Just had a lovely new bike, arrived from one of my friends, she had her bike replaced via her insurance.
One would be lead to believe the bike was ready to ride
I thought we should give it a check over as somethings get missed
Nice touch putting stickers on the right crank arm and corresponding pedal so that a novice won’t goof up fitting the pedals.
But the rest of the bike – doesn’t look like there has been an allen key near it.
Gears were all over the shop – and pinch bolts loose, Bars weren’t centred, Pivot bolts loose, Seat clamp loose, Tyre pressures uneven, all things that I’m sure would have been checked in an IBD
And worst of all the lock-on grips were loose
Call me picky – and I am – but I’d really expect better than this – such a shame as it’s a lovely looking machine (La Pierre).
Just wanted to issue a warning – please check your new bikes – and get a service after the first few miles or one month too, things do settle in after riding for a bit.

what a shame.

I had an insurance replacement bike from Wheelies about 9 years ago, despite it being relatively cheap (best spec spesh hardrock) it was still very well set up, gears and v brakes were perfect and all I had to do was turn the handlebars round and put pedals on. Sounds like your friend’s bike had stickers applied and absolutely nothing else done to it. Uusually online retailers will explain that if it comes all loose and flappy that this is part of the low price. (wiggle did this a while back and mrs julian had a bike from rutland cycling dead cheap like this) 😕

Thoughts about insurance settlements via Wheelies etc….
A lot of insurance companies when settling a claim will try and armtwist you into accepting a bike from a mail order supplier rather than your LBS. Even worse,they’ll often try to make you accept a different make of bike to your original.This is purely to suit their pockets because they have massive volume discount deals arranged with a handful of suppliers,who may not stock your make of bike.
With my business hat on this is obviously lots of lost trade to LBSs (particularly annoying if it’s an old customer who bought the original bike from you) but also from the policyholder’s point of view doesn’t it just show what scant regard the insurers pay to the cyclist and his/her pride and joy.They would never try this on with car owners.Just imagine if you had (say) your nearly new BMW written off,and the insurance company said “sorry,you can’t have a BMW,but you can have an equivalent Merc delivered to your door from Bloggs Discount 300 miles away.” They wouldn’t even try it on,and their claimants would soon tell them what to do if they did !