UsedToBeFaster

I'm a huge fan of BD. There lower end bikes are hard to beat. I've gotten Claris equipped road bikes for $300-$400 for the kids and partner.

But lately they are going crazy with their advertisements. Every day I get an email about a door stopper with some absurd claim. Are they going out of business or expanding or something else.

It's funny reading the claims back to back. Day 1 will tout how their Steel bikes ride like a magic carpet and the very next Day they'll write how CF bikes are smoother than steel. It's a complex tautology.

topflightpro

It's the holidays. Every web retailer is emailing people like crazy. I'm getting emails like that from just about every company I've ever purchased from.

Unsubscribe if you don't want to receive them any longer.

datlas 

It seems that every BD offering is THE DEAL OF THE CENTURY!

I don't think anyone believes that hyperbole.

Juan Foote

I am a huge fan of BD for what they are, but I added them to my spam list LONG ago.

tyrion

I think spam in general is increasing.

BD has always had crude, silly marketing. Low budget marketing and pass the savings on to you!

Marcus_Ti

Using only the very latest in 1990s web design.

Cypress

In Weekapaug!!!

tyrion

I've seen worse websites for successful businesses:

https://www.lingscars.com/

So bad, it's good.

tagaproject6

If you are on their mailing list, you will get their advertising. Isn't that how it works?

Ogsarg

mass email blasts cost nothing. If you're operating a business on low margins its a cheap way to get your name in front of a lot of people for essentially no cost. The risk is that by sending too many emails, too often, you risk people unsubscribing or filtering you out as spam. They know how many messages are read and as long as it's enough, they'll keep sending them.

If a large number of people unsubscribed, they'd probably back off. I do that for just about any company that sends something more than once a week.

indyfabz

Good lord!

mstateglfr 

Rollfast

We thought those slick American electronics salesmen were nuts. This is ART!

(Or Ling, momentary loss of mind)

TiHabanero

I am Ling, you can trust me! That is one outstanding website!

jimincalif

The Las Vegas strip of websites.

Maelochs

""I am a real human being person ... "

Don't tell me your problems ....

Juan Foote

Dreamweaver at it's best.

canklecat

This holiday season I'm getting two emails a day from every retailer I've given permission to put me on their list. Some of 'em are abusing the privilege. There's a once in a lifetime discount salesalesale for every minor holiday. I think one of 'em offered the same 35% discount for Chrysanthemum Day as for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Regarding that Lings Cars automobile site, that's actually hilarious. It's a perfect homage to the typical English hobbyist magazine of the 1970s-'90s. I used to be into airgun target matches -- 10 meters, silhouettes, etc. -- and the most popular British airgunner mag of the 1990s had ad layouts pretty much like that. Depended on the retailer, but that outrageously bad design was very common then. I'm sure the magazine editors tried to talk those dealers into updating to a more refined style, but apparently it didn't work.

I suspect Ling grew up admiring similar ad designs and just went with it for nostalgia's sake, knowing that some folks would be intrigued by the so-bad-it's-good Ed Wood "Plan 9 From Outer Space" utter absence of style. Sort of like that episode of Open All Hours when Arkwright gets a visit from Mr. Gupta, a rival shop owner with contemporary sensibilities who becomes infatuated with Arkwright's "grotty" shop and buys his entire stock of wooden "Yorkshire clothes horse" laundry racks to lend his own stylish shop a little Yorkshire unstyle.

mstateglfr 

Yeah, sort of like that single episode from a short run tv show with limited distribution which aired 30-45 years ago.***

canklecat

F-f-fetch your cloth.

BTW, Open All Hours has aired almost every weekend on KERA in the Fort Worth/Dallas area for decades. It's long been a staple of their Britcom weekend lineup. KERA was the first station in the US to air Monty Python as well. So it's very familiar to us. Maybe more popular now in the US than in England, according to an English friend.

It wasn't quite a short run program, but like many British TV shows featured irregular seasons that aired over many years. There were only a couple dozen shows produced between the mid 1970s-'80s, but they've been repeated here so often I've practically memorized every episode. Sadly, the reprise with an older David Jason lacks the timing and wit of the original. Pretty much like all of us with age.

Succhia Ruota

Likely not done in Dreamweaver. Hand coded – likely in BBEdit – by someone who knows what they're doing.

canklecat

Yep, that was my impression as well. It's too deliberately gaudy to be the work of a clueless n00b using a plug and play site builder. It's carefully crated to mimic the worst of British magazine advertising of a bygone era. It's fiendishly clever. Possibly the best troll commerce site I've ever seen.

Dan333SP

Check out their sister site Bike Island, it's even more dated.

canklecat

Love the bamboo font.

Jandd is another site with, umm... vintage design. But, hey, it's functional and fast.

mstateglfr 

I am continually amazed that Jandd's site doesnt update. The dolphin product are so awesomely early 90s in colors. The wedge bags are all attached to archaic seatpost/saddle combinations, and clothing is...period correct.
I have 4 of their bags in different styles though!