Thoughts on Polygon bikes?

[Justinjd79]

Looking to get a Polygon MTB. Anyone have a Polygon? Good, bad, ugly? Good value?

[bevanm8]

Hi, I am considering buying one too, I am a complete noob though and have no idea about the different parts and whats good and whats not. They seem to be pretty good value from what I can tell.. but interested to hear from the experts. I am considering the 2017 Polygon Siskiu D5. Mainly because I want a dual suspension bike to ride some trails and this is probably the only one I can find that is close to my budget (Bikes are expensive!!).

https://www.bicyclesonline.com.au/2017- ... ountain-bi

[trailgumby]

They're not department store bikes.

They're actually not at all bad. They're running a World Cup Enduro team (I think, or is it DH) with top level riders and the feedback is going into product development. So far, so good, and they're getting the occasional podium result. If they can sustain the cash burn from doing this they will become a very good brand.

Worth investigating if value for money takes priority over brand snobbery.

[GAV!N]

If you search you should find some other identical threads so I won't waste too much time here. I think they are pretty good value for money bikes. There road range seems to have dwindled recently though. They might be focusing more on the MTB side of things?

[outnabike]

I think I remember some one saying here that the last big sale of racing bikes that Aldi had was from Polygon and the had good reviews.

[trailgumby]

I think I remember some one saying here that the last big sale of racing bikes that Aldi had was from Polygon and the had good reviews.

Quite correct. I rode with Christopher a couple of times while he was reviewing it. He still kicked my ass up McCarrs Creek Road on it.

[Justinjd79]

If Aldi are selling Polygon then I guess the parts aren't very high end? Would an entry Giant or Trek be better? I'm not fussed about brand snobbery. Went through all that with my road bike and found Ribble to be amazing.

[AUbicycles]

Aldi were not selling Polygon brand bikes. When Aldi are planning to sell bikes, they real out to suppliers so a Crane branded Aldi bike may have been manufactured and assembled by another well known brand.

Use the search to look at some other Polygon discussion threads in this cycling forum.

In brief - Polygon have a fairly widely priced range of bike and generally have very competitively priced bikes. It means you can get the top groupsets, but also bike with lower-end groupsets. Comparing spec for spec against the popular bike brands such as Trek, Specialized, Giant, Merida, Cervelo, BMC, etc may have the Polygon priced more competitively. As a customer you have to weigh up the different factors beyond price such as riding comfort, brand features, customer service, etc, etc.

Bicycles Online sell Polygon online and from their Sydney store and are a successful business - so if the bike appeals to you and ticks all the boxes, go for it.

Christopher

[AUbicycles]

Went through all that with my road bike and found Ribble to be amazing.

Ribble have an in-house brand of bikes and while many other overseas online retailers like Wiggle or c r c also have a inhouse brand, the Ribble brand appears to make up a bigger part of their sales compared to the others.

That said, Ribble are a UK retailer and even though they have a .com.au and want to capture online sales from Australian cyclists, you have to weigh up the pros and cons. For example, you may have lower comparable pricing for the frame (or bike) however don't have the same certainly with sizing, can't test ride, have more problems if there are defects and can lose out on the convenience of buying from a local bike shop.

It will be useful to check online reviews and check out other cycling forums for peoples experiences before committing.


Cheers
Christopher

[buymeapony]

Anyone but Polygon. Their assembly is rubbish. My experience was that damage caused by their bad assembly (a crank torque twisting off just going round the block on one of the first rides) was apparently my fault for not reading page 44 of the manual where it says "check all bolts" or something. The crank needed replacement. But rather than do that they said all faults have to be reported within 14 days (i hadnt even taken it out of the box by then...busy) and bad luck basically.

If you want any sort of quality and support, don't buy from Polygon.

[henno]

Anyone but Polygon. Their assembly is rubbish. My experience was that damage caused by their bad assembly (a crank torque twisting off just going round the block on one of the first rides) was apparently my fault for not reading page 44 of the manual where it says "check all bolts" or something. The crank needed replacement. But rather than do that they said all faults have to be reported within 14 days (i hadnt even taken it out of the box by then...busy) and bad luck basically.

If you want any sort of quality and support, don't buy from Polygon.

Absolutely zero of that overrules Australian consumer law, no matter what their manual says. If that was recent, I'd kindly tell them to kick rocks and fix it.

[march83]

I missed this thread the first time it did the rounds...

I got a Polygon Siskiu T8 in October last year and I've thrashed the hell out of it. Jumps, drops, DH lines. I've ridden it like a DH bike when it isn't really...

So far I've managed to knock the rear wheel out of shape (user error), fold the rear cassette in half (still haven't figured out how that actually happened, but I think it was just a freak accident), and destroy the bushes in 1 pivot (user error - casing a jump). All relatively easy fixes and really just a price of doing business type of thing.

