In The Know Cycling

Of the nearly 100 stores I track, I rank Competitive Cyclist, BTD (BikeTiresDirect), and Merlin Cycles as the best online bike stores for road and gravel cycling enthusiasts based on their prices, selection, customer satisfaction, and support.

Shopping at an online bike store saves time and money and provides the kind of product selection, delivery speed, and user experience many local bike shops can’t compete with.

I shop for bike gear. A lot. Bikes, wheels, components, bibs and jerseys, helmets, shoes, power meters, and all sorts of tires, cassettes, tools, and bike food are on my shopping list for new reviews and to keep me and my test bikes dialed in.

Fortunately, most of my shopping is done at one online bike store or another. Otherwise, I’d be spending a lot of time driving to bike shops within 50 miles of where I live. I could bike to them, look at all their bike gear, buy a few things, and strap them to my bike for the ride home. I could also hang out at their coffee bars, talking about cycling with the salespeople, mechanics, and other customers. But then, I’d never have time to write up new reviews.

Wait a minute; that sounds pretty good!

RELATED:

HOW AND WHERE TO BUY BIKES ONLINE

Since I also like to spend time with my family and have a budget that I need to adhere to, shopping at an online bike store and buying bike parts online is usually my most time-efficient and cost-effective option. When I shop online, I can usually find the best prices on the range of enthusiast-level bike gear I evaluate for the In The Know Cycling reviews.

And if I go to the right online bike shop, I’ll get the kind of shopping experience that most bike shops just can’t deliver – from detailed product information to easy ordering of the bike gear I want that’s already in stock to fast shipping of authorized dealer products to great after-sales service.

The problem I run into, and I imagine you do too, is that there are soooo many bike stores out there selling bike gear and bike parts online, many you may have never heard of and those you may hear of for the first time when you do a product search. It can be hard to determine which stores can be trusted and which have the best prices, selection, and most satisfied customers.

The bottom line is it’s hard to know which are the best stores to buy from.

Fortunately, because I shop for bike gear and bike parts online a lot, I’ve been building this experience over the years. I follow prices closely across many online stores. I also get a good idea of the range of bike gear they carry and keep in inventory and periodically check into what their customers say about them from independent services that rate each store’s customer satisfaction.

To share what I’ve learned, I’ve reviewed and rated nearly 100 online bike stores and ranked the ones I recommend you shop at. I’ve ranked them based on prices, customer satisfaction, product selection, and reader support.

These ratings are data-supported, analytically developed, and only compare online bike shops that serve road and gravel cycling enthusiasts, those of us who are regular, committed riders who are serious and knowledgeable about the bike gear we buy. I update this review and ranking every quarter.

Here are my latest rankings:

ONLINE BIKE STORE RANKINGS

Source: In The Know Cycling, April 24, 2023

Unless noted, stores listed above ship internationally. 
Exceptions:
(1) Ships only to US and Canadian residents 
(2) Ships only to UK residents 
(3) Ships only to UK and European residents  
(4) Don't ship to UK and European residents
(5) Ships only to European residents
(6) Ships only to Netherlands and Belgium
(7) Don't ship to US and Canadian residents

In The Know Cycling is ad-free, subscription-free, and reader-supported. If you want to help keep it rolling without any added cost to you, buy your gear and kit after clicking the store links on the site. When you do, we may earn an affiliate commission that will help me cover the expenses to create and publish our independent, comprehensive and comparative reviews. Thank you, Steve. Learn more.

If you don’t see an online bike shop you know or have heard of on the list, it likely didn’t make the cut. About 2/3rds of the stores I track don’t usually because their product selection is limited or their customer satisfaction ratings are meh or worse.

A full explanation of how I came up with this ‘Best’ list, what the ratings mean, and the names and reasons why those who didn’t make the list follows.

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ONLINE BIKE STORE RATING CATEGORIES

Based on all I’ve learned from reading your comments and reviewing the results of an opinion poll I’ve run on the site about online stores, I developed four basic criteria about what matters to you when rating each online bike store: Price, Satisfaction, Selection, and Support. Here’s an explanation of each and how I came up with the 0, 1, and 2 scores you see in the ratings above.

Price

We want to buy bike gear at stores with the lowest net price.  The net price includes the product’s base price, additional shipping costs if the online bike shop charges them, and any taxes included in the price.

The stores are rated on Net Price as follows:

0 – Limited discount.  Net prices are usually the same or within 10% of the price recommended by the company that sells the product.  This price is often called the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price) or RRP (recommended retail price).  In the US, this is often also called the MAP, or minimum advertised price, the price at which stores agree to advertise the product or risk voiding the agreement to sell the company’s line of products. MAP is legal in the US but not Europe and most other countries.

