It arrived today, and it's beautiful!
Few minor issues, firstly it arrived in an open box. The courier said when he collected it the box was open so he had to transport it upside down as it was the bottom of the box that had opened if that makes sense.
Opened the box and started unpacking and was pleasantly surprised there was more handlebars in there than expected! On the website you can choose straight, drop or bull horns - I chose drops but to my surprise their were bull horns in their also (my 2nd choice!) so nice to have these as an option should I feel like changing it up one day.
Got bored waiting for the OH to get home so thought, how hard can it be? Started taking all the packaging off and found a little box of tools included so thought I'd give it a go. Front wheel on, handlebars on, stem straightened, brakes fitted, saddle fitted, tyres inflated - feeling pretty smug with myself by now as I'm rubbish at mechanical stuff and if OH was here I wouldn't have even tried!
Pulled the front brake on, needed straightening up and tightening, done. Pulled the rear on as hard as I could and neither block was anywhere near making contact with the rim, cue lots of fiddling about (and swearing) followed by my eventual giving up - whatever I adjusted I couldn't get this set up right, one of the blocks was almost diagonal to the rim and the nearest I could get any contact was a corner of one block
Other half came home and had a go (for a long time!) he got it closer but still not right, suggested just living without brakes. Eventually called a v knowledgable mechanical friend who came round and even he couldn't get it to go right after almost an hour of trying. Eventually he went home and came back with some Tektro brakes he'd taken off another bike and fitted these, in about 2minutes!
During all the building we had noticed quite a lot of little marks all over the frame, chain wheel, bars etc - one or two minor marks you wouldn't think anything of but quite a succession of them and they all add up. This on top of the brakes issue and I wasn't very impressed.
I contacted Quella and sent them photos, they were very shocked and apologetic, offered a partial refund or a replacement Monday. I decided as we'd spent so long on the brakes and I really wanted it for a ride Sunday that I'd take the partial refund as a gesture of good will, get the clear nail varnish out and try to seal up the areas with paint faults and get out for a test ride.
Loved it, comfy, fun and despite the problems above it's a really pretty head-turning bike - so I posted my slowest ever Strava effort as I got distracted with some bikeporn #priorities
Few minor issues, firstly it arrived in an open box. The courier said when he collected it the box was open so he had to transport it upside down as it was the bottom of the box that had opened if that makes sense.
Opened the box and started unpacking and was pleasantly surprised there was more handlebars in there than expected! On the website you can choose straight, drop or bull horns - I chose drops but to my surprise their were bull horns in their also (my 2nd choice!) so nice to have these as an option should I feel like changing it up one day.
Got bored waiting for the OH to get home so thought, how hard can it be? Started taking all the packaging off and found a little box of tools included so thought I'd give it a go. Front wheel on, handlebars on, stem straightened, brakes fitted, saddle fitted, tyres inflated - feeling pretty smug with myself by now as I'm rubbish at mechanical stuff and if OH was here I wouldn't have even tried!
Pulled the front brake on, needed straightening up and tightening, done. Pulled the rear on as hard as I could and neither block was anywhere near making contact with the rim, cue lots of fiddling about (and swearing) followed by my eventual giving up - whatever I adjusted I couldn't get this set up right, one of the blocks was almost diagonal to the rim and the nearest I could get any contact was a corner of one block
Other half came home and had a go (for a long time!) he got it closer but still not right, suggested just living without brakes. Eventually called a v knowledgable mechanical friend who came round and even he couldn't get it to go right after almost an hour of trying. Eventually he went home and came back with some Tektro brakes he'd taken off another bike and fitted these, in about 2minutes!
During all the building we had noticed quite a lot of little marks all over the frame, chain wheel, bars etc - one or two minor marks you wouldn't think anything of but quite a succession of them and they all add up. This on top of the brakes issue and I wasn't very impressed.
I contacted Quella and sent them photos, they were very shocked and apologetic, offered a partial refund or a replacement Monday. I decided as we'd spent so long on the brakes and I really wanted it for a ride Sunday that I'd take the partial refund as a gesture of good will, get the clear nail varnish out and try to seal up the areas with paint faults and get out for a test ride.
Loved it, comfy, fun and despite the problems above it's a really pretty head-turning bike - so I posted my slowest ever Strava effort as I got distracted with some bikeporn #priorities
