Direct to consumer Bike purchase

Nerf Herder

Nerf Herder

Wheel size expert
Curious to know what instructions / tools come with your bike purchased from a B2C Brand like Canyon, Commencal, YT, Polygon etc etc.

If you have purchased a bike from any of these and you still have your manuals or tool kits ... I'd appreciate a photo or itemise the following
  1. contents of tool kits ... eg do they supply you with a torque wrench / Torque Key?
  2. what instructions do they supply around tightening bolts ... stem bolts with carbon bars ... headsets / starnuts / compression bolts ... etc etc.

or 3) Did you opt to send it to a workshop or LBS ?

Trying to work out how cautious/detailed we need to be with sending out partially built bikes.

Thanks
Al
 
rangersac

rangersac

Medically diagnosed OMS
Got a Polygon E-commuter for the missus a while back. Came with a preset torque wrench (T handle style) and a bunch of bits to fit in it. In addition to the usual bike manual there was a detailed step by step set of instructions for building the bike. Hardly difficult though, took about 15 minutes and from what I remember it was :
  1. Remove plastic spacers/ protectors from axle mounts, disc calipers and discs.
  2. Install wheels
  3. Install bar onto stem, and torque up stem bolts and steerer bolt.
  4. Set seat height and ride (battery came with 50% charge)
 
Staunch

Staunch

Eats Squid
Purchased a Canyon Strive about 3 years ago.
  1. Came with a shock pump, a T-handle key which had a torque gauge on it (as the force increases, the pin will twist around the gauge indicating the torque, and 6 different size alley key/torque key hex bits to fit the T-handle
  2. Came with detailed instructions on setting up the Shapeshifter. Can't remember if there were any other instructions because I didn't bother to look
  3. Built it myself because I could do that with my eyes closed. Can't comment on the brakes because I pulled them off without even squeezing the levers, however the gears were immaculately set up. Didn't have to touch them for a few months. It was essentialy perfect out of the box which was reassuring of the quality of the bike/care put into it, but also wouldn't have been a big headache for someone less mechanically experienced.

From a professional perspective, the only people who I see bringing direct-sale bikes into my shop to have them checked out are those who've bought reeeaallly cheap dual sus bikes, or roadies/commuters. It seems like everyone who's going to sink a reasonable amount of money into a decent MTB has enough skills to put them together. However that's just my experience from one shop in inner city Melb, may be different in other areas.
 
mike14

mike14

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Canyon and YT are very similar in what the provide. The intent is that you can build it using only what they give you, so you get a torque wrench, allen keys, shock pump, grip paste etc as needed. You also get assembly instructions, what is basically a simple bike maintenance manual and all the individual guides for parts (ie SRAM barke instructions, dropper post instructions etc).
For YT it all comes in a shoe-box sized container that also holds the tools, ancillaries (reflectors, bell etc) and a cheap set of pedals).

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nathanm

nathanm

Eats Squid
Edit for more detail.

Bought both a Canyon and Polygon at the same time.

Canyon bike was well packaged with plenty of padding around the bike and components and had a dictionary sized assembly manual in 20 different languages, their instructions were good and easy to read. Not sure if it had "torque" specs in manual but it did on the parts themselves.
Included a reasonably good "torque" tool and bits, as well as assembly paste and the reflectors, bell and bits n pieces well boxed separately.
Best of all it came with a shock pump which is a huge bonus.
Bike was easy to assemble, but I have built bikes before. What I like was it had been set up for a "rider" with the brakes and levers in board and already at the right angles. Hoses were too long and annoyingly 1 wheel had a reflector on it already and it had those bloody annoying spoke/cassette guards which had to be cut off.

What I didn't like is that the indexing was off and it doesn't shift properly though the middle of the cassette and the brakes were soft and had to be properly bled due to insufficient fluid and bubbles. It comes with plastic pedals and no valves or sealant which I believe is a must have these days.

You pay $199 for freight and then another $30? for the bike box which is a complete rip off. Then I got stung $150 currency conversion fee's which has completely soured that experience.

Polygon again is well packed and I really like the velcro straps and foam padding between all the bits that may rub. Its more a assembled bike dropped into a box with padding than Canyon's "box" but I prefer it that way really.

comes with completely usable but an inferior "torque" tool and tools but the manual was super generic and hard to read (photocopied) but it included a separate but basic user manual for the droppper separately. Again im not sure on torque settings but didn't use them anwya.

