Originally Posted by Trakhak

I disliked BD when I was still managing bike shops, but I changed my tune after I got a real job and had to pay retail.

I eventually bought two BD bikes, one a 10-speed-Ultegra-equipped aluminum high-end Fuji rebadged as a Motobecane and the other a carbon flat-bar bike with 10-speed 105. No complaints about either bike.

I also bought a 1" carbon road fork with an aluminum steerer when such forks were almost impossible to find at a reasonable price. That's been fine, too.

The main hits against BD seem to be that they make outrageous claims about their sale prices versus a fictitious original retail price (true, but I don't care, since what I paid was about the same as I paid wholesale with my employee discount when I ran bike stores), that the frames of their higher-end bikes represent non-cutting-edge, previous-generation tech (true, but so what?), and that they often mix off-brand components with name brand components (true, but so do the major bike companies with their own mysterious house-brand parts).