General Cycling Discussion - Nashbar review

So I'm working on a TT build and was cruising a sale on the Nashbar webpage. Came across something they described as "cane creek reverse pull brake levers" The picture was clearly not 200tt levers but as they were on sale for $9.99 thought I would give them a shot. Few days pass and I get these things in the mail, and the first thing that was obvious was that these were in no way a cane creek product. 30 seconds of Googling turned up that these are Dia Compe model 188 levers, heavy as anchors and no return spring. I returned these levers that day. Now the folks at Nashbar were quite nice and took the return and refunded me the original shipping (this was only fair). I have no complaints with their customer service. However, last weekend I got a robo-email asking me to write a review for my recent purchase - so I did. I did not rant, but I did point out that these are not CC levers, that they are Dia Compe 188s, and that they are heavy and have no return spring. Well it's been 5 days and this review has yet to see the light of day, it really makes me wonder about the validity of ANY on-line review. You can take a looky for yourself:

http://www.nashbar.com/bikes//Product_10053_10052_514882_-1___

Interesting, how many times did you post it?

Nashbar's page-loads drag (for me) at times to the point where I have to come back hours or even a day later. It could be that Nashbar has a cheap site to go along with the tonnage of cheap products they sell.***

...some web-reviews, Nashbar's site included, seem a little to positive and generic and they tend to immediately follow a scathing 1 star or lower review.

I've read news articles (CNN, Slate, NPR, etc) documenting fake positives placed by the manufacturer or sales team themselves. It's safe to say buyer beware regardless of the review.

I wanna say it's called "astro-turfing" but I'm not positive.



*** I like Nashbar and it's almost always the first place I check.

Yeah, I bought those too, got the Dia Compes also. Too lazy to return them though.
It's really hard to trust reviews these days.

Is the lack of a return spring going to bother me? (is that a ridiculously dumb question?) I plan on using them on some bullhorns.

I like Nashbar too, I have often found them to have the best price as long as you wait for one of their 20% off or free shipping sales. They are pretty common. I tried to get them to replace the POS (sorry Walnutz call 'em as I see 'em) Dia Compe's with a better set of reverse pulls but all they were willing to do for me was give me free shipping, so I said thanks but no thanks. No harm no foul, but i do think they should fix their web page because these are in no way Cane Creek levers. The only thing that says they are is the sticker on the outside of the bag. Jeez, given that that is all it takes, I'm putting on a name badge saying I'm Brad Pitt.

I have also had negative reviews go missing there ------ poor business practice! IMHO

Never had any trouble with Nashbar, but I've not ordered the same stuff you did.

Mostly use Niagara cycle -- never had trouble with them either -- going on 8 orders.

They show as "Cane Creek Reverse Pull Brake Levers by Dia Comp"- did they say that before?

I ordered some of their really cheap road tubes. I put one on and it went flat after about 10 miles. It seemed to have developed a hole where the valve meets the tube. I swapped it and the next day called Nashbar. The lady apologized and sent me two free tubes. One to replace the damaged one, and one for my trouble. Fine with me.

They show as "Cane Creek Reverse Pull Brake Levers by Dia Comp"- did they say that before?
No, definitely no mention of Dia Compe.

For what it's worth I put them on my new bullhorns last night and they work fine so far. They are a tad heavy as the OP noted.

I do lots of web work for my clients, and many of them simply remove negative postings or add their own positive reviews.

This isn't limited to simply product reviews - there are big companies out there that set up programs to increase site hits to artificially increase sales revenue, set up massive twitter & facebook campaigns to create "buzz", and the list goes on and on. Not to say Nashbar does this. But think about it - they are in the business of selling product. If there's 10 negative reviews posted about something, they wouldn't sell product. Period. Really, the only way to get an accurate review of something is to ask people you know or go to an independent site. And even then, there are representatives of companies that are in business to post positive things posing as a regular Joe. Or the site can be paid off by a company discouraging negative posts.
Again, my experience w/ Nashbar (and pb) has been positive, but it doesn't make business sense for them to keep negative posts. It does make sense to keep 1 "negative" one and 4-5 positive ones because if someone wants a product, they will "side" with the positive reviewers. This presents a fake "fair and balanced" view of their products, but one that really works to sell online.

Walnutz is right, I think they might have added the Dia Compe part because I or someone else gave them cr@p about it. Did some digging around and found that the Dia Compe model 188's are the first reverse pull levers used on TTs because they were what were available at the time. Hey 'nutz, the fact that they don't have a return spring doesn't bug you? I know that the only spring you need is in the caliper, but methinks it would be weird to not have the lever return when you take off the pressure. Anyways got a set of gently used carbon 200tt's for $25 on the 'bay last week.

Hey 'nutz, the fact that they don't have a return spring doesn't bug you? I know that the only spring you need is in the caliper, but methinks it would be weird to not have the lever return when you take off the pressure.
Yeah, I was worried, but they are fine, the caliper does all the work and lever pops outs when released. The only thing I noticed is that without the spring in the lever, they make a little bit of noise which might bother some people. I could only hear it when I was riding slowly though; the wind washed it out at higher speeds.

edit: just looked at them, and it's not the lack of a spring that makes them noisy, that wouldn't really make sense (as I said, the lever stays taut), I think they just rattle a little in general. Which again, would probably really bug some people. You get what you pay for I guess.