SSCX Bike Arrival - Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno

For a couple years I have been eyeballing the Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno from Bikes Direct.  I like the idea of singlespeed cyclocross and this is (supposed to be) a cheap way to try it.  Last week I finally hit the purchase button and today it arrived at work.  I quickly pulled it from the box and began removing the packing and protection.  The box itself was pretty beat, but the bike is well wrapped and protected.  Or so I thought.  I pulled off the foam on the seat tube to find a small dent seven inches up from the bottom bracket shell.  It's very odd since there were no parts near that spot.  The closest was the front wheel, but that couldn't have caused it.  My best guess is that it happened while being prepped and boxed and was just missed.  I had already been emailing with Matt from BD, so I shot him an email with a photo of the dent.  He immediately responded and asked if I would accept a $50 refund.  Absolutely.  That's awesome customer service, and the refund was given within 30 minutes of me sending the photo.  Rad.

This dent is worth $50

After getting all the protective material off of the bike, I quickly threw it together to get a weight.  From searching online, I was expecting it to be around 24 pounds, but was pleasantly surprised when my Feedback Sports scale read 22.31 pounds.  I have already ordered some new parts and have some old parts that I will install in place of stock items, so the bike will be vastly different from stock.  The details of those parts will come soon.  Based on looks alone, I'm already happy with the bike.

The bike will look much different when I'm finished swapping parts

Some details of the bike that I could not find online:

• 30.0 seat post collar
• 52cm frame has a 95mm head tube
• Stem length is 130mm!
• Handlebar width is 45cm C-C at the hoods
• The crank length is 175mm
• The measurements for ST and TT match the geometry listed online
• The bike ships with the fixed cog installed and the freewheel in the parts box
• Included for the brakes are both Y cable straddles and aluminum triangle cable straddles