Wimbledon LBS

ddraver

Evening

Yet another question from me...I need a bike shop to true some Mavic wheels. I live in Wimbledon so could do with somewhere near by.

Anyone know of a good one in the area? Most of them seem to be chains unfortunatly

Cheers
David

veronese68

Old style bike shop in the village called Smith Brothers, on Church Road. Top of the hill down the High Street and turn right at the mini roundabout. I think they are still there, hope so. I got my Falcon 10 speed racer in there when I was about 12.

DonDaddyD

Lived in Wimbledon for 5 years and only once used a bike shop for a repair.

I always recommend Cyclopolis in Balham. However, the large Evans Cycles off Gladstone Road did a wheel true for me, I have no complaints.

fat_tail

Smith brothers still there. I think there might be an Actionbikes in the town. If willing to travel a bit further then I recommend Putney Cycles and Velosport on Upper Richmond road in Putney.

owenlars

Smith Brothers are good, go and speak to John about your wheels.

ShandyH

London Cycle Workshop in Clapham are a Mavic stockist and true Mavic wheels and have all the spokes etc. They've just trued my Ksyrium SLS's. They are reasonable, quick and seem to do a very good job.

wandsworth

+1 for London Cycle Workshop. It's on St John's Hill near Clapham Junction. More Wandsworth/Battersea than Clapham, really (not that it matters*, just that Clapham may seem a bit further if you're coming from Wimbledon).

* It does to some.

On_What

Pearsons in Sheen/Sutton

notsoblue

On_What wrote:

Pearsons in Sheen/Sutton

Every time I've tried to get booked in there there was a 1-2 week waiting list...

Putney Cycles have been pretty convenient for me.

ddraver

wandsworth wrote:

+1 for London Cycle Workshop. It's on St John's Hill near Clapham Junction. More Wandsworth/Battersea than Clapham, really (not that it matters*, just that Clapham may seem a bit further if you're coming from Wimbledon).

* It does to some.

They re looking like the ones...they have the stupid Mavic spokes in stock too...

BigLights

+1 for London Cycle Workshop on St. John's Hill. They're fantastic, never ever rip you off, great service, good guys too. And they know their way around Mavic.

menthel

Smith Bros is still there. There are branches of action bikes and evans in the main town centre. Bright cycles is just down the road in Raynes Park. There are also the others as mentioned above a little further out.

Bright cycles are my local- not really competitive on bike prices etc but do decent servicing and generally quick turn arounds.

DrLex

menthel wrote:

Smith Bros is still there[…]

Must be one of the few remaining shops of "old Wimbledon" village; like Veronese, my first bike was bought there although subsequent was from Holdsworths on the LRR.

robwatkins

Smith Bros in the village is good, although they have a very limited range of accessories. I've not found their workshop particularly cheap but it's not that expensive either. The couple of times I've dropped my bike in it was repaired the same day.

Evans in the town is huge so there's always a good selection of accessories/clothes. I don't rate their workshop whatsoever - you seemingly have to book weeks in advance and they don't seem that interested in minor repairs unless you pay for a full service. Quality of their work is pretty shocking too IME.

There's a Halfords too.... say no more. The shop manager is really nice but not sure I would get a bottle cage fitted there, let alone some wheels trued.

I have had one piece of work done at Action Bikes: fitting a set of SKS mudguards. They were £10 cheaper than Evans, able to book me in the next day and did a fantastic job, even using a piece of meccano to make the front guard fit snugly on the fork. Next time I need some work done I'll be going back.

ddraver

Thanks for your help - took them to the London Bicycle Warehouse in Clapham Junction. Very Impressed by them indeed! Did the job straight away whilst I waited in the coffee shop next door. Did a good job and even put oil in all the nipples on the rear wheel that had siezed and told me to return this week so he could fine tune it.

Price was also very reasonable i think 15 Squids to do both!

Recommended!

itboffin

the concept of local is indeed an interesting one

Ride hard

Putney Cycles are very good. I used them for six years when I lived in SW19, and still go back to them now even though I now live in Sarf East Landan.

It's personal preference really, but I've found Action Bikes on the Broadway to be a bit meh much like their one next to Embankment Station, and the Evans by the one way bit has never floated my boat.

ddraver

itboffin wrote:

the concept of local is indeed an interesting one

True, but no one had much good to say about anything in Wimbledon and I pretty much have to go through clapham junction to go anywhere so it was nt much of a hardship...

mtb-idle

itboffin wrote:

the concept of local is indeed an interesting one

I know that some people think that London is a big place but surely anywhere that you are able to easily cycle to or one place in South West London to another place in South West London can be classed as local, hein?

