Brixton, Condor or Cycle Surgery for service?

jonny_trousers

I want to get my Fuji SS serviced and was wondering which LBS you would recommend? I live in the Crystal Palace area - hence Brixton being an option - and work near Holborn.

The bike will almost certainly need a new headset as well as bottom bracket and a wheel will need trueing.

I've had a repair done at Brixton before which was unsuccessful. They sorted it at no extra charge on a second visit, but it was a ball ache going in three times. I also notice Brixton charge the most for a full service.

I've always had a good vibe from my local Cycle Surgery and they are the cheapest, but them being a chain puts me off a little.

Condor?

russellj

beelixton - no question. nat or jim - finest wrenches this side of christendom.

adscan

Brixton...every day of the week.

snailracer

So we have 2 posters who joined the forum in the last 2 days, whose opening posts were the "recommendations" above.

Dodgy, or wot?

3 RAV

russellj
Joined: 20 Dec 2010
Posts: 1

adscan
Joined: 19 Dec 2010
Posts: 1

:roll:

jonny_trousers

To be fair on Adscan, he would've had to have been able to see into the future if he set up an account purely to answer my question.

I like the idea of Brixton - with it being a cooperative and all - but I was a bit cheesed off with the repair I had done there that caused me to have to go back with the same problem just two days later. They are also quite a bit more expensive than the other shops I mention and they don't even have central London overheads.

7molles

Err, I've just joined but I will post a recommendation. Take it or leave it. Jean-Claude at Love-Bikes, who is in the same location near Old Street as Bespoke Cycles. He's a former pro rider, great mechanic and has loads and loads of repeat customers. Only problem is he's out of the country until January sometime.

Hoopdriver

Here's one to avoid: Mosquito, in Islington. Utter pirates and their ham-fisted backroom boys damn near ruined my tourer. The LBS from hell.

dilemna

Why can't you service your bike yourself?

jonny_trousers

dilemna wrote:

Why can't you service your bike yourself?

jonny_trousers

Thought I would follow tis one up.

I chose Brixton in the end and was very pleased with them. The service cost way less than quoted on their website and they got it all done in one afternoon. They could probably have conned me into thinking I needed a new bottom bracket, but they swapped the perfectly good one over from my crash damaged Pearson with me believing it wouldn't fit. The bike looks great and runs really smoothly.

I needed to pop back in today to have some bits tightened and they did what I wanted while I waited at no extra charge.

My only criticism would be to do with the way they store bikes awaiting collection (all piled up against each other in the showroom). I needed a new carbon fork fitting and once I got it out the shop I discovered it had a really large scratch on it, presumably from being stacked against other bikes. I didn't complain because it's only my commuter hack and I will probably scratch it myself in time, as well as the fact that the time I had left to park was rappidly running out. I did see a nice Condor all squished up among the junk the good folks of Brixton bring in for repair and I fet terribly sorry for it.

All in all I was very happy and will definitely use them again.