In terms of build on arrival, if you know vaguely how to maintain a bike you'll be fine - put wheels on, straighten the bars, check bolts, brakes and gears and ride away. If you don't know how to look after a bike then maybe you should be paying the premium to get a mobile mechanic to assemble it for you, or just buy through a good bike shop?

Setup, I had to put spacers in both the forks and shock. Both ends, but the rear in particular just wasn't progressive enough, but that may come down to rider preference.

Everything else has been great. Fox suspension, mostly SLX Shimano drivetrain, KS dropper, no name cockpit. I would absolutely recommend my model in particular to anyone looking for a new trail bike.

Looking forward, I may replace the brakes at some point. I miss the Shimano lever adjustment, but so long as your hands suit the Tektro levers there's not much need. I might put a new headset in it too - I've had to adjust it once and it was fiddly, but that's more of a set and forget thing so it may never present another issue for me. The rear rim will need to be replaced at some point so I'll probably do that when I next replace the rear tyre.

[Derny Driver]

I left the bird cage door open...

[davehirst]

I left the bird cage door open...

Had to think for a few seconds

[Derny Driver]

I left the bird cage door open...

Had to think for a few seconds

[Tiny Tim]

Here is my experience:

I bought my bike and it came with faulty hub. Realised after first ride. Had to send the entire wheel back to BO. Then had to wait for them to send it to Shimano and hear back from them. It took weeks. Then I had a crank arm fall off with a stripped thread. I replaced that out of my own pocket with a similar crank arm and eventually it kept falling off. LBS said it was a known issue with a faulty spindle that he had seen on other Polygon bikes. I contacted BO and never heard anything from them. My LBS hated dealing with Polygon bikes and was thinking of not doing repairs on them. Not worth his time. He had some pretty bad stories.

Other than that I had a gear lever come off while riding, my headset was also loose and had absolutely no lube from installation and started making heaps of noises. I have had issues with BO sending me the wrong part when I needed a new hanger, so ended up having to send it back and buy a new one. Their support team even told me which one to buy originally.

On top of that, after my first issue when I had to deal with support, sending them an email with a video of my issue. I ended up getting called by a different name and copied in on all the correspondence from another angry customer.

They almost came and picked up my entire bike one day because they got me mixed up with someone else.

About 6 months of riding now on my bike and Ive had lots of fun but I also don't really feel confident on it anymore with so many things going wrong. Some resulting in injury while riding.

I bought a new bike last week, so no more Polygon for me! I would totally pay a little more for proper service.

Having said that a friend of mine has the same bike and hasn't had the bad luck I have had.
Im not sure he is going to be happy when he finally does need some real support.

[AlexP2]

Anyone but Polygon. Their assembly is rubbish. My experience was that damage caused by their bad assembly (a crank torque twisting off just going round the block on one of the first rides) was apparently my fault for not reading page 44 of the manual where it says "check all bolts" or something. The crank needed replacement. The worst part is that this issue led to a small injury because I fell of the bike, plus I ripped of my branded clothes and my durag I got from Oz durag. I didn't even have any refund, they said all faults have to be reported within 14 days (i hadn't even taken it out of the box by then...busy) and bad luck basically.

If you want any sort of quality and support, don't buy from Polygon.

Absolutely zero of that overrules Australian consumer law, no matter what their manual says. If that was recent, I'd kindly tell them to kick rocks and fix it.

I had a similar experience. I definitely would not recommend getting a Polygon bike. I had a bad experience with them where the assembly was rubbish and caused damage to the bike. I was told by that it was my fault for not reading the manual and that all faults have to be reported within 14 days, which I had not even done by then. I ended up having to replace the crank, which was not cheap. Overall, I was not happy with the experience and would not recommend Polygon bikes to anyone.

[cyclingnolycra]

Wow this thread has been eye-opening. I won't recommend them to anyone then. Thanks!

[brumby33]

I fully understand that many people have tight budgets, especially these days with inflation going through the roof but with bicycles as well as toasters and any other product, in my experience "you get what you pay for" unfortunately things come with a price, quality come with a price, durability comes with a price etc.

I think I'd be looking at something possibly around $1500-2,000K which I think you'll get something that'll last you a decent amount of time. I'm going to be looking at a new 29er MTB or similar next year when I move near some awesome MTB trails, so maybe Trek or Giant are in my sight.
Nothing about branding but they have been in the bike business a long time and have good quality componentry and back up.
I learnt the hard way on going cheap a long time ago, if i can't afford it now, I'll save up more till I can but it'll be worth the wait in the end. Not hard to find branded bikes in the 7-9K bracket these days and double that for competition bikes and higher end looks to becoming a bigger portion, however, I'm not in those categories