The Bikes Direct TI bikes have gotten really high reviews from magazines, I have a friend who owns one (and another who has a Serrota TI) and have ridden both many times, quite frankly there isn't $4,000 difference in the feel between the two that my friend paid for his Serotta! Maybe the Serrota feels $500 better...maybe. I ended up getting a Lynskey instead, this had nothing to do with I felt the Motobecane TI was crappy because it wasn't, just so happened when I went to order one they were out of stock and remained out of stock for over a year and half, I actually thought they weren't going to sell them anymore so Lynskey had a sale and I bought the lowest costing one they sold.

Having both friends and myself riding each others bikes we did decide that the Lynskey felt more aggressive and more responsive than either, the Serotta felt more comfortable, and the Motobecane was sort of in the middle. The Motobecane IS NOT a bike built for racing, it tends to flex a tiny bit more in the BB area than the Serotta or the Lynskey, but there was someone on this forum that did buy a Motobecane TI bike and was racing it, so it's non issue, and to the non racer it's really a non issue. The welds on the Motobecane looked just as good as the welds on the Serotta or the Lynskey, so don't expect chunky welding done by a grade school kid. My Lynskey has reinforcement rings on the top and bottom of the head tube that neither the Serotta or Moto has, not sure what that does for the bike. The Motobecane also uses a brushed finished which means if you get a scratch you can take the soft side of a Velcro strip and polish it out in the direction of the grain of the metal, if that fails you can use a ScotchBrite pad, and when your done it doesn't look like you tried to take a scratch out. But TI is tough, I have yet to scratch mine after 3 seasons, unlike painted bikes, you take a painted bike out on a ride and after about a month you have tiny scratches and wonder how they got there. TI won't corrode, rust, chainsuck damage is forgotten about, won't fail suddenly, nor smell bad in warm weather, and it's the most comfortable riding material currently available in bike materials.