Bike is set up generically with levers against grips and angles had ot be changed but it was tuned perfectly and haven't had to touch it at all after assembly. The Tektro brakes are absolutely dialled and the indexing bang on. Cabling is an issue because the internal routing catches on the rough interior of the tubes which makes pulling them through difficult and is my only real gripe.

Reflectors were fitted and bell etc packaged separately. No shock Pump but came with pretty descent set of flat pedals. No valves or sealant again.

All in all Polygon had the superior direct to consumer experience for me and I would buy again from them and not from Canyon.
 
Last edited:
ozzybmx

ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
nathanm said:
You pay $199 for freight and then another $30? for the bike box which is a complete rip off.
Click to expand...
Ahhh... thats a different approach from them, $199 + $30.

Just before x-mas sometime (may have been several months) they had FREE shipping. I didnt think much of it, then #2 son wanted a Spectral.

Was surprised to see the shipping price in Jan was $319. No mention of the box but I had a bit of a whinge to them about $319 shipping price when some clown just dumped a $3500 bike on my doorstep and walked away. I posted about this on another thread just lately.

Came with all the stuff mentioned above, setup with zero fuss. I would have thought they supplied a set of valves to set up tubeless, but none in my box.
 
ozzybmx

ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
droenn said:
you have a credit card without international transaction fees then you don't get this charge.
Click to expand...
A Latitude 28 Degrees Mastercard, attach it to your PayPal account, its got no International transaction fees and no currency conversion fees.

When paying by paypal, choose the credit card company to do the conversion, so always pay in 'euros' for example, then the CC company sucks up the fees for you.

Also worth noting that PayPal's conversion rates are always worse that the CC companies, so its a triple whammy to do it this way.

No international transaction fees
No Currency conversion fees
Better Au to International currency rates.

Literally saved me $1000's over the ~10 years I've had a 28° card.
 
nathanm

nathanm

Eats Squid
ozzybmx said:
A Latitude 28 Degrees Mastercard, attach it to your PayPal account, its got no International transaction fees and no currency conversion fees.

When paying by paypal, choose the credit card company to do the conversion, so always pay in 'euros' for example, then the CC company sucks up the fees for you.

Also worth noting that PayPal's conversion rates are always worse that the CC companies, so its a triple whammy to do it this way.

No international transaction fees
No Currency conversion fees
Better Au to International currency rates.

Literally saved me $1000's over the ~10 years I've had a 28° card.
Click to expand...
my issue is its an Australian Site with AUD prices, but when they process it, its in Euro and they only tell you that in small print at the end of checkout.
 
mark22

mark22

Likes Dirt
Have a Polygon F/bar roadie it came with That 5-6 NM torque wrench had a few minor issues, customer support was poor bike ok though still have it 6000kms later.

YT came with pin spanner tool to undo rear suspension bolt ( important) bit of kit. It has all the torque values laser etched on the bolts/ nuts/ etc. Has a great online exploded frame diagram with bearings and torque values. Was good customer service via NZ about a shock bolt. Can't comment on Pushys. Still got this 5500 KMs later.

Canyon came with tubeless valves basic torque wrench, couple of issues with it which took some sorting out through Melbourne very ordinary customer support until I got past the initial fool. Box the whole bike up and send it from Qld to Melbourne for us to send DT Swiss to replace the offending rear wheel bearing was his take on it, no other way.
 
S

Sethius

Crashed out somewhere
Had a polygon trid zz, out of the box it was fully setup.left scott/giant/gt etc for dead. Things were greased that you wouldn't normally see from the others.

Still use their small multitool today over some of the workshop ones.. Reminds me how great the bike was every time I pick it up.

Service and even warranty was great on pike was tops, running a shop they let me send it direct to sram HQ and back on their behalf. (take that Monza, I'm not sending it to you then to rowville.)
 
gillyske

gillyske

Likes Dirt
When I got my commencal I don't think it came with any tools or instructions. Came with 3 tokens and 1 installed, some reflectors and a bell. It's pretty straight forward set up though. .
 
K

Kerplunk

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I bought an Intense primer online from Intense in Sydney.. Excellent tool kit of torque wrench and manuals how to basically strip the frame down and reassemble for later servicing. Included carbon paste, grease, clear protection tape and the box/packaging is reusable for travel..
They also provide videos on how to unpack and assemble, maintenance etc..
 
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