Originally Posted by
corrado33
I've bought a bike from bikes direct. I had never assembled a bike before. Sure, I had allen wrenches, but I didn't have a chain whip, or truing stand. My wheels came perfectly true luckily. Even if they didn't, you can easily flip the bike over and use the fork as a truing stand. Wheels don't need to be 100% perfectly true. A spoke wrench is a few bucks at the LBS (and youtube videos are free), as well as a pedal wrench. You don't NEED anything else. Sure, it's RECOMMENDED, but it's not necessary. Like people said above, the bike comes 85% assembled. All you have to do is put the handlebars and possibly cranks on and you're good. I doubt if you took all the bearings apart on a BD bike you'd find them under lubed. Sure, you may want to replace the lube and repack the bearing, but again, not necessary.
Honestly OP, do yourself a favor. Learn to work on bikes and buy the recommended tools. You'll thank us later. I initially bought myself an app on my phone that showed videos on how to fix common problems. It was useful for about a month. Then you realize that bikes are really... really... simple. The only thing I haven't done is trued a wheel. Other than that, I've entirely rebuilt 3-4 bikes in my garage with no problems. That includes repacking bearings where needed. It's all nuts and bolts. It's not like a car where if you break one sensor you're going to be out multi hundreds of dollars. I'd even go so far to say it's difficult to break things permanently on a bike when working on them. Even if you screw something up, the LBS is generally right down the street to help you out.
There is a lot of variance in how bikes arrive when packaged and shipped. You and I could both order the same exact bike from BD and it'll arrive in entirely different conditions due to various idiosyncrasies and random occurrences along the distribution chain. I tore my BD bike down and yes it did come pre-greased but that didn't stop me from degreasing and repacking the bearings. I could have probably gone a couple hundreds of miles with the pre-installed grease but I figured after stripping down the bike I might as well grease it. I can't attest to what condition your bike arrived in but my wheels arrived dinged up (maybe UPS didn't handle the package with much care -- it's common for very large packages to get tossed around a bit), and my gears needed indexing and my brakes needed significant adjustments. I'm not debating whether or not assembling a bike is a DIY job; I'm simply saying that for someone with as limited bike experience as the OP, they will have problems distinguishing between something that
looks like a properly functioning bike and something that actually
is a properly functioning bike. I agree with the rest of your post; getting the tools and learning how to work on a bike is beneficial in the long run but in the short run I do not believe amateurishly slapping on the handlebars and front wheel on a BD bike straight out of the box is the best way to get proper mileage and longevity out of the bike. I'm not saying that your assembly job was amateurish but somebody contemplating buying a 40lb bike from Target is likely to do an amateurish job.