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@M_V
One of my mates up here in has a Create and i have to say (as an employed bicycle mechanic), it isn't that bad.
The guy that bought it had been riding his friends conversion around so knew about fixed wheel and wanted one.
He doesn't have internet access at home so really has very little contact with the 'scene'.
He isn't after a look or style.
He just doesn't have the time, knowledge or resources to spend hours trawling ebay looking for possible conversions or second hand fixed wheel bikes.
He has read some of the bad press that these bikes have been getting and he knows that he hasn't bought an amazing bike.
Imo unipack/create isn't the demon it's made out to be. They are selling to a market far more aware of what they are buying than the likes of halfords and if you compare what £200 can get you from halfords or argos etc to the unipack/create bikes there's a vast difference in favour of the unipack. Fair enough the halfords/argos bike will have gears and suspension and stuff which eats up the budget and accounts for the shocking quality of the parts but take fashion and the current popularity of fixie culture out the equation and you'll realise that unipack are offering a higher (but not high) quality of simple bicycle as a similar priced alternative to a heavy, very poor quality, often gimmicky mtb style bike from halfords etc.
Sure everyone (and i don't just mean people looking for a fixed wheel bike here) could spend hours learning what makes a good second-hand bike, which parts are worth buying and which aren't, what headset will fit with what fork and stem, how to rejuvinate an older, higher spec bicycle, trawling ebay and gumtree to find a suitable bike in the right size and local to them, working around sellers schedules to view and collect bikes, working on the bikes they buy.....and eventually unipack and create and halfords and argos and asda would all stop selling their crap, poor quality - perhaps even overpriced - bikes and then every single independant bike shop that makes it's money fixing these shitty piles of rust will also go out of business.
So yeah, Unipack = not that bad after all.
Rant over.