Reasons Riders Choose BikeCo.com Over Direct to Consumer

Reasons Riders Choose BikeCo.com Over Direct to Consumer

I haven’t stuck my head out for a bit, and this one isn’t a reach, it’s pretty obvious. But, let’s stir the pot a bit anyway.

Direct to Consumer Retail Lowers the End User Experience.

Your bike’s trail performance, as well as your experience and expectations suffer when you purchase an MTB or eMTB direct from a manufacturer. Period. They can’t do what quality retailers like BikeCo.com can do.

Since 1999 BikeCo.com has been a leader in MTB and eMTB retailing and there are many reasons for this. We take pride to offer riders #thebestinMTB. That means understanding the nuances of parts in the marketplace like which part work for which riders. We have high quality staff on the leading edge of product testing and development as well as service and setup teams that work daily with cutting edge products. Most importantly we have a business plan with an unmatchable commitment to you, our clients. We want to know your specs. Sure, anyone can ask your height and weight. But we want to help clients take their riding to the next level. To do this we commit to understanding more about your ground speed, style, terrain, aspirations, etc. We keep in touch with our clients during setup and tuning and love to hear from them, whether comments or questions, during bike dial in.

As mentioned, this is a model that’s kept us in business since 1999 – 25 years of developing skills to ensure you can have the highest experience and expectations when you work with us.

So what are some faults of DTC?

Lack of spec personalization (and some of the price incentives that are available), lack of support and inability to help riders develop setup options to improve their riding.

Not Accountable for Your Riding Specifics

The details that make up you – your height, weight, riding style, terrain, aspirations, limitations (whether skillset, physical or whatever), ground speeds, etc, etc – all of these should affect your build spec, even if just a bit here and there.

The thing is, a manufacturer isn’t setup to modify spec. A DTC manufacturer might have a good spec team and purchasing agent. It might even look like a hell of a spec, but for who? The purchasing agent? The spec team? The marketing team or their riding buddies? (Well, maybe not even their buddies as much – most of my riding buddies tend to have slightly different spec considerations.)

The manufacturer attempts to create a good starting spec in a market competitive price point. (and if their build seems to magically not align with competitive builds you DEFINITLEY have something you need to review…)

Manufacturers ARE NOT building the perfect bike for every rider 5’2” to 6’6” and 110lbs to 275lbs.

So what components is this most obvious on? Cockpit (handlebars, stem, grips), Brakes, and to a lesser extent Hubs and Rims.

Three people at BikeCo are within an inch or so of my height. All of us run different bars, brakes, and grips based on trail feel, rider weight and physical mobility / comfort. (Not to mention at least three different tire setups)

Riders with neck or back limitations often prefer higher rise handlebar options than you’ll see on a stock bike. You might think, well, you can always use stem spacers. And correct to a point.

I tend to use a max of spacers at around 20-25mm under my stem. Any more and the bike starts to feel “funny”. I’d have to sit down to try to pencil out the physics involved to really explain “why” and “funny”, I lean towards it’s something to do with leverage rates loading the steer tube of having your bar’s mounting section higher or lower. You can poke around with experienced riders – you’ll never really see giant stacks. Could be I’m right on the physics, could be it looks kinda goofy, maybe both.

So, in the end what does this mean?

Let’s look at a handlebar. Your handlebar should have the right width, rise and feel. In fact, with bikes being ridden faster and more aggressive handlebars are responsible for a chunk of small bump compliance. This means the overall layup of the bar is critical AS WELL AS the width. You can trim a bit off a bar without changing it’s feel too much – but – if you’re really having to chop it down you’re going to change the leverage rate and make the bar much stiffer. Not ideal. Further, as you age you’ll likely have a narrower range of fit to accommodate your riding (I raise my hand at 46…).

Along with cockpit, eMTB and MTB brakes are a HUGE priority point on a bike. (Honestly, I dread even testing bikes without brakes I’m confident in)

Total power, the feel of the power or modulation: top brakes have a variation in these dynamics that riders may prefer.

Other brakes may suffer consistency of feel or power issues. Some of these brakes, that are just terrible, are main stream marketed as well.

The wrong brakes are a large sunk cost if you’re instantly replacing them.

Quality retailers like BikeCo.com will credit you for the bits you don’t want and get you great pricing on the parts you do want. Manufacturers don’t have that capacity.

Tires, and sometimes wheels, fall into the same category.

About half the bikes we offer (which frankly, are absolute industry leaders with great overall specs) have a tire combo I’d purchase.

It’s hard to get the right brand, tread pattern, compound and sidewall when you’re picking one setup not just for that kit or model, but often for any bike with crossover in the lineup!

The “wrong” tires on your bike can be super frustrating. (The only positive I could think of is “well you might learn something” but – if you’ve been riding for a while you’re probably not interested in that lesson?)

I don’t think anything is worse than learning a new bike with tires that are “too fast”. You don’t need something trying to skate around on you while you figure out the handling characteristics of your new dream rig. It’s easy to get a bad taste in your mouth when you put a new bike off trail!

