OUT OF BOX EXPERIENCE

As adults we sometimes forget the pure adrenaline rush, exhilaration, and excitement of childhood Christmas's.  Can you remember the first gift you got that just totally fulfilled your expectations.  You knew you were going to get it and when you did, you were just totally into the moment?  Hold on to that feeling, you may experience it again if you get one of these bikes!  That's the feeling I had RIGHT UP UNTIL THE POINT I OPENED THE BOX!  Yikes pieces of bubble wrap and tape everywhere.  The tape was rather hard to get off in places (i.e. the carbon fork).  The Shockproof was too large to ship assembled, so it had to be disassembled into component pieces in order to ship across the pond.

So what I had on my living room floor was a dozen or so very nicely wrapped packages of Shockproof Ti component parts "mostly" assembled.  No problem I figured, I've put together a few bicycles in the past.  This was a little different though.  I quickly pieced together the pieces that made sense from the photograph of the bike.  I got everything mostly together except for the derailleur adjustment before I encountered a major problem.  (Pictures of the M5 TI 559 Shockproof including how it was packaged are available at the link above).

I didn't know exactly where washers went on the bolts, etc. but I worked through that.  The problem was the front brake pad was rubbing the rim.  So I spun the rim and it still rubbed.  I was not very happy!  No matter how hard I tried I could not adjust the Teckro Mini V brake on the left front side for the life of me (More on this later).

The Tech that installed the brake cut the wire so short that I had no play.  But that was only part of the problem.  Turns out the bigger problem was the wheel simply was not true, and aggravated the whole situation.  Now you would think (Or at least I would think) that someone at M5 would have taken more time to make sure these "little" things didn't happen on a bicycle shipping so far.  But they didn't.

LITTLE INCONVENIENCES

Now I'll be the first to admit I am NOT the world's best bicycle technician, but I'm not bad.  I can do most maintenance tasks, but I leave the big stuff to the shop technicians as I do not have the tools, nor the desire to delve into the world of bike building.  Having qualified my bicycle skills in this manner I must now admit that after my frustrations with the brakes, and my burning desire to ride the darn thing and not just look at it - I took the Shockproof 559 Ti into a local bike shop.  I called 5 shops and finally found one willing to do the simple things I needed to "fine tune" the assembly (Adjust brakes, derailleur, etc.).  But before we talk about the bicycle shop experience, lets talk about that darn wheel that wasn't true!

I also sent my untrue wheel off to Dave Thomas at Dave's Wheels.  Speeddream.com.  I learned of Dave's services by reading the wheel reviews at Mountain Bike Review (MTB Review).  After so many glowing reviews how could I go wrong?  So I phoned up Dave and explained the situation.  He told me it wouldn't be a problem, but he was in Colorado for the summer (Not Arizona).  I needed to ship him the package and enclose a check for $35 ($25 for the truing and $10 to cover shipping - turns out shipping was $8.80 so he was right on target).  I have never met or spoken to Dave before, but I figured it shouldn't be a problem.  So I sent the wheel off, and a week later it came back perfectly true!  That's good service, and he even dismounted and remounted the tire for me because I was too lazy to do that!  Good deal, if you need custom wheels you might want to give him a call!

continued Ti 559 Shockproof Review

Bike Reviews