e0richt

I made out fine buying a bike off of bikes direct... got what I wanted at a good price and it has lasted me quite a few years...

mcrow

Well, buying a new biike for a parts donor without seeing isn't a good idea to begin with. Also, his experience seems be well over a decade ago.

mcrow

I haven't seen you post any cases to support that.

Not that I think the bikes are just Fuji and KHS leftovers (though who knows maybe they are in some way)but I have not seen you actually provide any case whey a BD bike is bike for bike "not-the-best-deal".

From what I can tell a lot of the frames are very similar in design/materials as those found at an LBS. My experience is with low to mid range bike shop bikes, so I can't say how the top end BD bikes compare. I've done a fair amount of welding myself having done it for a living for a few years and the welds I have seen on BDs are not any different than ones I've seen on Trek,Giant...ect. Compontents are pretty much listed on the site and those should be discerned a little easier.

From what I can tell (and I'm open to be shown differently), BD frames largely look as solidly built as LBS bikes and most of the time have similar or better components and cost anywhere from 30-40% less (not 60% that they advertise).

There also seems to be way more people happy with and in fact impressed with the bike they got at that price than those with bad experiences. It seems most of the people with bad experiences are bike newbies that are not yet capable of a basic tune. If the discussion was bike+service vs bike+service, the LBS is probably in the conversation but bike for bike I think BD wins.

-=(8)=-

My experiences are in fact ~ my experiences ~ not assertions.
The rest is common knowledge about the factories where these bikes are spec'd, etc . . .
OK, you dont like BD, we get it, but telling other people their experiences are not real or valid or 'inaccurate', is taking that dislike to a ridiculous extreme.
Ride and let ride. I will continue to answer inquiries about BD with my very positive experiences

megalowmatt

I can only speak for the Titanium models but mine came with full SRAM Apex - crank, brakes, bottom bracket - everything. Also Ritchey stem and seat post. Even "major" brands often skimp on the crank & brakes.

The BD Ti frames are made by ORA Engineering, which seems to be a respected frame builder out of Taiwan.

I can't complain a bit. The bike rides awesome and the price was great.

Steely Dan

^ Similar with my Ti road biike from BD.com:

- Ultegra everything - crank, B/B, derailleurs, cassette, chain, brifters, & brakes
- Mavic Ksyerium Equipe wheel set
- Vittoria Rubino Pro tires (i freaking love these high mileage road tires and am currently rolling on my 3rd set of them)
- FSA headset
- Ritchey Comp bars, stem, saddle, and post

none of that is top of the line stuff, but it's all good, more up-market, componentry, and married to a Ti frame/carbon fork that rides like a dream all for $2,000. i still feel like i got a great deal, especially whenever i walk into an LBS and see aluminum ultegra road bikes going for far more than that (and they often won't even have the ultegra crank or brakes to boot).

my new BD.com aluminum CX bike has components more geared towards the middle of the market (and at the $900 price point, that's entirely appropriate), but it's all still decent "known-quantity" name brand stuff (SRAM apex, Alex rims, Avid disc brakes, FSA headset & crank).

mcrow

Well, that's the thing. You could argue about the frame quality bit as I noted, IME, I have seen several BD bikes and the frames are similar quality as an LBS frame of the same materials. You can't really argue much about components as they list the brands and models in most cases and they are also better than an LBS bike for the same price.

Take a bottom end roadie:

Trek 1.1=
Alum frame, carbon fork
Claris components
$769


For about $200 less you can get a bike with Tiagra, 105, or Apex. Heck you can get a sora bike for around $400 on BD and no sales tax in most placees.

How about a Madone? Yeah, 105's run under $900 on BD opposed to $1500. Heck, for $1400 you can get a carbon fiber 105.

-=(8)=-

Yep
The only place Ive seen them skimp at the pricepoints I buy at are tires. Usually some Kenda type glorified rim strip thing, but, as a year 'round commuter, the tires get replaced on any bike I ride before it hits the road, from junque on up to semi-junque ~ So, I really wouldnt care if they just shipped it with bare rims

mattheis

Must go Titanium : )

mcrow

They almost across the board use cheap tires but I can live with that, they'll work but are easy and not too expensive to replace.

I think some of the less important crap on the bike isn't that great like the grips, saddles sometimes...ect but LBS bikes have that issue as well.

noglider 

Perhaps I've spoken too strongly against bikesdirect. I'll retract my missive. I have not said that the above success stories are not good. They are unadulterately good.

Maybe bikesdirect sells better bikes than the crap I encountered last month while working at an LBS. I'm willing to be shown. I'll look carefully next time.

OK, now I'm impressed. All bike stuff coming out of Taiwan these days is very good or better. It's like the new Italy of bikes.

Chitown_Mike

Just don't tell that to an Italian or someone riding an Italian bike! Might get a gestured filled talking to

mcrow

Well, I'm not saying all the bikes are good. I'm sure there is a lemon or two that come out of there and maybe some of their models are not that good. However, the ones I've seen look pretty good and have good components. The only thing I'd really question is how well they are assembled at the factory but at this point I don't really have any reason to question it.