1 – Modest discount.  Net prices across many current model year products are typically 10% to 20% off the MSRP/RRP

2 – Deep discount.  Net prices across many current model year products are typically 15% to 40% off the MSRP/RRP

Sales and value-added taxes are added depending on where you are having the product shipped, so while they add to the net price, they aren’t different from one store to the next.

Many readers also ask about the import costs of buying at a UK and EU-based online store and shipping it to the US, Canada, or another non-EU country. You want to know the net price of something you buy at the EU-based online store versus what it would cost you if you bought it at an online or physical store in your country.

First, because customs services rather than stores impose import fees, it’s not something I can use to compare stores. Second, because each country imposes import duties and taxes differently, at different rates, only above a certain declared product value, and irregularly or infrequently, it is difficult to include import charges in a rating system, even when comparing stores based in one country versus another.

However, importing bike gear can be part of the cost of buying from a specific store, so it’s worth investigating to determine the exact cost.

First, the better online bike stores and places to buy bike parts work with shippers who have figured out how to work with customs to minimize or avoid charges. For example, some stores will break up sales and shipments of high-priced items (like your front and rear wheels) or declare shipment values below the level that triggers customs involvement. You can do this yourself by keeping the total invoice on the items you purchase on any order below the amount that will trigger import charges.

Also, some stores use shippers with processes that move their packages through the system without interruption. Living in the US, I have only ever had one package come from overseas charged by customs. I stopped using that store!

Second, if you are concerned that you’ll end up paying more from an online store if your package does get stopped and charged, you can do a basic calculation to determine if you are better off buying from a store in your home country. Add the cost of getting charged by customs to the net price of the product and compare it to the net price of buying it at an online store or bike shop in your home country.

Here’s an example. Say you live in the United States like I do and want to buy a wheelset that retails for $1200 at a local bike shop in the US. Let’s say the same wheelset sells for $1000, including delivery from an online store in the UK, a discount level typical of the difference between a local bike shop in the US and an online store in the UK.

If the wheelset from the UK store were to be stopped by customs, it would cost about 11% more, including the import duty and handling fee. My net cost would then be $1110 from the UK store. I’d pay $1260 at the bike shop, including a 5% state sales tax.

Depending on your state, US online stores may or may not charge sales tax for goods delivered to you. Their pricing, selection, and service are often better than local bike shops. So for this same wheelset, it is worth comparing the cost of buying it from a US online store versus the customs imposed charges of a UK store.

Effective 2016, US Customs raised the value of goods you can import into the country to $800 without being subject to charges. Now, you won’t have to worry about import charges for anything you buy below that amount.

Satisfaction

At a minimum, we want online bike shops that we can trust and that we aren’t taking a risk buying from. Ideally, we want stores that will provide an excellent customer experience from the moment we click onto their site and through every step of the buying experience – learning about, ordering, delivering, and standing behind a product.

Treat us the way we would expect to treat ourselves. Nothing less. We’ve got our riding to focus on and want an outstanding, hassle-free store experience.

The stores are rated on Customer Satisfaction as follows:

0 – Unacceptable/Unknown. Despite price or other factors that may initially attract you to a store, you run too high a risk of being dissatisfied shopping at a store with this rating. On average, customers rate the store less than 4 out of 5 stars meaning they’ve racked up a fair amount of average, poor, or bad ratings, or there is not enough customer satisfaction data available on this store to reach any conclusion about it.

1 – Very Satisfied. While some customers may have been unsatisfied with a few aspects of the shopping experience, they rate the experience very highly overall, with at least a 4-out-of-5 rating.

2 – Overwhelmingly Satisfied. These are stores that the overwhelming majority of customers rate very highly and would have no reservations recommending to anyone. A high 4-star rating is typical of these stores, and less than 10% of their customers have called them average or worse. 

If the online bike shop rates a 0, it doesn’t appear in my rankings. I haven’t recommended it and won’t link to it on the site. You may think I’m setting the bar high for customer satisfaction. You’re right. There are too many online stores with great prices and very satisfied customers to mess with those that are only average or good at best.

Several stores that rate 0 don’t systematically poll their customers, don’t use one of the independent services, or don’t have enough feedback to conclude you should or shouldn’t shop there. That tells me that customer satisfaction or transparency about how satisfied their customers are isn’t high on their list of what’s important to them. That crosses them off my list of stores I want to shop at.

