New Carrera road bike - bust already.

redddraggon

meagain wrote:

"£400 wheels are cheap!"

No, 400 quid wheels are just some supplier having a laugh! At the punter's expense (sic) obviously.

£400 wheels are cheap compared to say £1200 Zipps, or £1500 Bora or even more expensive Lightweights.

PeteCamb

When I wanted a lightweight road bike, i went to a local second hand bike shop. I had a look at the frames which they had (as second hand bikes) and picked an Abbey Camano mixte frame (by Abrams of Waltham Cross) for £50 (I had had a hip replacement). I stripped and rebuilt it with the equipment I wanted to use (I bought a lot of it cheaply from a friend in the trade who was retiring). I built my own wheels and it cost approx. £150 all in. That was in 1997 and in the ten years since I have ridden 29,554 miles (I am riding less per year now as I am 79 years old).

Rich Hcp

cyclinggirl wrote:

Well, it's happened again. The bike was fixed and the dodgy part replaced, now the exact same thing has happened again.
My dad was out on it yesterday, luckily wasn't going fast and that was it, the exact thing happened again, same problem.
He took it back to Halfords today and was told by the young lad behind the counter that the manager was'nt in and they would get in touch with him after they had looked into it.

Think my dad asked for his money back or a different bike but they just said they would look into it.
I mean what if he had fallen off and injured himself, it is so dangerous.

He doesn't really like making a fuss but I wouldn't have left the shop until I had got somewhere.

Should he demand his money back? Surely this bike must be very faulty if the same thing has happened twice.

He should get his money back.

It's probably the way they've set it up. You could go to another halfords and it would be fine.

I would get me money and go somewhere else.

Don't get too hung up on the "only £400" thing, the budget is the budget. You could a get a Dawes, or Claud Butler for that type of money from a proper bike shop.

CrookedCucumber

A friend of mine bought what appears to be a very nice Specialized mountain bike, with front suspension and disk brakes, for about £300 at his local bike ship. I was appalled (and envious) at how cheap this seemed to be, compared to machines of broadly similar specification at the chain stores.

Now, admittedly a certain amount of haggling was involved, and he has spent a fair wack of money in that shop over the last twenty years or so

But my point is that you can build up some kind of working relationship with an independent shop, and that's never going to happen in the chains (I think). That's why I prefer not to shop in Halfords and the like, regardless of whether their stuff is good value for money or not.

I think a lot of people are attracted to shopping at Halfords _because_ of its impersonality (and because Halfords shops usually have damned great car parks out front, of course). I think people who are new to cycling have the idea that if they go to a proper bike shop the staff will make fun of them (or encourage them to spend thousands of pounds). To be fair, I think that does happen sometimes, which doesn't help the situation.

Anyway, whatever your budget, you're likely to be able to get a bike to suit you at an independent shop and still spend little or no more than your would in Halfords, unless you're looking to spend less than £100, I guess.

Garry71

I've given up on using the lbs, and now prefer Halfords. Why? There seems to be no browsing of accessories allowed in the lbs. If you ask to look at something, they seem to think you've already agreed to buy it.
A typical example: I asked if they sold puncture proof slicks in 700x25. They fetched out some 700x28 tyres with deep treads in them and asked me for forty quid. When I said they weren't what I wanted, I got a dirty look.
I went to Halfords and picked out the ones I wanted with no one bothering or spying on me.
That was the 2nd lbs I'd tried for tyres that day. I walked out of the first one after being ignored for ten minutes because they'd rather listen to someone moaning how expensive their expensive bikes were!

Garry

CrookedCucumber

Garry71 wrote:

I walked out of the first one after being ignored for ten minutes because they'd rather listen to someone moaning how expensive their expensive bikes were!

Sadly, independent shops (and not just bike shops) have to take a share of the blame for their current woes. Many, many years ago I was shopping for a road racing bike, and I can remember getting a really dirty look when I asked if I could have shorter gearing on it. I remember getting remarks like ``If you can't pedal up any kind of hill with these gears, you're just not fit enough''. Which may be true, but it's my bloody money! That shop went out of business about ten years ago.

Similarly, there used to be independent hi-fi shops, and independent camera shops, and independent jewelers in our High Streets, but many of them scared away potential customers with their snobbish, elitist attitudes.

Now there are very few independent shops of any kind left. Sure, they can blame the supermarkets and chains for that, but they have to recognize that their own attitudes were part of the problem.

Happily, there are still a few independent bike shops that are worth shopping at.

cyclinggirl

willhub wrote:

cyclinggirl what gears does the bike have? Are they sora?

I don't know what the gears are, still waiting to hear from Halfords but I think the customer service is appauling.

JWSurrey

Wow - that's really unlucky.
There are some great deals around at the moment - seems to be that the general economic slowdown is affecting stock turnover.
Ribble are doing a nice bike for 400 quid.

Your LBS should be able to manage a gear service for you, at a reasonable price.

andrewc3142

Not much to say on Halfords since I only use it to buy Muc Off and lube from time to time. However, on the question of group sets, you need to be sure it is the whole group set and not just those parts of it you can see. It's easy to stick one 105 component on there (the 105 is an excellent workhorse) that has the name prominently shown and then use cheapo components for the other bits. Not at all the same as having a 105 groupset.