Call in Trading Standards. Selling dangerous goods is slap bang in their territory.
In the two cases I encountered it was not the fault of the retailer. I find it hard to believe that even Halfords could be that ignorant.
In my two this year, one was the retailer and one the parent. The latter was partly due to having only a too simplistic diagram annotated in a foreign language.
Last year we had two brand new bikes that even came _direct_ from the supermarket to a training session that were completely unroadworthy.
John B wrote on 02/05/2007 22:26 +0100: > Tony Raven wrote: >> Call in Trading Standards. Selling dangerous goods is slap bang in >> their territory. > This has been done. > I was informed that any complaint really needs to come from the 'aggrieved' > party but that they were very sympathetic and would perhaps 'have quiet > words' with a number of local outlets. > Ask them if they would take the same attitude to e.g. an electric kettle with a serious wiring fault that could injure/kill someone.
I think the answer might be the same if it came from a third-party.
I think if a kettle repair shop owner came in and said "I'm seeing a lot of kettles coming in for repair sold by X that have some very dangerous wiring faults in them they would take notice. Its not as if you are a casual observer walking down the street - it arises from your experience in a professional capacity. YMMV
Which is *exactly* what has been done regarding the bikes and TS have said they will take a look.
I think if a kettle repair shop owner came in and said "I'm seeing a lot of kettles coming in for repair sold by X that have some very dangerous wiring faults in them they would take notice. Its not as if you are a casual observer walking down the street - it arises from your experience in a professional capacity. YMMV
The reversed fork problem is no more than reversed handlebars which have then been turned the right way round. As the cause and solution is so simple, I don't believe it is a bike shop issue.
it is sometimes. Last year I had one reversed handlebar set-up on a bike that had come _direct_ from the retailer. It had been picked up from the store and delivered to the training session in the back of the car .
I have also had several parents say that the bike had been supplied by the shop with the incorrect set-up and had wondered why the pedals hit teh wheel. I once even came across a reversed handlebar bike on a pre-training session check and advised the parent to take it back to get it fixed, as there were other problems too. They did this, and yet still the bike was still returned unchanged:-(
It is true that many of those parents who choose not to have the bike assembled and do the set-up themselves can easily make the error. But IME certain retailers and supermarkets are to blame too.
My heart drops when I see a 'new' Apollo on a session.
Bennett said that presenting cycling as an inherently risk activity was "a real danger" in itself even though a helmet compulsion law would lead to a big increase in helmet sales for Halfords.
It would also lead to a large fall in cycle sales, and I expect there's more profit in cycles.
Not necessarily.
a) Halfords sells a small proportion of bikes that actually get ridden b) They don't sell that many high margin bikes.