Here are the stores I’ve rated 0 because there’s no or too little feedback about them from independent services:  Amain Cycling, BicycleBuys, BicycleWarehouse, BikeExchange, Bikesale.com, Bob’s Bicycles, Canada Bicycle Parts, Excel Sports, La Bicicletta, Mike’s Bikes, Nashbar, The Pros Closet, Total Cycling, Universal Cycles, Westbrook, and Worldwide Cyclery.

Here are the stores I’ve rated 0 because there is sufficient feedback to conclude that their customer satisfaction level is average or worse: 4theBike, BikeBling, Bike Closet, Bikester, Evans Cycles, Lordgun, ProBikeKit outside the UK, Probikeshop, R&A Cycles, Rose, Torpedo 7, Total Cycling, and Wheelies.

Several rating services collect customer satisfaction data and publish the results. I lean on TrustPilot and Google Customer Reviews as these are the most credible services I have found in my research. Occasionally they disagree; when they do I put a premium on what customers have told TrustPilot because of the quality of their feedback.

Other rating services like Feefo and BizRate are no longer considered in my evaluation because some aspects of their approach to collecting and displaying the data are not as comprehensive, independent, or transparent as those done by TrustPilot and Google. When those or similar services make up the bulk of the Google aggregate rating, I also disregard that.

Some services like eTrusted Shops provide a money-back guarantee for consumers under a specific policy. That’s nice if you have a problem, but having this service says nothing about how satisfied customers are with the store. Others like GeoTrust or Trustwave tell you a site complies with specific procedures for secure credit card use but nothing about how happy customers are doing business with the site.

I don’t consider Facebook, Yelp, or other social media ratings of stores. These are not collected independently of the store or have any validation process.

I look at all of this customer satisfaction rating data for the stores to develop the 0, 1, or 2 ratings you see above.

Selection

We want to buy from online bike stores that offer a good range of the products, brands and models we road and gravel cycling enthusiasts ride, wear, and use. Many other stores cater primarily to recreational or mountain bike cyclists, triathletes, hikers, runners, etc., but carry a few lines or products that enthusiasts might buy. Finding what most enthusiasts look for at these stores is like finding needles in a haystack. Your time is better spent going to stores specializing in selling needles and very little hay.

We also want to shop at stores with the enthusiast’s selection of products in inventory when we want to buy them rather than ordering them and waiting for the dealer to deliver them to the store and then to us. We can all do that locally.

The stores are rated on Selection as follows:

0 – Poor Selection.  Very few brands and models are used by road and gravel cycling enthusiasts

1 – Limited Selection.  A good range of products or models from a few major brands (3-4 or less) enthusiasts favor in each of the major categories (bikes, wheelsets, components, apparel) or many major brands but a limited model range or inventory in those brands.

2 – Broad Selection.  Many (>4) of the major brands that enthusiasts favor in each category have a good range of models and a good inventory ready to ship.

How do I determine these selection ratings? First, stores that sell primarily recreational level bike gear, close-out or older goods, sell just one category like bikes or vintage bike clothing, or cater primarily to triathletes or MTBers are ranked 0. They aren’t stores we’ll find a lot at and aren’t worth searching for gear. I haven’t listed these in the table above.

In case you were wondering where some stores went that you might have heard of or showed up in your Google searches, here are the stores I rated 0 for selection for the reasons I just mentioned: Arts Cyclery, Bikesdirect.com, BobShop, Cambria, Cycledivision, CyclesUK, Cycledivision, Modern Bike, Planet X, Power Meter City, REI, Ribble, Rutland Cycling, Sun & Ski, TBSM, Tour Cycling, Trisports, and Winstanleys.

Stores are rated 1 or “Limited Selection” if they carry only a few brands enthusiasts ride, carry only a few models of a large number of enthusiast brands, or carry only a limited number of a larger range of brands or models in inventory.

For example, an online bike shop with an Ultegra groupset but only in one or two combinations of crank lengths, chainset and cassette ratios would rate 1 for selection. If they only carry a couple of the major wheelset brands and a lot of less widely distributed, often national brands, I would rate them 1. If they sell a wider selection of brands and/or models, but you usually need to special order many of these, what they really have is limited and rate a 1 in my book.

There are undoubtedly financial and marketing reasons that some online stores use these strategies, but if you don’t look closely, you might think they have a better selection than they actually do.

It is perfect if the store has exactly what you are looking for in stock at a good price and good customer satisfaction ratings. That’s the store for you for the product you are looking for. It doesn’t matter to you if it is one of only a few in the sizes, ratios, standards, colors, etc., made in that model. It’s just that the stores I’m ranking 1 are limited in what they have compared to those that carry much more stock and sell a standard range of options in a given model.

