Originally Posted by
DiscTruckerMF
I agree 100%. I think bikes direct has awesome bikes and values. but the wheels is where they lack on many of their bikes and it really is as simple as just stress relieveing them as soon as you get them and bringing up the tension to appropriate levels if need be. That is something that a good lbs mechanic would do with a name brand bike but you could also pay them $25 a wheel to do it to an internet bike and it's still going to make the bike far less than other name brand options. I actually took it upon myself to learn how to build my own wheels. It is super easy to do and requires minimal equipment. I have a cheapo minoura truing stand, if I thought I was going to build more wheels for friends, I'd consider getting the park tool truing stand.
I agree on the BD wheels not being ready to go, at least not on my Fantom CXX. They need to be properly tensioned and stress-relieved. (To be fair, they tell you that up front). On the other hand, I have a LBS bike that I used to break spokes on. When I got the tools and skills to tell the difference, I discovered that that the wheels hadn't been tensioned evenly. I guess it really depends on the LBS mechanic if this is done properly or not.