Cyclesuperstore - a warning

niceonetom

kona wrote:

nope you, didnt, but if you arnt i dont think it is fair to accuse sombody of being a ****e mechanic, if you aint one yourself okay???

well that's nonsense. you don't have to be a great cook to know a good meal, as they say. And if he were a mechanic why would he have been in the shop in the first place?

kona wrote:

hey have plenty of bikes to be building/fixing, tbh, if your bike is toward the cheaper end of things, he prob wanted it out of his way asap, so he could work on somthing decent which didnt piss him off everytime he went to fix it.

in my book that argument doesn't help the mech's cause much, though it is a motive of your own invention. if the bike is good enough for them to sell, then it's good enough for them to fix.

kona wrote:

just because you throw big words in doesnt scare people, and tbh just makes you look like a muppet who doesnt have a clue bout bikes:) (pete this aint at you), find out what a catastrophic failure is before using it in a sentence

is this directed at me? :eek: i asked you straight out in an earlier post if you considered 'losing a wheel' to be catastrophic. you said yes. where's the problem here?

Ghost Rider

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought the bike was said by the mechanic to have been fixed when it turned out not to be. That makes the mechanic highly questionable in anyone's book, doesn't it?

The varying diagnoses of the problem are neither here nor there. That's a separate issue.

(I don't necessarily agree with the OP's stance on everything else, by the way. Having to wait a week for a component wouldn't strike me as unacceptable, for example.)

seamus wrote:

As I pointed out, failing to fix what the customer thinks the problem is, and failing to fix the actual problem are two entirely different things.

Based on the OP's story, I don't think we have enough information to write the guy off as a crap mechanic.

pete.smyth

Ghost Rider, waiting a week for a component is perfectly ok with me, my problem is that after waiting two weeks and several attempted repairs to then be told that the shop has now found out that they need another week to order the part.

Also I only found this out when I went to collect the repaired bike as arranged, thats pretty weak service if you ask me.

As has been well established now I am not a mechanic, so I was relying on the shop to communicate with me. I left the bike in for a service & repair, if I was wrong about what exactly the problem was then why not correct me?

Kona,

Originally Posted by kona
nope you, didnt, but if you arnt i dont think it is fair to accuse sombody of being a ****e mechanic, if you aint one yourself okay???

So you honestly believe that any member of this board who is not a mechanic can not pass judgment on the quality of a repair?

Originally Posted by kona
hey have plenty of bikes to be building/fixing, tbh, if your bike is toward the cheaper end of things, he prob wanted it out of his way asap, so he could work on somthing decent which didnt piss him off everytime he went to fix it.

I hope this not what you really think, because if so you would have no problem with work on your bike being stopped because a better bike comes in?
Also if he wanted it out of the way why not just fix it?

I hope that this was an attempt to be funny & a wind up, cause if not...well I just dont know.

kona

eh that cook analogy is a bad example....i like 4star pizza...ii think they should be in the michelin restraunt book:D :rolleyes:still dont mean they are the height of dining experience.
fair enough i accept that the mechanic has done a ****ty job, but to put a fecking thread up about one experience is ott being honest, anybody here want to put up a thread bout how great the service has been in any bike shop...a proper thread, i mean mention names, shops everything.......
at the rate of warnings and complaints about bike shops on this board, i reckon we will run out of bike shops in a few days.

obviously he aint a mechanic, but i know some mechanics who leave their bikes in to be repaired (1) they dont have the expensive specialist tools and (2) they dont have the time.

heres a fact.... i work on bikes, i hate cheap bikes they are a hassle and a pain in the hole, if i was in charge of buying stock, i wouldnt stock anything under e300 purely because of the hassle you get( i would be out of business fast because joe bloggs will spend more on this i-pod than the bike he relies on everyday to get to work......).

what taxi would you rather a ****box 1992 150,000 mile soiled toyota corolla(crap cheap bike) or a new 2007 mercedes C class full leather with a new car smell???
i know what one youd go for....... it aint the toyota.

