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Photographing your bike for an inspection

An online inspection is only as good as the photos it's based on. Bad photos produce an inconclusive report — and when that happens, we write "inconclusive" in the report rather than guessing. The five minutes you spend on a proper photo set is the difference between a useful report and a wasted $99.

This is what we need and how to set up.

Setup

1. Clean the bike

A thin film of road grime hides stress cracks. Wipe the frame down with a clean dry cloth before you start. You don't need to degrease or pressure-wash; just get rid of anything masking the surface.

2. Shoot in daylight

Outdoors in open shade is ideal. Overcast days are perfect. Direct sun creates harsh shadows that hide detail on black carbon and blow out highlights on clearcoat.

If you're indoors, pick the brightest window-lit spot you have. Phone flash works as a last resort but can create hot-spots that hide cracks. No flash > flash, almost always.

3. Use a plain background

A garage door, blank wall, or the driveway. Avoid busy lawns, patterned rugs, or other bikes in the frame — they compete with what we're trying to see.

The shot list

We need these shots, in roughly this order. You can upload more if something looks interesting, but don't skip any of these.

1. Full side profile, drive side. Camera square to the bike. Bike level. Wheels in. The frame should fill about 80% of the frame width.
2. Full side profile, non-drive side. Same as above, other side.
3. Head tube and fork crown close-up. Tight on the junction where the fork meets the head tube. Hold the camera perpendicular to the head tube so the light doesn't reflect off the carbon in a way that hides layup detail.
4. Bottom bracket area. Tip the bike or get low. We want to see the underside where the BB shell meets the down tube and chainstays.
5. Chainstays and seat stays, both sides. Close enough that we can see paint, close enough that we could spot a weave ripple.
6. Seatpost clamp and seat tube junction. The clamp itself, and the joint where the seat tube meets the top tube. Both are common impact-transfer zones.
7. Anywhere you're worried about. If you suspect a specific spot, shoot it tight with a coin or business card in frame for scale. Add a caption explaining what you're seeing.

Optional but helpful

A short video walk-around — twenty seconds, slowly circling the bike. Not required. Sometimes catches things a still misses, and useful for geometry spot-checks.

Captions. The order form has an optional comment field for every photo. Use it to flag anything you're curious about: "this chainstay rub is the spot I was asking about." The inspector reads every caption.

What NOT to send

• Photos of the bike in pieces. We need it assembled so we can see joints under load.
• Motion-blurred or badly out-of-focus photos. If you can't read the logo, we can't read the layup either.
• Heavily edited / filtered photos. We want the actual color and contrast of the frame.
• Bikes covered in dust, grease, or mud. (Seriously — wipe it down.)

After you upload

Our inspector reviews every photo, writes section-by-section findings (frame, fork, handlebars, seatpost), flags any areas of concern, and publishes a structured report. You get a private link within two business days. See a sample report for what to expect.