work. (I wanted RT86 rotors, 180 front, 160 back, medium deraillieur (M786), press fit bottom bracket, 2x10)
I put together a spreadsheet of all the options I could find, and then narrowed it down to large, legitimate stores that were clear about what they had in stock. It won't surprise many of you that the best prices were in Europe, and since I don't mind waiting a few weeks for the gear to show up, I figured the savings was so substantial that I'd go for it.
I had signed up for Chain Reaction Cycles during my search, and they sent me a coupon for $10 off $99 that made it easy to choose them and bike-discount.com as the two places I'd order from. Here's a list of what their prices were when I ordered yesterday:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B5rZA1MlJN3IAFuTxaJNb1if-i7VH5b5qnQzzNFOKxY/pubhtml
With the $10 off, it was $682.92.
I asked Biker Bob, who I can't say enough good things about, if he could be in that ballpark, and his response implied that no legitimate US Shimano reseller would be in that ballpark, and that if I was willing to take the risks of ordering from the two stores in Europe, that was a very attractive price.
I don't know if that will help anyone else, but after doing all that digging myself, I thought it might help someone else who's interested.
If you're thinking about making a similar purchase, my recommendation would be to sign up for CRC and give them a day or two to see if you get the $10 off $99 coupon in a welcome e-mail like I did.