Fernando Cintra
- Advantages
Let me break it down:
The tires are very grippy and they are not just tubeless ready, they are already tubeless!! That is a massive plus.
The geometry is meant to go down gnarly trails but also climb almost like a XC bike.
The fork that came with it isn't the Giant Crest as advertised. It is a Suntour Raidon 34mm 130mm, which I was very pleased with, since there are so many poor reviews on the Crest. This fork works great.
The saddle is surprisingly comfortable and doesn't need to be changed, unless you plan to spend multiple hours on the bike.
- Disadvantages
The 780mm Handlebar feels outrageously large for me, but maybe that is just my riding style
The grips are awful, but I wasn't expecting much from it anyway.
About the bike, that is all, and that would make me rate it 4 stars.
- Comment
I bought it online but they don't give any information on your estimate delivery date, you have to ask them yourself. Thing is they are not replying as fast as you'd like and I sent them messages that sometimes would go by 2 days without answer.
After days of waiting and asking about my shipping status they finally said that the bike was still in the warehouse, so I just said I would pick it up myself.
I paid a 30 eur assembly fee, but to my surprise, the bike wasn't in rideable conditions. The headtube assembly was loose, the handlebar wasn't straight, the derailleur cable was so long it looked like a 90's bike. I had to fix that all myself.
Later on, I realized that having this bike in Lithuania is like having a high spec gamer PC and playing Age of Empires 1. This bike simply smashes through Lithuanian easy trails (which are all of them) like knife in hot butter. Lithuania is a gravel and road bike paradise, but a mountain bike nightmare (there is a reason why the sport is called Mountain Bike, not Hill Bike).
Nonetheless, this is not the shop's problem, neither the bike's. It was my fault to buy an over capable product.
However, when I did ask them about the "return withing 30 days" policy present in their site, since I rode the bike just 30km, the answer was "Sorry but we are not takibg back bikes witch are allready used"
I asked "How can someone return a product without ever trying it? I look at it and decide based on the looks?"
And the answer was "yes". That's it. "yes". No explanation given. Just an ironic answer instead of real customer support.
Still not understanding what they had sold me, they proceeded to send a bunch of places to ride in Lithuania - all flat as a pancake - instead of explaining their return policy politely or helping me solve my real issue, which is that the bike will hibernate in my storage room until I can sell it for a much lower price I paid 2 weeks ago.