EDIT: in fact I just checked it. Assuming DDRaver lives somewhere near the centre of Wimblydone then it's 4.2 miles to aforementioned bicycular retail establishment. That meets my definition of 'local'.

veronese68

People don't think 4.2 miles is local because it can take hours to cover that sort of distance in a car around there. Also if you drew a 4.2 mile radius circle on a map from there you'd capture loads of bike shops.
So the London definition of local is rather different to the rest of the country I guess.

kurako

I'll add Cycleworx to the mix. It's on Replingham Road, Southfields and you can get there pretty easily from the District Line.

http://cycleworx.co.uk/

There's also an LBS on Kingston Road near Raynes Park station. Never tried it but would be interested to know if anyone would recommend...

UndercoverElephant

Veronese68 wrote:

People don't think 4.2 miles is local because it can take hours to cover that sort of distance in a car around there. Also if you drew a 4.2 mile radius circle on a map from there you'd capture loads of bike shops.
So the London definition of local is rather different to the rest of the country I guess.

Definitely different to mine, my nearest bike shop is roughly 11 miles from my house.

veronese68

Kurako wrote:

There's also an LBS on Kingston Road near Raynes Park station. Never tried it but would be interested to know if anyone would recommend...

Bright Cycles? Not been there since I was a kid and they were called something else so don't know how good they are. I think they were mentioned somewhere up thread.

mtb-idle

Veronese68 wrote:

People don't think 4.2 miles is local because it can take hours to cover that sort of distance in a car around there. Also if you drew a 4.2 mile radius circle on a map from there you'd capture loads of bike shops.
So the London definition of local is rather different to the rest of the country I guess.

that's true but we are cyclists, posting on a cycling forum...

ddraver

Veronese68 wrote:

Kurako wrote:

There's also an LBS on Kingston Road near Raynes Park station. Never tried it but would be interested to know if anyone would recommend...

Bright Cycles? Not been there since I was a kid and they were called something else so don't know how good they are. I think they were mentioned somewhere up thread.

Still there - did nt look up to much though but that could be my own snobbery...

Another reason for going to Clapham is that they had the stupid Mavic spokes in stock...which pretty much narrowed my choice down to there or Condor Cycles...

asprilla

MTB-Idle wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

People don't think 4.2 miles is local because it can take hours to cover that sort of distance in a car around there. Also if you drew a 4.2 mile radius circle on a map from there you'd capture loads of bike shops.
So the London definition of local is rather different to the rest of the country I guess.

that's true but we are cyclists, posting on a cycling forum...

...who require the services of a bike shop because their bike may not be serviceable.......

I have ridden to the bike shop before with a pair of wheels on my back, but it's not a pleasant experience.

veronese68

MTB-Idle wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

People don't think 4.2 miles is local because it can take hours to cover that sort of distance in a car around there. Also if you drew a 4.2 mile radius circle on a map from there you'd capture loads of bike shops.
So the London definition of local is rather different to the rest of the country I guess.

that's true but we are cyclists, posting on a cycling forum...

Granted, I was talking more in terms of perception of the great unwashed.

kurako

Veronese68 wrote:

Kurako wrote:

There's also an LBS on Kingston Road near Raynes Park station. Never tried it but would be interested to know if anyone would recommend...

Bright Cycles? Not been there since I was a kid and they were called something else so don't know how good they are. I think they were mentioned somewhere up thread.

That's the one. I might take the little one up there on the pretext of upgrading the balance bike and I'll see if there's anything good in the workshop ;-)

menthel

Kurako wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

Kurako wrote:

There's also an LBS on Kingston Road near Raynes Park station. Never tried it but would be interested to know if anyone would recommend...

Bright Cycles? Not been there since I was a kid and they were called something else so don't know how good they are. I think they were mentioned somewhere up thread.

That's the one. I might take the little one up there on the pretext of upgrading the balance bike and I'll see if there's anything good in the workshop ;-)

They are just 2 mins down the road from me. Friendly lot and the workshop generally good value. They don't have a great selection of bikes but are ok (but not cheap) for accessories. My boy likes going there as they have a good stock of scooter accessories!

Levi_501

AW Cycles on Merton High Street are good at repairing bikes, meaning they will repair rather than fit new.

Beware, their opening hours are quite short.

LiveGiantly

**dares not mention his central london Giant store**