bikesdirect.com bikes?

mksalazar said:

has anyone purchased a bike from there? i hear that mercier and windsor, both greats from the past, are now manufactured super cheapo.

im asking bc a friend of mine is lookin into getting a bike from there

dare I say that I bought the dura ace 10 equipped motobecane le champion team model and was impressed by the way it handled and how light it was. Even though motobecane is manufactured by robots in some factory nowadays, it is still good quality for the buck. When i bought it,I figured i could always upgrade the frame and other components later on if i wanted to, but so far don't have a desire to.

Bought a moto/ultegra last year.Took about an hour to put together, love it

i'm also interested in buying a windsor tourist. if anyone has information, i'd really appreciate it.
🙂

I have, very happy with it.

mksalazar said:

has anyone purchased a bike from there? i hear that mercier and windsor, both greats from the past, are now manufactured super cheapo.

im asking bc a friend of mine is lookin into getting a bike from there

I purchased a Motobecane Le Champion SL road bike with Ultegra 10, and a carbon crank. Included American Classic wheels.
I sold the American Classic wheels on EBAY for over half the price of the entire bike.
Less than 4 months later the frame cracked at the rear dropouts. I put the components on a new Bianchi frameset.

An interesting point - Motobecane's are made in the same factory as Fuji. They are the exact same bike.

The prices are amazing. They do require quite a bit of assembly. But I'm not sold - for obvious reasons - on the quality of the bikes.

If you search on bikeforums.net (Road Cycling Forum), you'll find TONS of threads on Bikes Direct.

I bought the Moto Le Champ SL last year, and I have been very impressed with it. For $1095 (no tax), I got a 16lb. bike (w/o pedals). I've ridden it about 4,000 miles, and the frame is still holding up fine, as well as the ultegra drivetrain and AC350 wheels. The frame for the Champ SL is really the Fuji Team SL, just rebadged. It's a very stiff frame, so if you want something comfortable, steer clear of this frame.

Bikes direct has soem questionable morals and marketing, but their bikes are of good quality.

Also, the bikes direct brands are not the same Windsor, Motobecane, etc. that you might remember from the 1970s. BD bought the rights to those brands, and then they buy frames (mostly Fujis), and then rebadge them with Motobecane, Windsor, etc.