The “Broad Selection” stores I rank 2 typically carry at least a third to a half of the brands that make the range of products that show up in my reviews, the models within those brands that we enthusiasts ride, a good range of options in those models, and carry a lot of it in their inventory rather than having to go back to their distributor to get it when you want to order it. They also often carry smaller brands that are well regarded and for which the manufacturer limits their distribution to stores they have found will service their products well.

Support

According to polls I’ve run on the site over the years, cyclists read our bike gear reviews first and foremost to “get in-depth reviews and recommendations on gear I’m planning to buy.”

A smaller group of you read the site either to do some initial research or confirm what you’ve decided to buy is the right choice. Very few read the site to keep up on what’s happening in bike gear. That’s good because I don’t offer the kind of press-release coverage of new gear that most ad-supported cycling publications do to keep their advertisers happy.

Knowing the overwhelming number of you are here on your way to buying something rather than merely browsing with no intention to buy in the near term, I work hard to provide you regularly updated links to the highest-rated stores – those with the lowest net price, in-stock listings for each product in my reviews.

I also make sure to link you to those online bike shops that give you exclusive price discounts and codes as readers of this site or that provide the site a commission when you buy through the red links on the site that go directly to the stores and their product listing pages for the gear we’ve reviewed. Those commissions get plowed back into the cost of running the site and buying gear that we review. This enables me to keep the reviews independent of industry influence, free of advertisers and the potential bias that can come with them, and keep the site free of subscription costs.

Quite a few readers have commented that they want to buy from an online bike store that will give them the best deals and that supports In The Know Cycling’s unique and independent approach to cycling reviews. So, I’ve come up with a Support rating aligned with those objectives.

The stores are rated on Support as follows:

0 – No Support. The store offers no discount to In The Know Cycling readers and provides no commission to the site for sales through links from this site. Those links are in black.

1 – Average Support. The store offers no unique discount to readers, but it supports this site at the same level it supports other sites. Those links are in red.

2 – Strong Support. The store provides this site’s readers with exclusive deals and/or more support than others. Those links are also in red.

Model

For context, I’ve also listed one of a half-dozen categories describing the business model the online bike shop uses. This is an informational description only and doesn’t figure in the store rating or ranking.

The good news is that there are many business models that online bike stores are using to be successful and provide you the combination of price, service, selection, and support you want these days. Some models may suit you better than others and can help you choose between them.

Here are brief descriptions of the model designations I use in the chart above.

Superstore – These online cycling stores are very large and have massive purchasing power, allowing them to sell products typically for 20-40% below the total retail price and sell all over the world.

Discounter – These stores offer good discounts, some as much or more than the Superstores though many only in the 20% range. Some discounters also offer very good service though not to the level of the stores in the Premium Service category.

Chain – Usually a well-known, large chain of cycling or outdoor stores, these stores sell bike gear, often focusing on bikes, at both their physical stores and online stores. This allows you to see, touch, or even ride display models before buying. Customers order online and get their gear shipped to their home or the store for pick up, what’s called “click and collect.”

Extension – These are typically stores with a single location or a small number of stores in a concentrated geographical area that see an online storefront as a way to extend their business further to reach customers far beyond their physical location, sometimes with a unique combination of high-end or niche products.

There are also many large cycling brands like Specialized, Trek, Giant, and Cannondale, and smaller ones that sell directly to consumers online and through their own branded physical stores and bike shop dealers. Most sell just their own gear online and at full retail price, but occasionally, they will discount a line of theirs that is being discontinued and sell it through their online ‘outlet store’ at a discounted price. I have found no independent customer satisfaction data on these stores and have not included them in the lists above.

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Is there an online store you have used or are curious about that isn’t one of the nearly 100 in the table or mentioned elsewhere in this post? Please let me know in the comment section below, and I’ll check it out.

If you’ve benefited from this review and want to keep new ones coming, buy your gear and kit after clicking the store links in this review and others across the site. When you do, we may earn an affiliate commission that will help me cover the expenses to create and publish more ad-free, subscription-free, and reader-supported reviews that are independent, comprehensive, and comparative.

If you prefer to buy at other stores, you can still support the site by contributing here or buying anything through these links to eBay and Amazon.

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Thanks, and enjoy your rides safely! Cheers, Steve

Before asking me about a store you are interested in,

Add the store’s URL to these links:
For Trust Pilot – https://www.trustpilot.com/review/
For Google Customer Reviews – https://www.google.com/shopping/ratings/account/lookup?q=

I don’t recommend you shop there if they have less than 4 stars with at least 100 reviews or no matter how many stars with less than 100 reviews. Other rating systems like Facebook, Yelp, Testsieger, eTrusted Shops, etc., are not independent rating services. Ignore their ratings. Thanks, Steve