same with mechanics and bikes, id rather spend 3hrs on a great bike getting it to work 100% than 10min on a ****ty supermarket bike tearing my hair out because the geometry on the frame is out by a few cm and the gears or brakes wont work, just for it to come back 2mins later with somthing else wrong.

go into cyclelogical/cycleways, with a kona and a jeep bike for xample....see what bike gets the better service.(tbh youd be very unlikly to be constantly repairing a kona they are bomb proof)

in my case, my bike is good quality, with good quality parts, youd have a major service done in less than a hour(everything off, cleaned lubed, re-fitted) the brakes and gears...5mins max and they work sweet, everytime...unlike cheap crappy dics and v-brakes. i dont expect my bike to be done 1st, but since i service it,the bike is done 1st. id say in a bike shop itd be done 1st because its quicker and more enjoyable to work on....also if i need any bits done that i dont have tools for cyclogical do it...no hassle and quite cheaply(who said cyclogical dont do repairs.....they do....just not on **** bikes...the quicker you can do a bike= the more you can do= more money)


yes i agree the customer is right in this case, but is wrong to be giving slander about the bike shop and mechanic, this mechanic has gotten good reports too...in fact more than the bad ones.
as a mechanic i am gunna defend this poor guy because he aint here to do it.

and a wheel just coming off would be catastrophic failure, what is being discussed here is not that scenario...its just stupidity and abuse and ****ty workmanship.
wheels dont just come off, if they fail its because they have been pushed beyond their design parameters.

seamus

kona wrote:

heres a fact.... i work on bikes, i hate cheap bikes they are a hassle and a pain in the hole, if i was in charge of buying stock, i wouldnt stock anything under e300 purely because of the hassle you get( i would be out of business fast because joe bloggs will spend more on this i-pod than the bike he relies on everyday to get to work......).

From my brief time in a workshop some ten years ago, I'd concur with this. Cheap, no-name bikes use cheap, custom and badly manufactured parts that are a nightmare to replace or repair. I can remember getting some bikes to build which had odd flanges, washers and other bits on them I'd never seen before and didn't even fit correctly.
Good named brands and more expensive bikes use standard and good quality parts that are really easy to work with.

niceonetom

kona wrote:

eh that cook analogy is a bad example....i like 4star pizza...ii think they should be in the michelin restraunt book:D :rolleyes:still dont mean they are the height of dining experience.
fair enough i accept that the mechanic has done a ****ty job, but to put a fecking thread up about one experience is ott being honest, anybody here want to put up a thread bout how great the service has been in any bike shop...a proper thread, i mean mention names, shops everything.......
at the rate of warnings and complaints about bike shops on this board, i reckon we will run out of bike shops in a few days.

obviously he aint a mechanic, but i know some mechanics who leave their bikes in to be repaired (1) they dont have the expensive specialist tools and (2) they dont have the time.

heres a fact.... i work on bikes, i hate cheap bikes they are a hassle and a pain in the hole, if i was in charge of buying stock, i wouldnt stock anything under e300 purely because of the hassle you get( i would be out of business fast because joe bloggs will spend more on this i-pod than the bike he relies on everyday to get to work......).

what taxi would you rather a ****box 1992 150,000 mile soiled toyota corolla(crap cheap bike) or a new 2007 mercedes C class full leather with a new car smell???
i know what one youd go for....... it aint the toyota.

same with mechanics and bikes, id rather spend 3hrs on a great bike getting it to work 100% than 10min on a ****ty supermarket bike tearing my hair out because the geometry on the frame is out by a few cm and the gears or brakes wont work, just for it to come back 2mins later with somthing else wrong.

