Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Sad story of a decent bike ruined by stupid packaging engineers. The bike arrived by UPS. The outer carton was a little scuffed up but no major crushing or signs of impact damage. I pulled the unassembled bike out of the flimsy cardboard box, and at first everything looked ok. Nice looking bike. Cheapish components but about what we would expect in this price range. The aluminum frame was particularly lovely -- nice paint and beefy welding. Sadly, the cheesy junk plastic axle protector that should have protected the derailleur failed miserably to do so. The box was too small for the bike and offered no protection to the wheels and axles. The derailleur was bent so badly it was protruding into the spokes of the rear wheel about 3/4" I've owned and repaired a lot of bikes (including my three kid's bikes) and never seen a derailleur so totally destroyed. This is (was) a decent bike for the money before it went into the cheap, garbage packaging that some moron designed to ship this bike in. Kent International needs to find the engineers that designed this packaging and fire them. The bike is a total write-off. Returning it tomorrow. What a stupid waste to think that this bike will wind up in a dumpster somewhere, because the labor to split and replace the chain to install a new derailleur will be more expensive than the landfill will charge to dump it. An extra measley $3 spent on better packaging would have made me a happy customer. Amazon, I hope you are listening. You need to put a stop-ship on these bikes, send them all back to Kent for inspection and repackaging. If you are thinking about buying one of these, I'd guess you have a one-in-four chance of getting an undamaged bike.