treesloth

So, I'm in the market for a new bike and am looking to stretch my dollars as much as possible. One site I've stumbled upon is Discount Mountain Bikes | Mountain bikes sale | Cheap Mountain Bike sale. I have no experience with them. They appear to have some great deals on slightly older (2-3 years) bikes. Does anyone have experience with them? Any gotchas I should know about? Thank you in advance for anything you can tell me.

EDIT: Sorry, I pasted the URL but apparently it gets converted. If it matters, it is (discount-mountain-bikes dot com).

mstateglfr 

based out of singapore?...i wouldnt even waste someone else's money to try and buy me a new bike there.

Also, the available sizes for some bikes on the website dont match the brand's website for that year and model. odd...

jefnvk

I'm not even sure I want to simply browse that site on my computer, let alone send them money

Their "discounts" don't appear to be that good, either. From the things discounted, they look like a straight up 10% off.

If you want a reputable site for decent discount bikes, and don't mind if bikes are a name brand or not, just use BikesDirect/BikeIsland. Otherwise, figure out what you actually want, and search around either local shops or US Online Retailers.

treesloth

Thanks for the replies. What threw me off was the builds I was seeing... Full XT build for about $950? Seemed off. Also, I can't find much of anything online about the company, their service, whatever. Oh, well.

I am looking at bikesdirect as well. In particular, the Gravity Bikes 29Point5 29er looks pretty good. I'm considering whether that's a good bike for clyde.

Again, thanks for the replies.

DomaneS5

BikesDirect has great prices. I bought a gravel bike from them a couple months ago. It's one of the best bike purchases I've ever made as far as quality for the price.

Also check out The House Outdoor Gear. They have a wide variety of mountain bikes to choose from.

Garilia

I bought a Motobecane Fantom 29 (hardtail) from bikesdirect.com about 7 years ago, and that bike is still running great.

SkyDog75

I wouldn't order from there. It smells fishy to me. There's nothing about the site that ties it to a known, trustworthy seller, and there are too many things that make me suspicious. If in doubt, fall back on the old idiom that tells us if an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is.

1) Can you find anyone who's successfully purchased an item from this seller? If you can't find online reviews or positive mentions on a separate reputable site, be very suspicious.

2) I went through the motions of putting a bike into my cart and started the checkout process (using fake contact info, of course). At the point they want you to put in your credit card, the page isn't SSL or TLS secured, which is a HUGE no-no. Don't ever put personal or financial information into a non-secured web site. Most web browsers will show a padlock icon next to the URL (address) to tell you the page is secured.

3) The web site was only registered about a year ago, and its domain name is slated to expire in the next few months. These aren't necessarily red flags if you can confirm it's a trustworthy company by other means, but I haven't been able to.

4) Even if they're not scamming, they almost certainly aren't authorized dealers for the brands/bikes they list. If they do ship you a bike, and it actually seems to be what you ordered, you most likely won't have any warranty recourse if you have a problem. Maybe you could ship the bike back, on your dime. To where? Singapore? That ain't gonna be cheap.

treesloth

Those are all good points. I never tried looking at the checkout process. That's a first-rate deal-breaker. Thanks for the reply.

Coincidentally, I'm currently seeing a big Bikes Direct ad at the bottom of this thread. A sign? :-)

mstateglfr 

Its certainly a sign that they advertise.

Bikesdirect, diamondback/raleigh corporate discount code, and nashbar.
3 stateside legit options for less than retail bikes.

treesloth

Thanks again for all the helpful replies. I'm leaning heavily toward the Fantom 29 X9 from bikeisland. I'm concerned about the Elixir 3 brakes-- they seem awfully finicky and not the most refined-- but the price is low enough that I can upgrade them if I really need to. I'm also not sure how well the Reba RL will handle a clyde, but I'm well into my weight loss and am moving along steadily, so hopefully that will be less of a concern in time.