Motobecane

[hippymtnbkr]

I had already gotten the refund for the bike from Bikes Direct. I was out the shipping charge for the return. The asshole said he would give me another bike. But he turned around and said there was nothing wrong with the bike I sent back. So according to thier policy, if you were not satified with the bike you would get a refund less shipping charges. So I could not be there as they inspected the bike. So it was my word against there's. So I guess it's a lesson learned. I bet the guy would never have the guts to stand up to me in person
:p

[rockyrider]

So what were the issues you had that made you send it back?

[hippymtnbkr]

the rear tire would not stay on the rim, nor would the wheel seat properly in the dropouts. They told me that I did not require the skills to fix it ,and that I should take it to a bike shop. Just for kix, I took the wheel to the shop, and they told me that it was a bad build, and they might have trouble tensioning the thing. So I just decided to send the whole bike back. When I talked to the guy who said he was the owner, he told me that most bike shop employees were 16 year old kids with after school jobs, but he realized that since I decided to send it back, he would send me a 29" Phantom, which I agreed to. But of course, that never happened:confused: I suppose that I am happy though, I lost $108 and I'm not rich. But I have heard other stories about Bikes Direct where people have never received even part of a refund. They claim that Mountain Bike Action is going to review their new Ti frame. So who knows, maybe they are a reputable company. I saw a review of one of their bikes in the rag a few issues back. They say "Bicycling "magazine gave their Carbon Road Frames rave reviews. It just seems that whenever they get a bad review,they are not very happy about it. I suppose they think out of 10 bikes sold,if one is defective. Then they can treat the defective like a piece of crap

[hippymtnbkr]

http://www.dirtragmag.com/print/article.php?ID=668&category=stuff_reviews

[davkatreb]

Serves you right for not supporting your LBS.

[hippymtnbkr]

Serves you right for not supporting your LBS.yeah,I know. I'm a bad person. But my LBS doesn't support me all the time. I'm a big guy, and they seem to not want to stock bike clothing for us full figure people. If I want to order from them ,I get to pay the full price. So I have to go elsewhere for my clothing needs. Like I mentioned before. I'm not rich

[davkatreb]

I'm a bad person.
Now easy there. I never said that. But you should certainly know that buying by mail can be a crapshoot. And yeah, it's hard to find a shop that's a good fit. Heck, I've got three that I use for different things. And good as some of the mechanics are, I'm unsatisfied frequently enough that I've been buying tools and learning how to use them. Cripes, I'm a commercial electrician. It can't be that much harder to work on bikes.

But I digress. Hope you get things sorted out.

[hippymtnbkr]

It's cool cool man. I'm at a point in my life now,where things seem to take precedent over bikes. Moved to a new state, Bought a house,got married, learned to go places where I do other things other then biking, like hiking, lying on the beach. The sport of cycling seems to be getting away. So I thought I would hang on to just a little bit and buy an inexpensive bike. LBS version of that was $700. Mail order was $400. So I thought, Bike-$400,Carribian cruise -$400. As opposed to Bike-$700, cruise-save for 09. But instead I got Bike-cheap,and out $100:rolleyes: Yes the current economy is getting me down. But the bike industry seems to be thriving. But,as my wife told me,just save,get the bike you want. And who knows. The bike you want now,may be $400 in 2 years. 2 years:confused: My current Bikes will be 10 years old. I'll be one of those retro relix that people point at and talk about on the trail:p

[K-Man]

Sorry to hear you lost $100 on the whole situation.

The Motobecane that I tested for Dirt Rag hung together rather nicely. I raced the Wilderness 101 and a duo 24 hour race atop it, and was happy with the performance of the bike But I did note the following problems in my report:

That's not to say that things were perfect. During the Wilderness 101 the RockShox SID developed a nasty "thunk" during hard compressions. It still worked, but sounded awful. After the race, I sent it back for replacement (I never received a report on what went wrong). I broke a rear drive-side spoke during the 24-hour race—it snapped at the J-bend. Both of those incidents are probably flukes, but it's only fair to mention them. I also had some hassles with inserting and removing the rear wheel. I finally got around to checking the rear dropout alignment and confirmed my suspicion that the dropouts were out of alignment (by an estimated 2–3mm). Who knows if the bike got damaged in transport, or if manufacturing variation is to blame for the slight misalignment. In any event, I didn't notice any ill effects while riding.

Of course a bike test's a sample size of one, which unfortunately is statistically insufficient to make any claims about overall production quality, no matter what brand of bike we're talking about.

Just thought I'd add my two cents.

[rockyrider]

Badly aligned dropouts seems to be a trend.

[robcycle]

You can get a Monocog 29er for less that $500 from you LBS. Problem solved :cool:

-Rob.

[hippymtnbkr]

I'm done buying bikes. The price and the technology has escaped me. I'll ride what I have till they die. Then I'll get something new. After all, that's what I would rather do.....RIDE:)