Re: Windsor Tourist Bike review addition

[[email protected]]

Oops, my apologies. I misinterpreted your reply. Shame on me.

You are quite right, except Bikes Direct does not assemble the bikes
they import from Taiwan and sell mail order. They just ship the box.
They do sell bikes in stores they own, though, so they presumably have
competent mechanics available. In any case, I think they'd tell me to
take a hike with such a request, anyway. Just a guess by me.

- GRL

 

[rdclark]

[email protected] wrote:
> Oops, my apologies. I misinterpreted your reply. Shame on me.
>
> You are quite right, except Bikes Direct does not assemble the bikes
> they import from Taiwan and sell mail order. They just ship the box.
> They do sell bikes in stores they own, though, so they presumably have
> competent mechanics available. In any case, I think they'd tell me to
> take a hike with such a request, anyway. Just a guess by me.

Wheel preparation (like fitting) is something that separates the good
shops from the bad ones. A good shop will stress-relieve, tension and
true the wheels on every bike they sell. They do this because they know
that machine built wheels are typically under-tensioned and not
stress-relieved, a sure predictor of early failure.

It doesn't have to be this way with mail order. I bought a bike from
Airborne a few years ago that came with hand-built touring wheels that
have been solid to this day, over 10,000 miles later.

But somebody has to pay for the time to do this work, unless you are
prepared to do it yourself. But it has to be done.

You may have had defective spokes, but even if not, I would have
expected you to have chronic wheel problems with that bike, unless you
had prepped the wheels properly before riding on them.

RichC

 

[nopcbs]

You might be right. However, my old bike is a $200 Mongoose "comfort
bike" that I had problems with broken spokes on the rear wheel (those
broke at the bend, however, where you would expect them to, and I had
been running over-pressured street tires on). I eventually bought a $50
off-the-shelf wheel and quit over-pressuring the tires. That wheel now
has 4,000+ road miles on it with no more broken spokes. I know it was
not stress-relieved. I read The Bicycle Wheel and I believe you ab out
stress-relieving, but I think you can get good performance without it,
too. I think I'll ask the LBS that rebuilt my new wheel if they
stress-relieved it, just for grins.

By the way, the fellow at the LBS that did the rebuild told ne that he
had a recumbinant that kept breaking front spokes until he had that
wheel respoked and that put an end to the problem. Go figure.