No.
I’ve got nothing against people who are new to a hobby buying the best top shelf goods before “getting good”, or… do I?!
I like nice things, but I’ve always felt like I needed to earn nice things by going through trial and error with not so nice things. When I was really into riding I always owned Giant bikes because they’re such great value for money, but not so secretly I always wanted a porn bike. A Yeti, Specialized, Santa Cruz, basically the same bike but 3 times the cost that wouldn’t make me any better a rider.
10+ years ago I heard about Canyon bikes. I instantly liked their brand logo and look of their web site and mountain bikes too. Clean, slick, modern, less is more, love it. Their videos were so well shot too (not to mention riders in their vids were doing things I could never do). Fast forward to now (I’m 49) and I was quite surprised at the reality of Canyon (like Giant) are very much known for great value for money as they sell their bikes direct to consumers via their web site (IE: you won’t find Canyon bikes in your local bike store).
This threw me for a spin as I remembered Canyon as a bike of desire.
Since buying my Canyon (first bike I’ve bought since 2008 and the most expensive bike I’ve ever bought) I’ve been visiting the Canyon subreddit daily and initially I was taken aback by how many people are buying these bikes without much previous bike experience.
The bikes come in a box and you have to put your own bike together. It’s an easy task (I think I love building bikes more than riding them!), but this is not IKEA and I wouldn’t trust someone who’s never put a bike together to do the job. There are so many technical posts made by people who have little to no idea about bicycles on the sub, and the sub has got to have the most non-drive-side photo posts of any sub I’ve ever visited (it’s as bad as eBay and Facebook Marketplace listings for shit bikes!).
It’s not nice to judge, and in this case I’m judging anyone who ever posts a non-drive-side photo to show off their bike as someone who’s quite clueless about bikes. IMHO you best learn from making mistakes, but making a mistake (say, overtightening bolts) on a carbon bike with carbon parts would be pretty damn costly, but hey, it’s not my money so why should I care?!
There are all types of people out there. Some people are born with a silver spoon, some people are OK with paying to win and ultimately I have to be OK with that whether I like it or not. I’m just processing how I feel about Canyon as a brand and inexperienced people buying expensive bikes and putting them together on their own vs getting a local bike shop to do it. It’s all innocent enough though and if there’s any kid of fault here it’s got to be blamed on Canyon and not the people buying their bikes.
/rant.
PS: Please post drive-side shots!