go into cyclelogical/cycleways, with a kona and a jeep bike for xample....see what bike gets the better service.(tbh youd be very unlikly to be constantly repairing a kona they are bomb proof)

in my case, my bike is good quality, with good quality parts, youd have a major service done in less than a hour(everything off, cleaned lubed, re-fitted) the brakes and gears...5mins max and they work sweet, everytime...unlike cheap crappy dics and v-brakes. i dont expect my bike to be done 1st, but since i service it,the bike is done 1st. id say in a bike shop itd be done 1st because its quicker and more enjoyable to work on....also if i need any bits done that i dont have tools for cyclogical do it...no hassle and quite cheaply(who said cyclogical dont do repairs.....they do....just not on **** bikes...the quicker you can do a bike= the more you can do= more money)


yes i agree the customer is right in this case, but is wrong to be giving slander about the bike shop and mechanic, this mechanic has gotten good reports too...in fact more than the bad ones.
as a mechanic i am gunna defend this poor guy because he aint here to do it.

and a wheel just coming off would be catastrophic failure, what is being discussed here is not that scenario...its just stupidity and abuse and ****ty workmanship.
wheels dont just come off, if they fail its because they have been pushed beyond their design parameters.

oh yeah, what pizza restaurants have you worked that entitle you to an opinion on pizza? only messin.

i fear we may run out of bike shops too, they local bike shop just can't compete on price with internet giants. as their bikes/parts are always going to be more expensive service is absolutely key to their survival, and i have to disagree with you on the complaining front. (there are actually LOADS of posts on here about good service from many different shops btw) it's the crappy service itself that will kill the bikes shops, not us complaining about it.

as for the idea that your bike has to appeal to the mechanic for him to do a good job, well that's not going to work for them long term either. after all, when the OP comes to upgrade where's he gonna spend his money? where he's been treated well.

we're not creating bad service by complaining about it. they're creating complaints by giving us bad service.

Johnny Jukebox

niceonetom wrote:

oh yeah, what pizza restaurants have you worked that entitle you to an opinion on pizza? only messin.

i fear we may run out of bike shops too, they local bike shop just can't compete on price with internet giants. as their bikes/parts are always going to be more expensive service is absolutely key to their survival, and i have to disagree with you on the complaining front. (there are actually LOADS of posts on here about good service from many different shops btw) it's the crappy service itself that will kill the bikes shops, not us complaining about it.

as for the idea that your bike has to appeal to the mechanic for him to do a good job, well that's not going to work for them long term either. after all, when the OP comes to upgrade where's he gonna spend his money? where he's been treated well.

we're not creating bad service by complaining about it. they're creating complaints by giving us bad service.

Thats not always true, and in fact, Cycle Superstore are now price competitive with the Internet giants like Chain Reaction for example. I find myself buying more and more components there, simply because they are now the cheapest overall option. Service wise, I've never used them so I can't offer an opinion. Overall, I've always found them reasonable people to deal with.

I'd advise the OP and others to do a little research on their problem before taking it to a bike mechanic. That way you will have some background to judge whether or not you're getting value for money. There are numerous web sites that describe problems and fixes that can give you the information you need.

Money Shot

Johnny Jukebox wrote: »

Thats not always true, and in fact, Cycle Superstore are now price competitive with the Internet giants like Chain Reaction for example. I find myself buying more and more components there, simply because they are now the cheapest overall option.

Really ?????????? Cycle superstore cheaper than Chainreaction.com ??? - they must have slashed their prices big time recently. Personally, I've never found that to be the case. Irish bike shops don't have anything that you could realistically call a 'Sale'.

Johnny Jukebox

Money Shot wrote: »

Really ?????????? Cycle superstore cheaper than Chainreaction.com ??? - they must have slashed their prices big time recently. Personally, I've never found that to be the case. Irish bike shops don't have anything that you could realistically call a 'Sale'.

Really. Not for everything, but enough for me to do a price comparison before I place a CRC order. Factor in the 5% discount with their loyalty card too. I'd guess that roughly half of my last 10 purchases or so have gone to the Superstore purely on a price basis. Its taken them a while to cop on, but them seem to get the message about Internet competition now :-)