Now that my wife has put a few miles on her new Motobecane Bistro I will give a quick review.
We ordered this from BikesDirect on a Wednesday and it arrived on Friday. Amazingly, and atypically, it arrived with absolutely no damage.
That was certainly more due to the very good packing job than UPS's care in handling it. A good start on those counts.
Assembly consisted of mounting the seat, handlebars, front brake, pedals and racks. No parts were missing and everything fit well with the exception of a rear rack stay which needed a little tweaking to line up correctly. The adjustments needed were the front hub (too tight), brakes, chain, IGH cable, fender alignment, spoke tension and chain guard. Final fitting required a couple modifcations on the seat post clamp to get the tilt of the saddle to suit. Everything else was straight forward but I would not recommend DIY to someone without proper tools (cone and spoke wrenches, etc) and some bike mechanical aptitude. Due to my bicycle OCD the assembly and adjustment took about 4 hours.
All the components look pretty decent to me, with the exception of the crappy little bell. Eh, who cares. I did not recognize any brands other than the Shimano Nexus 8 speed hub. Fit and finish is very good and the paint is really nice. The brakes are great and of course the Nexus 8 is wonderful.
Now that all the fitting is done my wife seems pretty happy with it. With the weight off her hands and wrists she is a lot more comfortable. The saddle is OK, but then she has never been completely satisfied with any of the half dozen saddles she has tried. Her biggest complaint is that it is 1 mph slower on her typical ride than her Raleigh DL1. The Bistro as shown weights 37.4 # and the Raleigh is 4# more and has a 3 speed. Damn if I know. My DL1 is fast too, but then to me at least, they look fast just sitting there.
