Four guarantees on every Flatbike transaction.

Community

November 13th 2022

One of the great joys of running Flatbike has been the opportunity to connect with customers and their needs in a personal way. Ultimately, we’re not here to move inventory, dropship from a foreign country, or any of the other impersonal approaches that seem to be so popular nowadays on the internet.

Instead, we’re here to solve problems. Your problems. What keeps you from getting on a bike–or getting back on one after years away? What would make cycling easier and more convenient for you? We’ll look more closely at some of those questions and observations in a moment. But first, here are three clear customer and immediate advantages of a relationship with Flatbike.

1. Flatbike 30-Day Money Back Guarantee.

It can be scary to buy a bike from the Internet, never having seen or ridden it. It was certainly scary for me, when we bought our first two CHANGE bikes from Taiwan, sight unseen, before starting Flatbike! But a full-size folding bike–my daughter called it “the everywhere bike”, both for the hill-climbing and the folding–is a game-changer in how much your bike gets used. And now we want you to experience this first-hand as well.

So if, in the first month after receiving your new bike, you are unsatisfied in any way, we guarantee you can return it for a full refund. We’ve just absorbed all your risk.

2. Free Shipping Guarantee in the US and Canada.

Notice that we didn’t say “free shipping when you spend boatloads of money”. Or “free shipping just in the continental US and Canada“. This is fully inclusive, and yes, we’ve shipped full-size folding bikes at our expense to Hawaii, Alaska, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. That’s a long way, so you bet we work hard to make sure first that you’ve got the right bike for your needs. If you’ve got any questions, just call (425-985-6219) or e-mail (customer_care@flatbike.com).

One important note . . . In Canada there’s a difference between free shipping and free delivery. If we’re covering the shipping of every little product, occasionally some of them to remote places at break-even, we can’t pay customs taxes too. So VAT will be extra. In the US, you’ll likely have taxes only in the State of Washington.

We’d love to offer free shipping elsewhere in the world also, but it’s just not possible. So if you’re outside the US, connect with us to see if we can help a bit on worldwide shipping. It’s been enough so far that we’ve got riders from Belgium to Abu Dhabi to the Marshall Islands. Not bad for a little shop in the Pacific Northwest US.

3. Flatbike Lifetime Frame Warranty Guarantee.

Riding your own bikes has its advantages. After personally pushing the limits of my own CHANGE folding rugged hybrid for years, we extended the frame warranty from a 3-year Changebike LTD warranty to a lifetime Flatbike warranty to guarantee against frame design failure.

This is possible because these bikes are already the only full-size folding bikes to pass mountain bike certification for ruggedness (ISO-4210). And connecting with our customers, we know the stresses they’ve been putting on these frames. From big riders with weight concerns to smaller ones with a penchant for catching air and hang time, we’ve seen what is possible when a frame has already passed a suite of automated destruction tests simulating a decade of use. You can use it freely. Do things. Have adventures.

4. Customer Privacy Guarantee.

We don’t store personal data on your site, so it’s impossible to hack your personal data. Beyond that, we don’t share your personal data with anyone else ever. It’s yours. (We do use your e-mail for a monthly Flatbike mailing list about updates and discounts, but even that can be stopped with a single click.)

Unique place in the bike market.

We said that we’re here to solve problems. Often, those are entirely different problems that overlap around portable adventure.

A trucker who wants to exercise on the road after all that sitting (and needs a bike that fits in the cab) has similar needs to a buff mountain bike rider who won’t have his hardtail MTB stolen at the post-ride dinner (because it’s hidden in the trunk).
An outdoorsy explorer who wants secondary transportation to fit easily in an RV cubbyhole has similar needs to an urban rider who wants to use her bike for everyday primary transportation (as long as it fits easily in the elevator or staircase).
A remote airfield pilot who wants two full-size folding bikes to fit in the back where just one bike used to (after disassembly) has similar needs to a bikerafter who now doesn’t have to fully disassemble his bike to put it on a raft.

All this is solved by the CHANGE family of full-size folding bikes, whether from models built by Changebike, Ltd in Taiwan or models we build ourselves in the US.

How’s it working out?

We’ve got some history now, so this is probably the place where we should just be quiet and let our customers do the talking.

Of course, that’s just one review. So here’s every TrustPilot review and rating we’ve ever received.

What all this means for you.

You’re not just buying a new bike. You’re buying a whole new relationship with your bike that changes how often you use it, where it can go, and how safe and secure it is between rides.

Portable adventure is our mission. That’s why we connect with customers long after the sale–if they want to–share in the excitement of living out that portable adventure over the years.

Whether it’s figuring out how to keep riding a full-size mountain bike from a small apartment (by storing it in the car)…