With over 20 years of experience mail ordering bikes, we've definitely learned a thing or two about how to send out your new pride and joy. We've learned that it's far easier for us and you the customer to get it right from the start, and get it delivered with no damage and very little assembly.
Here are a couple of examples of how some mail order companies send out bikes and what to be aware of:
Believe it or not many mail-order companies just send out the bikes as they come into them. Stick on the label and out it goes! This saves them time and money. These bikes are not assembled to a satisfactory, safe standard, and are not indented to go straight out to the public without being first assembled by a qualified cycle mechanic. On average our mechanics spend at least 1-2 hours preparing each bike before dispatch and they are doing it every day, so to expect the customer with limited experience and tools to set these up is just unacceptable and a recipe for disaster!
This sounds like a great idea. Bikes fully assembled and ready to ride! What can go wrong? We tried this system but the problem is the boxes are so big, heavy and cumbersome that most couriers struggle to lift and carry them, so revert to dragging and dropping them. We have seen them literally being pushed off the side of the lorry as they are too big to carry. In just a short period of time we had so many complaints about damaged bikes, bikes hanging out of boxes, parts missing through the holes in the boxes created through dragging them and it seemed like every bike managed to pick up scratches and dents which gave us some very unhappy customers. It quickly became apparent that the bikes were a lot more vulnerable in these large boxes and were treated differently by couriers because of their size so we referred back to our tried and tested method below.
All our bikes are assembled and packed using a technique we have mastered over the years, which guarantees no damage and just a small amount of easy assembly.