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andrewlwood
Posts: 224
I was in Evans Wandsworth yesterday buying a new bike (hurrah). While I waited for them to set it up, I sat and watched as a guy came in with his wife and baby to pick up his new Viva Pista (as I found out later). So the guy has just spent £1500 on a fixie. Turns to his wife and says 'what do you think, looks cool eh?'. As he talks to the staff (who were amazingly well-behaved, I have to say, esp for Evans), it emerges that he asked them to fit a new handlebar 'for the look', which they duly did. A 20-minute discussion then arises because he wants them to put the leather bar wrap from the original handlebar onto his new bullhorn style bars. They patiently explain that you can't reuse bar tape.
They fit the handlebar, removing the tape to get it off (because the bar slides through the stem, because it's an antiquated pile of nonsense) and bring out his bike with the new bar on it. 'Can you put the tape back on the new bar?' he asks again. 'Er... we can try, but as I said, almost certainly not'. 'Oh'. Cue another 20-minute discussion.
So, the short conclusion - this guy clearly knows absolutely nothing about bikes, but has blown £1500 on a bike for fashion's sake on which he is going to be an absolute liability, to himself and others. I desperately wanted to say something, but managed not to - but if I ever see him, I'll be keeping a very wide berth.
Am I being harsh? Did Evans owe him a duty of care? Is this a common occurrence? It really unnerved me.
They fit the handlebar, removing the tape to get it off (because the bar slides through the stem, because it's an antiquated pile of nonsense) and bring out his bike with the new bar on it. 'Can you put the tape back on the new bar?' he asks again. 'Er... we can try, but as I said, almost certainly not'. 'Oh'. Cue another 20-minute discussion.
So, the short conclusion - this guy clearly knows absolutely nothing about bikes, but has blown £1500 on a bike for fashion's sake on which he is going to be an absolute liability, to himself and others. I desperately wanted to say something, but managed not to - but if I ever see him, I'll be keeping a very wide berth.
Am I being harsh? Did Evans owe him a duty of care? Is this a common occurrence? It really unnerved me.
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Comments
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Victory of form over function - writ large.
I've seen the odd fixie in Bristol - never seen one go up one of our many hills though ...
If he wanted to be cool in my eyes, he would have bought a unicycle. We had a chap come on one of our hilly rides - shortly before going coast to coast for charity.Giant ATX 830 45mm Country-Plus tyres. age 50, 18 stone, flappy hi-vis, basket, bell, kickstand FCN=15 ?,0 -
they've just dropped the price from 1500 to 900 quid on them...
silly thing is, evans also do the same bike in blue with flat bars !!!"I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, how good is that"
--Jens Voight0
