I think if you have experience with bike maintenance or someone that can put the bike together for you and if you can read a geometry table and figure out whether or not a bike will work with you, you'll be fine.

The complaints I see usually in forums/reviews with them is sometimes not quite having all the screws or some little piece missing - and bikesdirect does make it up - but if you're an experienced mechanic with a drawer full of random bike parts, it usually seemed to be okay. Or bikes direct substitutes components that are equal or better to what the bikes are specc'd with - but that annoys people because that's not what they bought.

I haven't ordered from them, but whenever I get around to buying a touring bike - I will get the one off bikes direct because the geometry on there is more suited to me than the surly's.

I have a friend who does a lot of touring with a friend of his - my friend has (or had till he decided an upgrade was necessary for the same reason I don't like them - seat tube angle) a surly long haul trucker and his friend had the bikes direct touring bike.

They tour all over the US together - but a couple years ago when they went off to tour through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos... The bikes direct bike help up great and had no problems, the surly broke down a couple of times.

Bikesdirect seems to have picked up/bought the "names" of older bike companies and puts those brands on their bikes. They tend to use slightly older componetry that lets them keep their prices down.

So I have read a ton of complaints on review sites (taken with a grain of salt - because I have a ton of websites i like and the rest of that, but I've never bothered to go write a positive review on them... I do bother to go write a negative review if i've had a bad experience).... But the few people that I know personally who have bought from bikesdirect have been quite happy with their purchases - but they did tend to be experienced cyclists who knew what size they needed and mechanically inclined.