Unfortunately, I think what is happening out there right now is that the Bike companies are making the money while LBS rub nickels together in some cases because of the prices they pay for the bikes. Not saying they have a lot of choice. if trek says they'll sell your shop a bike for $1000 and the MRSP is $1500, that doesn't leave a lot for the shop when you consider assembly/tune and other overhead and that you are expected to sell for a little under MRSP.

I think BD sheds some light on the Manufacturer/Shop relationships right now. If BD can manufacture and sell bikes direct for these sort of prices someone is getting the shaft in the traditional market.

mcrow

I'm half Italian so I only talk with one hand.

noglider 

@mcrow, it's worse than that. Big companies such as Specialized say that if you want to be a dealer, you have to carry the entire product line in every size. You must also meet minimum sales requirements. All for products that do not yield profit. Selling bikes is something shops do in order to sell tires, jerseys, and handlebar tape.

mcrow

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. They sort of have shops held over a barrel. You have to have inventory or a quality product but if most of the brands anyone has heard of basically take you to the cleaners.

I've noticed that a lot of shops here locally have gone from selling several big brands, to selling one big brand and a bunch of smaller premium brands.

Something tells me those smaller company bikes make a better margin. However, you almost have to have that big brand because you probably can't make a living off of selling just All-City, Surly...ect, you need to rope in the average Joe who knows who Specialized, Fuji, and Trek are.

Steely Dan

that's probably true for most shops. however, here in chicago there is a dedicated commuter LBS with a couple locations that deals only Surly, Kona, Jamis, Linus, Fyxation and some folder brands like Tern and Bike Friday, and they've been in business for good long whle, so for a LBS going after a specific niche in a big city market, it can sometimes work to forgo the relationship with Trek, Specialized, Giant, etc.

mcrow

Yeah, I can see it going that way. I think most every shop here has a major brand. However, the Twin Cities has one of the stronger bike cultures in the country so i think there will probably be shops that sell specialty brands exclusively. I think here there is probably a market for a high end shop that only sells brands like All-City, Surly, Foundry,Moots...ect.

We do have one shop sort of like that, but they do have Raleigh as well.

I can see where someone who works in a shop or owns one would take exception to BD, not only are they getting shafted by their manufactures but they are getting undercut with only sales.

It's sort of sad, but it seems like there are more and more big chain shops (Like Eric's around here) poping up and more and more of the neighborhood shops are going out of business. The bigger chains can make it selling tons of Treks at lower margins, small shops cant.

Funny thing is even Civia, All-City,Surly, Salsa and Foundry are owned by the same company and based here in MN, though All-City is more independant than the others. Civia,Salsa, and Foundry are all in the same building. So, I'm sure there is some level of shafting going on there as well.

-=(8)=-

I always wonder why the generic Maxway/Bianchi decal'd stuff escapes the same type of criticism lots of people have for BD.

mcrow

Yeah, the fact is that the same factories the make those bikes and other popular brands are making bikes for All-City, Surly and probably BD. Almost nobody manufactures their own bikes anymore it seems.

degnaw

I've got three BD bikes - a Motobecane Sprint Pro road bike ($800 a bit over 3 years ago), which I supplemented last year with a Dawes fixie ($175, for being cheap and being left places), and a Windsor Cliff 4900 mountain bike ($310, for mountain biking & gravel trails). The two cheap bikes are somewhat heavy and the brakes on the MTB frequently go out of adjustment, but aside from that I have absolutely no complaints about the parts, build quality, or anything else on any of the bikes.

cyccommute 

I knew what the parts where but there are little details that you can't find out until the parts are in hand. The list said "carbon post" not carbon wrapped post. It said carbon fork but didn't say "steel steer tube". The brakes were Tektro which are middle of the road but these were just bad. No information was given on the length of the stem nor on the width and shape of the handlebars. There certainly wasn't anything said about some gorilla installing the bottom bracket cups nor about the cups being a proprietary cup that would be difficult to find.

If I had purchased the bike from a shop, I could have seen and tested the bike and the parts. You just can't do that on-line. This wasn't my first time (or second or fifth or even 10th) building a frame from but it was my first time ordering a bike from BD and attempting to use it for a donor frame. There were some things that I suspected wouldn't fit (seat post and the fork was iffy) but I didn't expect so little to work.

Bbike4ever

Of course you hate Bikesdirect, they are killer competition. Should I assume that very LBS is like the one last month that after a spoke replacement left me with badly underinflated tires and forgot to readjust the brakes after they put the tire back in? In was my second horrible experience with an LBS and motivated me to buy a rack and Zen repair guide. But then again, I am sure not all LBS are like that so I like you shouldn't make rash assumptuion and generalizations. Especially since there are like 3 companies making frames these days. Bikesdirect bikes have the same frames as bikes costing twice as much.

NormanF

The other problem is bike companies have forced bike shops to sell only in brick stores so that's a large percentage of their customers to whom they can't ship a bike not buying from them.

People can't always drive to a bike shop, especially if its far away from them.

mcrow

Just got my Jubilee today, took 15 minutes to unbox slap the wheels on and inflate them. Another 5-10 to get the seat and handlebars where I want them. Shifted pretty well out of the box and the brakes are prefect , I think I will do a minor adjustment to the rear derailleur but that is about all the bike needs to be in perfect order.

Everything on it looks to be as described on the BD page, granted this is a low end bike but it rides very well and is as advertised. We will see how it looks after I put some miles on it.