The Rudest bike shop?

Gambatte

Smail?
Snail?
email?


hmmmm...



Smile?

Bern.

bracestower, I can't beleive one of our staff said that to you. Condor should have standard track nuts in stock at all times. I will investigate and ensure this does not happen to anyone else.

martincroxall

I always found that when I went into Pedal Power at Loughborough they automatically assumed I knew nothing about bikes (I'm no expert but I've been riding "seriously" for 20 years now).

The final straw was when I went in to buy 10 spokes as I'd broken a couple on my MTB and thought a few spares would come in handy. At first they didn't want to sell them to me at all but when I insisted they announced to me (and the rest of the shop) that the wheel needed rebuilding and I'd be bringing it in to them soon. I thanked them for their opinion with a "well we'll have to see won't we?" and went on my way.

Result? Wheel still ok two years later and owner of wheel still to return to Pedal Power for any reason whatsoever (I'd rather trek into Leicester and go to Julies, good stock and nice, knowledgeable staff).

bracestower

Bern. wrote:

bracestower, I can't beleive one of our staff said that to you. Condor should have standard track nuts in stock at all times. I will investigate and ensure this does not happen to anyone else.

Actually, it happened twice. The first time I was directed to Clerkenwell Screws. I left the shop, headed down to Evans (who didn't have any either) and thought, "this is silly, they surely must have them", so I went back and was told by another member of staff, that there
were no 10mm track nuts.

logan 5

Bikefix aren't just rude they useless. Took my bike in for a few different jobs and the repair was abysmal and needed to be done again at extra cost of course by another dealer.

thebikeliker

Bike Bank in Workington gets my vote for rudest.

Went in to buy kit and he was just eating his burger. Spoke to me through a spray of crumbs while airily pointing to the shoe racks and was of no help at all. Just wanted to take the money.

Gave him a second chance some months later and he was no better. Still eating and talking with his mouth full.

He's the owner and so must feel he can do this. His staff are helpful though.

Usually its the other way round!

Returning_Commuter

Saw this thread on google and had to contribute...

Bought a bike overseas that arrived with a leaking cane creek shock. Thought it would be easier to take care of it rather than send it back. (It's a user-serviceable shock) Did some research and found a lot of stuff pinpointing the likely cause of the leak (we had identified the source) which was the volume plate.

Asked a local shop to order a seal kit in, and when it arrived, I took the bike round first thing. I explained what we had found on the internet about the cause / location of the problem - the guy seemed to have his own ideas about this, though... he began by telling me it wasn't possible for it to leak from the point we had identified... /sigh.

6 hours later - they ring and tell us the frame of the bike is bent and that's the cause of the leak. Charge us £40 labour. I wheel away a bike which is now leaking air from the shock, worse than before.

Faced with the prospect of shipping the bike back overseas, we decide to take the shock apart. (We actually had to get the shop to unscrew it as they had overtightened it, presumably in a misguided attempt to stop the leak) Immediately we can see that the shop completely failed to fit a vital o-ring which was clearly referred to in the instructions. Luckily they gave us a bag with the bits left over, and it's in there. We put in the ring in ourselves, replace the shock, voila, no leaks.

So I go back to the shop, tell the guy we fixed the shock. I explain he missed a bit - show him the bit that he removed (which included the o-ring he hadn't put in the new volume plate). He looks a bit surprised. Then I ask for my £40 back.

He refuses.

- He seems to think he was doing me a favour, because he actually spent 2 hours on the shock, and only charged me for one.
- He blames the manufacturers of the shock for failing to fit the o-ring to the volume plate. (despite the instructions - which came with it - telling you you had to do this)
- He tells me if he refunded me, he'd only have made a few quid on the part he'd ordered in, and he'd be pretty p***ed off and wouldn't want me in the shop again. I told him I could live with that. (Turns out that wasn't an offer, he sticks with the not refunding thing)

I asked if I could take it any further... he said 'Well I'm the owner'. So that's that then.

So: Rock and Road St Albans - nice blokes, apart from the owner, who's an arrogant, incompetent prat. The two of us spent £140 there in 3 months, but we'll be going out of our way to avoid them from now on.

P.S. The fine art of not scratching your brand new paintwork is lost on this guy.

flappy

Ah yes I'd forgotton about Rock and Road St Albans! - I called them to find out about whether they had an Altura Night Vision jacket. At the point when they said there was no call for Altura products something should have clicked.... They told me - that they had loads of commuting jackets and the largest cycle clothing range in Hertfordshire. I went there, they had NO jackets in stock, precious little clothing at all and one bloke who I presume was the owner who just looked miserable. I'd never go there again.

Max_Man

I tried to order a set of training roller's from a large road/race shop near me, spent 10 minute's explaining what they were to no avail....went in the next day as I thought I might have got a work experience kid or something as this is a fantastic shop where a lot of cyclists go and was told the boss's son was working and messed up a whole load of thing's. I guess it just goe's to show that there are bad apples even in great shop's.

Also got the roller's at a nice discount...

secretsam

Evans on Grays Inn Road

Unless you're totally committed, they seem not to care on the whole

Oddly enough, Condor, up the road, (the choice of the seriously committed cyclist) are quite nice, even though I am a total muppet :oops:

And I saw Alexei Sayle in there the other day

Black Keith

no, that's my mate Andrew.
he looks exactly like alexi sayle, and is a cyclist who uses condor..

I reckon.

BentMikey

I saw Stuart (Bikefix owner) on Saturday at the BHPC race, and didn't quite have the courage to tell him about this topic.

dazzawazza

Going back a few years, my brand new commuter received multiple scratches on it's first service: I was absolutely pi$$ed-off. This caused me to learn how to service bikes my-self and has actually saved me a lot of £££. Especially after buying the Lidl £18 tool kit.
I won't give the name and location of my LBS, because shaming LBSs is a bad thing! Would you prefer a BMW dealer in their place??
We want more people cycling with an available market (that's not Halfrauds).
If there's a local LBS, no matter how bad they are, Cagers are more likely to buy a bike and perhaps use it. Shaming LBSs won’t help.

dondare

Black Keith wrote:

no, that's my mate Andrew.
he looks exactly like alexi sayle, and is a cyclist who uses condor..

I reckon.

Alexi Sayle is a cyclist, I've seen him riding a bike in Camden.

secretsam

Black Keith wrote:

no, that's my mate Andrew.
he looks exactly like alexi sayle, and is a cyclist who uses condor..

I reckon.

It was Alexei, unless your mate Andrew can do his voice as well

Gambatte

dazzawazza wrote:

We want more people cycling with an available market (that's not Halfrauds).

End of the day, they do get people cycling and the bikes they sell tend to be better than the £59.99 deals you get in some of the supermarkets.

reverendmark

logan 5 wrote:

Bikefix aren't just rude they useless. Took my bike in for a few different jobs and the repair was abysmal and needed to be done again at extra cost of course by another dealer.

This matches my experience. Did a shabby job of the repair, and even tried to blame the jumping gears on "the bloke who sold you the bike" (I resolved this with a simple cable adjustment outside the shop).

They messed up in 5 different areas, and didn't even clear up random blobs of grease from the frame.

I would have taken it back to complain, but their first effort was so bad I wouldn't want to risk my bike in there again.

Slurp

I've always had very good service from Cycle Surgery Spitalfieds -- the one not in the market. The staff are occasionally a bit on the snobby side, but mostly are very approachable and polite. Sometimes they've not even charged me for some small part. Probably not worth the paperwork, but it still goes a long way to earning my loyalty.