I LOVE my Local Bike Shop!!!

[bianchi10]

I have been to 4 or 5 LBS since I started pricing out my first bike 4 months ago and River City Bicycles in Portland, OR has walked me through every step along the way of my stupid questions. I have become close to many of the salesman and managers there and have gone beyond to help me with my bike needs. I just had my complimentary 3 month inspection from them a couple weeks ago and went out on my first ride since then yesterday for a nice 50 mile jot through the country. That 50 miles turned out to be a very frustrating 2 hours! My chain was jumping ALL over in the rear casset which made it hard to stand up in the hills or even keep a steady cadence. On top of that my derailer wouldn't let me jump up into my large ring. still a good ride, but frustrating. called my shop up today and explained what was happening, brought it down and they started up on it right away for me. (keep in mind this is a larger shop and usually have a line of people waiting for their bike to be worked on) what turned into what I thought was going to be a quick adjustment turned into them upgrading my chain to a dura ace as well as upgrading my chain ring (dura ace)and arm combo for FREE. Told me these would be better for me and I shouldn't see any problems in the near future with this set up. They spent an hour working on my bike and told me it was free of charge. I went to check out with my toe covers and they gave me 20% for my inconvenience! It all comes back to customer service!!!!! A SKILL that seems to have been swept under the rug at many places these days.

Just wanted to rant and rave about how much I appreciate my LBS!!

 

[alienator]

That's nice, but all they had to do was adjust limits on the derailleurs and adjust the position on the rear derailleur.

What group do you have on your bike?

 

[bianchi10]

I'm sure they tried that. Like I said they are the largest shop in portland, so I'm sure they knew what they were doing. I had a shimano ultegra group set. I would have thought it was a great set up which I am sure it is, but I'm not gonna complain if they want to give me a free upgrade and warranty it out. He said for whatever reason it worked great on the stand but on the road test it acted differently. They spent a good hour trying to work on it and couldn't get it to work properly. Everything they tried seemed to fail, so the manager told the tech to warranty it out for me. I'm happy.......good service, new upgrades, working bike, and a full week of nice dry weather!

 

[64Paramount]

That is waaaay cool, Bianchi!

 

[baker3]

sadly good service is lacking in the cycling industry, when you find a shop that provides it, stick with them and rant about them. Anyway a full week of nice dry weather is awesome

 

[kdelong]

I have been to 4 or 5 LBS since I started pricing out my first bike 4 months ago and River City Bicycles in Portland, OR has walked me through every step along the way of my stupid questions. I have become close to many of the salesman and managers there and have gone beyond to help me with my bike needs. I just had my complimentary 3 month inspection from them a couple weeks ago and went out on my first ride since then yesterday for a nice 50 mile jot through the country. That 50 miles turned out to be a very frustrating 2 hours! My chain was jumping ALL over in the rear casset which made it hard to stand up in the hills or even keep a steady cadence. On top of that my derailer wouldn't let me jump up into my large ring. still a good ride, but frustrating. called my shop up today and explained what was happening, brought it down and they started up on it right away for me. (keep in mind this is a larger shop and usually have a line of people waiting for their bike to be worked on) what turned into what I thought was going to be a quick adjustment turned into them upgrading my chain to a dura ace as well as upgrading my chain ring (dura ace)and arm combo for FREE. Told me these would be better for me and I shouldn't see any problems in the near future with this set up. They spent an hour working on my bike and told me it was free of charge. I went to check out with my toe covers and they gave me 20% for my inconvenience! It all comes back to customer service!!!!! A SKILL that seems to have been swept under the rug at many places these days.

Just wanted to rant and rave about how much I appreciate my LBS!!

Good for you and great service. I still wonder though why your Ultegra group wouldn't work but the Dura Ace did.

 

[bianchi10]

Good for you and great service. I still wonder though why your Ultegra group wouldn't work but the Dura Ace did.

I wonder the same thing. I wonder why they didn't just replace it with another Ultegra group set since it's not like Ultegra is bottom quality by any means. oh well

 

[JSWin]

Yes this sounds like a great bike shop. More of them should be like this. There are some nice ones here too. Not as good as what you are saying. I'd love them too.

 

[Damien Lee]

I'm glad to hear that you've found such an excellent bike shop. There used to be some really good bike shops in my vicinity but unfortunately many of them moved or closed down. I have to travel a bit out of town in order to get to a decent bike shop and that's not always convenient for me.

 

[Susimi]

It's great to have a bike shop with some great people in there. The bike shop in my old town are like that. They are very helpful and not focused on getting a sale like some places are, they offer some great advice and genuinely want to help.

 

[Tuebec]

I have a quite nice little bike shop down the road from me actually. They have a club that does short trips on weekends, and a lot of the college professors from around are a part of it. It's very neat to go down there and just talk bikes on any given day. Having a good place to get gear and fix-up help is always fantastic.

 

[pwarbi]

In the town were I live we have an old bike shop that a been handed down from generation to generation, and its still quite popular even to this day.

It's one of the old fashioned ones were they'll help out whenever they can, repair your puncture for free and do little jobs like that.

It certainly beats the megastores that are only about making money these days anyway.

 

[Susimi]

In the town were I live we have an old bike shop that a been handed down from generation to generation, and its still quite popular even to this day.

It's one of the old fashioned ones were they'll help out whenever they can, repair your puncture for free and do little jobs like that.

It certainly beats the megastores that are only about making money these days anyway.

That sounds like a pretty lovely shop to have in your town.

The bike shop I mentioned started up in the mid to late 90's and since then they have become an established name of the town thanks to their service. Their shop is in the style to that of a megastore, but their service is second to none.

 

[Froze]

Where I live good customer service is a bad word, and that goes for not only LBS's but auto mechanic shops and any other type of business in this town. Though the one LBS over the years has improved but they're still not even remotely close to your shop.