Bikes 2U Direct - experiences?

timw said:

I'm thinking of ordering a bike from http://www.bikes2udirect.com/ .
Has anyone had any experiences of ordering from them? Do they deliver
on time/accurately? Is their customer support good?

Any comments very welcome!

Thanks,
Tim

None of this is specifc to these guys, I've never heard of them before.
However...

Based purely on their FAQ, it's not clear that they do anything with
the bike other than ship the factory carton on to your delivery
address. Some mail order places don't even do this, it comes direct
from the distributor's warehouse to you, without ever going near the
"seller".

Most bikes come out of the box nearly assembled, requiring only such
tasks as fitting the pedals or front wheel, straightening the
handlebars etc.
However, any bike will benefit hugely from a session of adjusting and
tuning by a competent bike mechanic, in terms of how well it performs,
how long it lasts, and most importantly, ensuring that it is to ride.
If you do buy a bike mail order, and are not happy that you can do a
full check over and adjustment yourself, you should probably bring it
to a good local shop and have them do it.

As any bike shop will do this for free if you buy the bike from them,
you may find that the cost of this check up, together with the cost of
delivery, eats up much of the inital savings made by purchasing mail
order.

Additionally, any reasonable shop will give the bike a free check over
after some number of weeks of use, by which time it will have "bedded
in". This probably won't be the case with any mail-order purchases.

You won't get a chance to try out the bike before you buy it, so
getting the right fit is more difficult than at a physical shop.
Likewise any problems under warranty (or even after the end of the
warranty) are easier dealt with at the shop, rather than over the phone
or email.

I won't pretend that all local bike shops spend time ensuring that you
get the best bike for your needs, or that they all set them up
correctly before handing them over, but if you can find a good local
shop, you've a better chance of getting all of this right.

hth,

bookieb.

In article <[email hidden]>, timw
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

I'm thinking of ordering a bike from http://www.bikes2udirect.com/ .
Has anyone had any experiences of ordering from them? Do they deliver
on time/accurately? Is their customer support good?

Any comments very welcome!

No experience at all of these people, but I wouldn't expect anything
like the sort of support you get from a half-decent local bike shop from
/any/ discount mail-order/internet bike supplier.

bookieb said:

As any bike shop will do this for free if you buy the bike from them,
you may find that the cost of this check up, together with the cost of
delivery, eats up much of the inital savings made by purchasing mail
order.

A real advantage to mail order which doesn't often seem to get discussed
is a wider choice than a physical shop can provide - my GF wanted a
hybrid with hub gears and ladies' frame, and the only place we could
find one in London was an end-of-line at Halfraud's that was the wrong
size for her. But having tried it we were able to order one in the right
size over the net, and get the LBS to set it up once it arrived.

(ObRant: obviously it's much more important to stock a hundred
nearly-indistinguishable MTBs than to stock just one bike with hub
gears.)

(ObPraise: Cycle Asylum on the Romford Road.)

R