personally I have had great sucess with my Ti Le Champion Motobecane from them. Been checked over by a couple of shops and they were impressed. I guess it is related to the amount of money spent on the bike.

This reasonable, objective, evidence-based review is very helpful in terms of critiquing a bike. I'm not a BD-hater (I don't own a BD bike) and in fact, I'm one of those that strongly feels that the BD-hatred on this forums is really out of control and unjustified, but these sort of critiques at least let the reader get through the emotional BS and start to judge what's legit and not.

I still would emphasize though, that a problem with the review isn't it's content, but the actual title. The thread title clearly aims to imply uncategorically that ALL BD sales/products are of questionable quality and value. While I would overall agree with the critiques of this low-end bike (I actually think most low-end bikes would fail the criteria you've set forth), what would be the title of your post had it been an Immortal Pro or Ti Fly that you were reviewing? I think the vast majority of people who take the time to post on roadbikeforums wouldn't even consider the Wellington as an option for their stable, but for sure, many people would give a seriously look at their Immortal, Ti Fly, or Ti roadbikes (sold out).

The review itself is a good one, and even though it's obvious you're not a BD-fan by any means, I felt that you've been reasonable in the text about commenting that other bikes may in fact be a good deal.

If you do get your hands on a $1000-$2000 BD bike like the Immortal though, PLEASE put up a review! That type of review would be singlehandedly more valuable than all the "shill" and "love/hate" posts that we keep seeing here on BD.

I've done this for my Fly Ti MTB, which is a phenomenal value, but they keep labeling me a 'shill'.

WhatEVER.

There are quite a few BD bike reviews on BF. They're generally pretty favorable, but the threads are heavily interlaced with hating posts. The hating used to assert that the bikes were trash, the support was non-existent, and the marketing is immoral. The trash bike posts are pretty much gone but the support and morals -related posts persist. As others have said, if a person doesn't like BD for whatever reason they don't have to buy a bike from them nor read threads that are in any way related. The hating posts are a weird and stalking-like phenomena that infer something unflattering about human nature.

The thread title clearly aims to imply uncategorically that ALL BD sales/products are of questionable quality and value

WRONG!! Read the original post. Thats not what it said. If people aren't gonna like READ the first post in the thread, they can go on assuming all they want to and make stuff up. Wont make it true. Even the title alone (to me) says that there are SOME issues with BD, not with every bike.

Hate
In psychology, Sigmund Freud defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness.[2] In a more contemporary definition, the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology defines hate as a "deep, enduring, intense emotion expressing animosity, anger, and hostility towards a person, group, or object."[3] Because hatred is believed to be long-lasting, many psychologists consider it to be more of an attitude or disposition than a (temporary) emotional state.

-Wiki

I cannot speak for the other BF'ers but I certainly don’t hate BD Company or anyone or anything associated with it.

I do not like being lied to (mislead) or to see others being lied to (mislead) over and over and over again.

I will give my opinion in a professional manner and truthfully discourage others from buying products I do not believe are a good value or have questionable business practices.

I will give my opinion in a professional manner and truthfully encourage others to buy products I believe are a good value and have good business practices.

Continued and seemingly never ending BD posts discussing BD products have resulted in reducing the amount of time I spend reading BF and thus being available to view other paid advertisers ads/products.

Its my opinion these continued and seemingly never ending BD posts discussing BD products are the cause of problems on BF and I also believe that these problems would go away if these went away.

It's my opinion that the continued and seemingly never ending BD posts discussing BD products are "...out of control..." on BF

It's my opinion that BF'ers reactions to the continued and seemingly never ending BD posts discussing BD products are "...justified..."

It's my opinion that this is 5+ sigma weirdness.

Imply, not infer.

Sorry, pet peeve.

Please explain. I just looked both words up and the distinction isn't clear to me.

So this is the ONE AND ONLY Windsor of this model you have ever seen. check.

huge welds, normal
over the bar cables, user error
bb, someone who buys a 300$ bike isn't likely to ever have to remove it
wheel truing +1

Basically you are condeming I whole line of bicycles based on your judgement of ONE bicycle.

In comparison, I dated one brunette who was a ***** therefor all brunettes must be *****es. See the faulty logic here?

You can't fault the entire line because you had one with problems.

Should I be the first to call him a Fuji shill? Seems like anyone who says BD has decent bikes is called a BD shill, so if the shoe fits...

Infer is done by the receiver of the message. Imply is done by the sender or by the message itself (sort of).

Terrible example, but the first one that comes to mind:

Imply: The fact that the ground is wet this morning implies that it rained last night.
Infer: I infer from the wet ground that it rained last night.

Bookmark this: Imply vs. Infer

wtf?

Fail. Brunettes aren't manufactured on an assembly line from lot parts that are remarkably similar in quality regardless of how crappy the quality control.

It is reasonable to assume that individual examples of a given bicycle are reasonably representative of the model line.

Thanks, I'll remember. I wonder how many time I've made that mistake....maybe hundreds.

I'd take BF "advice" with a pinch of salt.
I bought a Kilo TT from BD and was totally satisfied, great bike for the money.

Despite my best efforts, no offer was forthcoming.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=491497

I think that this is an excellent post. I use the same "think of buying a car" logic to try to explain to people getting into road cycling why the entry level price point is about 700 dollars. I agree with all of your prices too--the values rise exponentially up to about about 1k then climb very gradually from there (and at a point, arguably, level off completely). It seems as if it does cost at least 500-700 to provide a decent road bike, especially when you factor in that none of the profit margins are substantial for all but the highest end bikes.

I would think that a $300 single speed would be fine. A $300 bike with derailleurs and such though, not so much.

I'm always amazed at the BD hatred here. It's just marketing. If you don't like it, don't buy their bikes. I never have, but I've considered buying one of their cross bikes. Looks like a pretty good deal if you know some basic wrench skills.

I do agree that BD is a bad choice for beginners. They would be better off buying at a LBS where they can test ride, and get support.

How does my post with an honest assessment of a low-end BD bike become "BD Hatred"? True, I do dislike them to a degree, since they're doing their part to put local bike shops out of business, but that wasn't why I started the topic, nor have I seen anyone really post any "BD Hatred" in this topic.

That said, I'm getting really sick of "hatred" being used for EVERYthing. One can dislike or not have respect for something without hating it. And if anyone uses "Haterz!!!1", I'll probably stick a pump in their spokes. People have turned into such cliche-ridden sycophants lately.

this thread is full of schills

You could say the same about any brand.

Regardless of components, in the case ot the Kilo, ~$300 for a well made, reasonably light steel frameset is a deal.

If you were referring to the OP, the post was a mixture of objective, factual observations that also included a positive recommendation for other BD models. I'd say that comes out as neutral at worst.

Shocking! Another post from sced that says we're only allowed to talk about BD if we love them. If we post a negative comment, we should skip the thread because we are trolls.

Look up the word "objective" some time Ed.

Is a Schill some kind of German Shill?