Peter M.

I read over the specs, the reviews, the warnings, decided to take a chance. After all, where else can you get a 29er full suspension mountain bike with decent components for $700 (DAWES ROUNDHOUSE).

It came in a box with essentially no instructions, as promised. OK, if you can't put a derailleur on a bicycle yourself you should plan to take the box to a bike shop and pay them to do it for you. I'm pretty handy with an allen wrench and have owned a number of bikes over the years. No problems doing the final assembly (seat, handlebars, peddles, wheels, and derailleur all come separate from the frame, brake and shift cables already attached). I'm still going to take it to a bike shop and have it tuned, for one thing I can't true the wheels myself and for another the bike always rides soooo smoothly after a tune up). I'm going to put a couple hundred miles on it first and let the cables stretch.

One thing I saw in a few of the unfavorable reviews had to do with service. Regrettably there was shipping damage. UPS must use gorillas or something to handle their packages, the derailleur hanger was bent and the back brake caliper broken. I read and followed the on line instructions (imagine that, a male actually reading instructions, my only excuse is I was a bit scared by some of the bad experiences people had who did not follow bikesdirect on line instructions)

Anyway, I took pictures of the damaged parts and emailed them, along with the order information, model and serial number. Within 24 hours new parts were on their way to me.

Yeah I was disappointed because it took a couple extra days to get my new bike up and rolling but I saved at least half of what a comparable bike would have cost from a bike store

Btw, I agree with several other reviewers comments. When you buy anything over the internet, use a credit card or at least paypal. That way, if you do have a problem you can call and rescind payment until the problem is fixed. That gives you a lot of leverage. I didn't need it with bikesdirect.com but it has come in handy a few times with other cyberspace vendors

Anyway, thank you bikesdirect, I got a lot of bike for what I had to pay.