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I've had several bikes from Sonder and have had good experiences iincluding my latest being delivered a few days after ordering (Camino Ti).
That said. I upgraded seatpost on order to Ti and got charged full retail - no reduction for the alloy one I didn't get. Small beans so not a worry.
On the downside, the BB died within a month and also the gear shifting was very stiff from the start (GRX 1x12) and having done some research I came to the conclusion it needs a specific cable (not the Fibrax one fitted).
I raised a query on both and despite multiple chases on my part have had no response beyond their chief mechanic being too busy to answer.
I've fitted a Hope BB and the proper cable and all is now good, but I am probably down best part of £200 and not getting a proper response is a bit of a disappointment on a top of their range purchase.
BTW - their 10% dividend concept doesn't work out quite as I expected either...
daverhp - fitting non-original cables and casings is a mortal sin that many major brands partake in. It often leads to utterly crap shifting. But it is an issue I have seen in sooo many different brand bikes - like the "big S" too - not to mention that bike brands put on "Sram" or "Shimano" drivetrain, but instead of a good original manufacturer chain, they put some KMC cheapo chain, or in some cases, the cheapest possible brand chain - like SX from Sram that will rust the first time it sees use. You can find substitutions like this in even very major brand e-bikes costing 6000+ e. Its nuts, but you got to get every penny possible to shareholders, I guess.
And casings and cables are almost always something like Jagwire, even when everything in the drivetrain is Sram or Shimano. Works much worse.
Sometimes I have had to replace all internally routed cables and casings when doing a first maintenance to expensive road bikes, when the gears work like utter crap because of this, and customer was not happy at all with what they had done at the factory.
There's an issue with GRX 12 speed and acute cable bends with internal routing. I pointed it out to Sonder more as a bit of info they might not be aware of as its quite specific conditions to cause it.
That and the premature BB failure have cost me a chunk though, so no reply is a bit of a letdown as I generally have a high opion of Sonder. Never mind, great bike 😀
Am I being unreasonable? I ordered a Colibri on the 30th March, in the sale, with 105, the upgraded wheels and tubeless conversion.
The tag line read "Buy now. Be riding in 10 days".
My order had a build date starting on 22/04/2024 (more than 10 days!), which has now been pushed back to 29/04/2024 (almost a month!).
Everything appears to be in stock, so I'm not sure what the delay is.
I've emailed them, of course, but is this normal for Alpkit / Sonder?
Yes, it's normal for them. I ordered a Camino when it was 'riding in 5 days'. When I got a third email postponing to the fourth week after order, I was in a bit of a bind cos I really wanted it for a certain date. So I phoned them to explain. They said it was limited by the time to build the wheels, but offered to do their best and get back to me. They never got back to me, but I chased them every day like a looser, and they got the bike built on time.
Overall I was happy, but original estimate and communication could be better.
Propain are another company who offer customisations of their stock builds, who offer a fast delivery, and they have a considerable delay. Their communication was even worse though, taking many days to respond to an email. I love the bike, but it was a sour taste to start the experience.
It's a build to order company, build dates are an estimate and with the huge number of options available and a recent sale it's bound to take longer than you might want.
Should they be answering emails all day or getting on building your bike? Or hiring more staff solely to answer emails and significantly raising their prices to pay for them.
It’s a build to order company, build dates are an estimate
Sure. But prominently stating ready to ride in 10 days and then taking over 3 times that isn't cool.
No estimate is better than a very bad estimate, especially in the days of most purchases arriving within a day or two.
I ordered Easter weekend when the wait was 5 to 10 days. Not had a single email yet but I'm aware the date has been pushed out to the start of May.
Maybe I've been riding bikes too long, but unless you can go into a shop and wheel the bike out there and then, isn't this pretty much always the case?
Certainly was when I worked in a bike shop in the 90s boom.
Cycle to work costs the shop 15% of the value to process. At that point all good will has to end and you need to pick-up the tab for every penny or the shop starts losing money. It's nothing personal of course, just the reality of cycle to work means with someone else's hand in the till, in your case in a big way they cannot spare you a single penny on the bike.
I don't know how they worked it out, maybe there's a mistake, but you are still losing them a bunch of money Vs someone paying on a card say, so go easy!
But pay on a debit card as I did, and you don't get any more.
I'm just subsidising the C2W hit.
My preordered built to order Cotic arrived on time, fwiw.
A positive slant; not bikes but clothing repairs.
Last Wednesday, we sent a pair of Montane Featherlight trousers to them for the repair of two rips.
That's them back today, fixed. The repairs are very neat and barely visible. Happy days..
Regarding shops not offering sale bikes on c2w scheme purchases – I had this experience in a specialized concept store. I was told that the 60% off the bike wasn’t applicable as I wanted to use a c2w voucher
I went elsewhere that did offer c2w on end of season discounts
It depends on the shop and the brand/distributor.
A smaller shop is having to either buy bike upfront and is then discounting from their own margin at the end of the year to sell off any that didn't sell at RRP. At this point it's possible they're making no margin or even a loss to clear the shop floor or maintain cashflow over the winter if things aren't going well.
Somewhere like Paul's is buying up stock from brands/distributors cheaply at the end of the year. So they're still making their margin even selling at 60% off because they bought the bike from the brand at 60% off the trade price.