While I can understand your viewpoint, you have to be reasonable in your expectations and also understand your personal bias. The fact that you're flagging something that 'always gets missed in the review processes of _every publication_' may also suggest there's a reason behind it.
You work at a shop, and your customers should expect to receive a bike that is built properly. That's on the brand that delivers the bike to you, and you (the shop) to figure out. We know some brands (or in many cases, some brands' designated third party assembly facilities) are better at this than others. Review bikes are often delivered along different channels, though. Smart brands have those bikes checked over by in-house mechanics before being sent out to reviewers. There's not much we (or other publications) can do in that case to replicate the consumer experience. Even if we tried, the experience of two consumers buying the same bike from two different shops is going to differ, so it isn't possible to replicate and we're not positioning ourselves as a Quality Assurance watchdog. If we went down that road, we'd be so far into the weeds that it wouldn't be a bike review anymore.
That does not mean that we (at NSMB) blindly assume everything delivered to us is 100%. If we find something egregious like improperly torqued pivot bolts, that's cause for concern. If the cables are all too long, there's no grease on the stem bolts, etc...that may be worthy of comment, but it's also situational. If a trend emerges, we'll highlight it. Big picture: it was built well or not built well, now let's move on to more significant questions you'd want a reviewer to spend their time on.
D2C brands like GG have to deliver a bike that a consumer with a modicum of skill and confidence can build in a reasonable period of time, and reporting how long it takes is something a potential buyer would want to know. Had Dave found a bunch of things wrong with the build, you would have heard about it.
Let me ask you this: no matter how thorough Dave or another reviewer was in checking every detail you'd like to see checked, and how good that build turned out to be, you personally wouldn't ride that bike without checking it yourself anyway, right? So is your complaint a fair one?
Nov. 22, 2022, 11:11 a.m. - Pete Roggeman
While I can understand your viewpoint, you have to be reasonable in your expectations and also understand your personal bias. The fact that you're flagging something that 'always gets missed in the review processes of _every publication_' may also suggest there's a reason behind it. You work at a shop, and your customers should expect to receive a bike that is built properly. That's on the brand that delivers the bike to you, and you (the shop) to figure out. We know some brands (or in many cases, some brands' designated third party assembly facilities) are better at this than others. Review bikes are often delivered along different channels, though. Smart brands have those bikes checked over by in-house mechanics before being sent out to reviewers. There's not much we (or other publications) can do in that case to replicate the consumer experience. Even if we tried, the experience of two consumers buying the same bike from two different shops is going to differ, so it isn't possible to replicate and we're not positioning ourselves as a Quality Assurance watchdog. If we went down that road, we'd be so far into the weeds that it wouldn't be a bike review anymore. That does not mean that we (at NSMB) blindly assume everything delivered to us is 100%. If we find something egregious like improperly torqued pivot bolts, that's cause for concern. If the cables are all too long, there's no grease on the stem bolts, etc...that may be worthy of comment, but it's also situational. If a trend emerges, we'll highlight it. Big picture: it was built well or not built well, now let's move on to more significant questions you'd want a reviewer to spend their time on. D2C brands like GG have to deliver a bike that a consumer with a modicum of skill and confidence can build in a reasonable period of time, and reporting how long it takes is something a potential buyer would want to know. Had Dave found a bunch of things wrong with the build, you would have heard about it. Let me ask you this: no matter how thorough Dave or another reviewer was in checking every detail you'd like to see checked, and how good that build turned out to be, you personally wouldn't ride that bike without checking it yourself anyway, right? So is your complaint a fair one?