A different rider philosophy finds “slow” tires just as frustrating. Maybe you’ve got that dream XC or Down-Country rig and you get it out and it’s running aggressive rubber? Well it’s gonna feel slow. And if that’s your personal hangup it’s a bad taste too.

So, if we’re working with the wrong bits we’ve got real dollars in the sunk cost model. What are we looking at so far?

Probably a carbon handlebar, possibly brakes, almost certainly tires. And that’s if it’s a good spec to begin with! Some DTC brands use garbage cranks, hubs and rims to try to hit price points.

Again, quality retailers like BikeCo.com credit you for the bits of kit you’re not interested in and find you the best deals on the right spec for your riding.

You see this has the potential to be very expensive on the parts side – but what about the user experience side? Funny you asked…

Bike Delivery, Setup & Tuning Progression

Even as an experienced rider you probably don’t assemble a ton of bikes – I’d say it would be a stretch to say one a year, maybe that if you’re the go-to assembly guy in your rider group? In that case maybe two? Three if you have infinitely more friends than me (which might not be hard haha)?

You might have questions on some of the details. You might even struggle with some aspects and that’s ok.

BikeCo.com has spent years getting riders onto their new bikes both at our brick and mortar as well as pack and ship bikes all over the world. We know how to minimize potential issues a new bike may present. Even more importantly, if they come up, we know how to correct them with riders even with novice mechanical levels.

All bikes from BikeCo.com go through a frame prep process. This is based on our brand specific experience to get the best performance and service life out of a bike. We have a lot of details on the site about those advantages so to save words we’ll just mention it here!

Our team test rides each bike that leaves our facility. It is setup for the end user’s rider height, weight and any other important details we’ve worked through with them. That bike arrives in an arrangement to allow a quick assembly (with support text and video specifics) so that we can get a client headed onto setup and test ride.

Maybe you have a question still? No worries. Our team is capable of taking that call and either walking you through your questions or, if needed, we can shoot you over some specifics with video or pictures.

Our sales team has real time access to our mechanics as well as BikeCo owner Joe Binatena to help with everything from the simple “rotate it onto that tab” to more obscure questions. In fact, one advantage of working with our mechanical team is they don’t simply assemble new bikes. They see them during their lifecycle and understand how a ounce of prevention will minimize the pound of cure down the road.

A direct to consumer company MIGHT have a specific point of contact. This point of contact MIGHT have someone to ask about your assembly question – but – it’s pretty likely that they’re a bike assembler, not a mechanic per se. So if your question falls outside of their specifics what quality of answer do you have access to?

Has the bike been built and test ridden? And I don’t mean in a bike stand. I mean with enough load into it to find typical creaks in the linkage or drivetrain? Considering I’ve heard about bikes being shipped with cranks that contact chainstays not every bike is test ridden. I doubt every bike is shifted frankly.

What if you don’t even know the questions you should ask?

Get the Most from your Initial Bike Setup

Where do you live?

Altitude makes a difference in PSI setup. What is your ground speed and level of riding aggression? It changes suspension setup and requirements. Tire pressure? Etc, etc

What do you ride?

How burly is your terrain? Do you often travel around? Is this a quiver bike or does it need to fit a wider range of trail variety?

How do you ride?

Aggressive? Tame but fast? Light? What are your aspirations?

What are your preferences?

For instance, I tend to ride bikes slightly bigger than the terrain calls for. I always say I’d like to run out of talent before travel…

Can a Direct to Consumer experience walk you through these setup questions?
Can they offer you a bike for every consideration with proper bits for them?

Most companies have a stock “go-to” suspension setting chart. And often it’s a decent point to start for sag. Maybe rebound as well.

But what if you have questions beyond that? How knowledgeable is the DTC resource? How long have they been doing this and at what level?

What are the typical adjustments on MTB suspension? PSI, Volume Spacing, Low Speed Compression, Low Speed Rebound and possibly High Speed Compression and High Speed Rebound. And each of these has some cross-over with other settings.

It takes a lot to really define the small details that make big differences in your setup and trail feel.

At BikeCo.com our team contacts clients at bike delivery as well as at scheduled points after initial setup to help fine tune settings. We ask some loaded questions and listen to client input to help define where settings like compression or volume spacing may be tweaked with good results. Or perhaps a suggestion on tire pressure or sidewall technology. Or even riding position. In short, we’re here to help you get that bike out of the box, onto the trail and heading towards dialed in!

We really enjoy creating relationships with our clients. We have an interest in your riding experience. When you enjoy your MTB or eMTB you’ll refer clients. You’ll shop BikeCo.com for suspension, brake, cockpit, tires or custom wheels. You’ll be in touch when it’s time for your next bike, which might be a different brand down the line. It’s our business to make your riding our business you know? And DTC can’t compete with that.

It’s time to wrap this blog up – but we might circle back later with more details on why DTC companies struggle with frame setup, creaks and other issues that come from singular brand experience and frankly misplaced pride or doubt in their own build team and capacity (ie, false torque feel in linkage and the such…)

In short – if you’re shopping a new eMTB or MTB from a direct to consumer company do yourself a favor and take a look at the class leading bikes offered by BikeCo.com.  BikeCo.com has spec, pricing, setup and tuning advantages that DTC can’t offer.