bikes and things

Updated:
I should say that this did eventually arrive on the 10th Nov (ordered 1st Sept) and it’s really quite an incredible bike. Worth waiting until you see the “In Stock” bit over the bike you’re looking to buy though but can’t fault the quality of the bike.

My full review of it is here.

On September 1st I ordered a winter bike from Canyon. On paper it’s a hell of a bargain. Full 11psd Shimano 105, decent frame, carbon fork, disc brakes and even decent Conti tyres in a nice 28mm variety.

I did the usual kind of due diligence of searching out the “Canyon problems” “Canyon delivery issues” type Google searches but this only seemed to turn up old blog posts from 2012 / 2013. Nothing was recent, and all other posts were singing their praises, so I went ahead and filled out the payment details and then waited for the delivery estimate. I was a little surprised to see it was going to take four weeks to deliver but it wasn’t really a big deal as the weather was still good and winter was a little way off.

And then week 40 came and went and no word from Canyon, no dispatch note etc, so I emailed their support and got a fairly abrupt email noting it was going to be to weeks later. Ok, not great and no apology or explanation, but hey ho, it can wait. Then week 42 came and went and I gave them a call. The guy in the UK office was really nice and apologetic but noted it was going to be week 44 now, so slipping another two weeks and four weeks further than the original estimate. He offered to refund the bike guard and postage which was a nice gesture and would save £35. The reason it was going to be late was that they are simply struggling to fulfil the order / victim of their own success etc.

The one thing that’s odd about the order process is that there is no mechanism to log in and see the progress of your order and also no mechanism to let you know that your order is delayed. You always have to make the effort to call or email which is pretty poor to be honest (insert obvious dig about Germans and efficiency etc).

Rather cheekily I responded to their promotional Tweet talking about the new model and when it would ship. So whilst being slightly unfair to the person running the Twitter account it was a little alarming to hear some kind of suggestion that the frames might not even be in Germany yet. The 8.0 is in stock but the others aren’t there yet! What the fuck?

Later I got a confirmation that it was definitely shipping this week after a slight back tracking from them. I’m not confident though due to the previous missed deadlines and it does feel like there is an alarming lack of honesty or openness here. From the start of the process through to issues with actually fulfilling orders, to notifying customers of delay it all seems to be a bit of a hope for the best type of arrangement. For instance if they didn’t have the actual frames there when I placed the order they simply should not have been accepting orders for that model, the purchase button should be faded out until they have stock to fulfil orders.

It’s just so frustrating to do all your research on a new bike, compare loads of models, look around, talk to people in the know and then press the order button and then nothing. Or rather wait 8 weeks for nothing.

So now my mind is wandering around looking at other bikes and the one which is readily available, although heavier, is the Whyte Suffolk. It’s similar in many ways but a cheaper chainset and tyres, but importantly it’s in stock in London at a number of places. I just don’t feel as attached to it as the Canyon, maybe it’s the graphics or something but if the delivery slips another two weeks I’m just going to sack the whole thing off with Canyon, presuming they let me cancel the order, get one of these instead and put the whole thing down to experience.

I had a look at the Whyte this morning and it’s lighter than I expected. I’m still not a fan of the graphics but hey it’s going to be covered in mud right? The other option is to order the Canyon Inflite 8.0 which appears to be in stock, buy the mudguards and road tyres myself and assemble. Also it’d be in the colour I want which looks far more purposeful.