bike shops in / around bristol

the_prophet

Afternoon,

Does any body reccommend a bike shop in around the bristol area?? i'm a bit out of touch after selling off all my mtb gear a few yrs back, but looking to buy a new road bike, have a budget and idea of what i want but the shops ive been in so far have seemed pretty un-interested and not that keen to help and advise. obviously being my first road bike its not what im after!! (budgets £800 so not a crazy small amount)

where do you use? willing to travel a little way if needed

Thanks

Jon

EKIMIKE

Bike-UK at the top of Park Street - mainly Orbea road bikes, highly customer service orientated.
Mud-Dock at the waterfront behind Queens Square.

Whatever you do don't go anywhere near Evans in Bristol. They are extremely rude and tend to make promises and guarentee's which they end up not fulfilling. Their productivity is extremely low so once you hand them the cash for a bike it'll probably be a month before you'll see it.

nferrar

Whilst I'm not sure I'd recommend Evans for a place to go for advice I think the shop is decent enough otherwise, big range and for me at least they were pretty efficient in sorting out a bike (although only being able to do a car park test isn't great).

Bike is good as is the Spesh concept store (provided Spesh bikes are on your short list).

Strada I've always had good service from but they do tend to prefer the higher end of the market.

Mud Dock is OK if you want Trek, Scott and a couple of other brands - not sure if you can get a discount out of them though.

Terrys in Yate is more an old-school LBS feel and good service but limited range in stock and is a fair way out from Bristol centre. There's a Giant shop in Bradley Stoke now to but it seems a bit clinical to me and you're only going to get advice on Giants.

Westerberg

Strada (Ashton)

Zero G (Bedminster)

the_prophet

forgot i posted this to be honest. i'll give you an update though.

id visited a few of the shops i knew of in the centre, bike-uk, mud dock and evans. all pretty disapointing really. As my short list of 2, included a specialized allez i visited the specialized store on park street. werent massively helpful reference the fit and sizing and how it should "feel", i agreed to go back to have a proper fitting once they got a allez elite in stock in both 56 and 58's. They said they'd ring me the day after when they were due in, this was over a week and a half ago and ive had no contact since.

called into the zero g / giant store in bradley stoke yesterday lunch, spoke to possibly one of the most helpful sales assistants ive met, and i'm heading back up there tonight for a fitting / measurement on a defy 2.

evans were hugely disapointing also. had about 4 road bikes on display, sales staff were no where to be found etc

thanks for the advic guys

Westerberg

the_prophet wrote:

called into the zero g / giant store in bradley stoke yesterday lunch, spoke to possibly one of the most helpful sales assistants ive met, and i'm heading back up there tonight for a fitting / measurement on a defy 2.

+1 good guys in this shop.

markmax

Hope you get on well at Giant in Bradley Stoke. We found them to be helpful but we were looking at bike seats for children. I bought my first roadbike from Mud Dock and I found most of them to be helpful - I spent £725. Afterwards, I heard so many bad comments about them and my return to the shop subsequent to the purchase was not a good experience as when i was parting with lots of cash. Disappointing really, as it's a good bike shop with showers, secure bike park, cafe and quite a lot of stuff in stock. I am buying my third bike, £2k, through Bike UK and it's been hard going, although the staff have been polite enough. The guy who does the fitting was very good. Both of these stores do not give you little "extras" for the amount of money you are spending, particularly looking at the £2k mark, without a lot of hard bargaining and you wonder if it is worth the effort. Evans was fantastic with me when I needed to get my second bike set up properly - needed a change in stem and all sorts. They stayed late and changed tyres for me and everything. I am a girl though - I think this helps in some way, although I don't like it to feel like I am particularly helpless - just a little old fashioned! However, regardless of sex, I fully believe in excellent customer service, because of money you are spending, the fact that you could be a returning customer for accessories, services, etc and more importantly, that word obviously gets about!
Therefore, do let us know how you got on tonight. My first mountain bike was a Giant Boulder entry level - wish that Bradley Stoke store was set up back then!

beatsystem

John's bikes in Bath for get Bristol

the_prophet

well, its done

after all the groundwork yesterday i wasnt in there for aslong as expected. the guy helping me knew exactly what size i'd need, set me up on the rollers and talked about the feel and the sizing.

long and short of it is, i'm picking up a defy 2 tommorrow. cant wait.

great shop and staff, would reccomend them to anybody, shame the only sell giant though.

nferrar

Interesting about the Giant store (owned by same guy as Spesh store), I found it even more boutique-like than the Spesh store with everything a little too sterile. Not actually looked to buy anything from there yet though, someone I know reckoned they had crap service when trying to spend £300 on a commuter bike but seems others have had a more positive experience - I guess a lot comes down to the individual sales assistant.

The Spesh store were helpful for me but as with Evans I knew what I wanted already so I guess I made it easy for them, they sorted a test ride bike out in a couple of days though and rang me as promised.

Terrys have been the best in going the extra mile (sorted out my bike as a priority after I trashed it in a crash a week before going on a cycling holiday), the Spesh store where I bought it weren't interested in trying to squeeze me into their workshop schedule but I guess that's fair enough as they'd have to disappoint other customers to do so.

Good choice with the Defy though, they're nice bikes.

the_prophet

yeh ive noticed different people get different results. its strange. like you say, it must purely be down to the staff member you deal with and the way you deal with it.

i think they had a pretty easy run with me tonight, ive got nothing to compare it to being new to the road scene, so everything i know about an xc bike fit was put to one side, whilst i tried to ignore the twitcy / stretched feel of a road bike, listening to them telling me how well it seemed to fit with very little change. Something that giant were willing to do, that spesh were looking to charge extra for was swapping around stems for different lengths etc in order to make sure i had the pefect fit.

i agree about the sterile feel, its about the 3rd time ive been in there now, and at most there's been 2 other people in there and about 4/5 sales people. but, they impressed me yesterday and followed it up today.

roll on tommorrow!!!

markmax

Congratulations on your new Defy and thanks for letting us know about your experience. I personally really like the shop and as you say, shame it's just Giants they sell, although nothing wrong with those bikes - you get a lot of bike for your money so people keep telling me. It's just nice to have a choice.

Although you have nothing to compare this with , being your first bike, the fact that they took time to properly measure you and were prepared to change stems, etc at no extra cost - that's what a bike store should be doing, rather than sell you something right there and then on the shop floor that's not right, just because they can't be bothered to do some slight tweaking. When I got my new bike, I had read up on a lot of stuff, posted on forms, read other threads and armed myself with a lot of questions!! Even if I didn't totally understand everything (which I didn't!), they had to answer my questions and you can usually tell if they know their stuff by hesitation, not seeming sure when speaking, having to ask other people, etc.

Enjoy your new Giant Defy!

the_prophet

thanks just got it home and swapped the pedals over. looks even better than I thought it would.

will be going out on saturday, so long as its not wet - wouldnt want to get it dirty just yet would I...!! and i'l start a thread with a few pictures.

thanks for everyones help.