Hello all Please read this it took me ages to write. Heres the story, its a plug and a diss to two way different bike stores. After a lengthy absence from mountain biking and contact from the outside world due to a family illness (sorry mich) i thought id get back into mtb by racing the spring classis this weekend. Thus i needed to get my bike serviced to make sure everything was fine. Now to give you all a little insight, my Fuji has jsut over 200kms on the clock and has only been a pleasure except for the usual (sometimes unusual) niggles. Since buying the bike with its Sram groupset i have had constant gearing issues and after taking it to my now favorite bike store it was discovered that the gear cables was not lubed and they had "kinks" in them, thus making my fast shifting 1:1 actuation ratio a big bugger up. So yesterday my bike was scheduled for a full service at Mikes Bikes in Greenside (my favorite bike store). Full service meaning that cables get replaced (maby at extra cost) and the bike gets rebuilt. Happy that ths bike was in good hands i continued my day as usual untill Mike gave me a call with the just of it. Nothing on the bike was lubricated when it was put together by..... Solomons in Pretoria this included the bottom bracket, seatpost, well everything that needed to be lubed wasnt. Then came the last straw. You see i dont mind paying the service price and only dealing with mike's bikes, and realy woundnt have moaned if it was jsut the service, but then mike told me that not even the shock had been properly checked. There was no oil in the shock, except for a little bit in the one side, so the seals had gone etc. There was also a few spacer and washers missing from the bike itself. Meaning it was put together like crap. So that meant extra cost went to my pocket due to a stores laziness and apparent inability to check bikes. So i went and phoned solomons bikes in pretoria. Ashad? phoned me back after leaving a message and the "fight" ensued. I explained the problem to him to which i think both of us got a bit peeved off. After trying to explain the problems etc to him for a while with him not listening to me and trying to talk over me the whole time, i gave him his chance to explain and hopefully find a solution. He then explained to me that the bikes come 80% assembled to them and bofore it goes to the floor/client that they check it and explained that they check everything from the shocks to the lube to the gearing. I then had the arguement that they didnt check my bike, because then they would have seen that the shock was "faulty" and the gearing was out and nothing was lubed. And this continued for a while. He then continued to say that if i had let him know that there was a problem with the shock he wouldhave sent it in for me. HOW MUST I, A NOVICE KNOW WHATS WRONG WITH THE SHOCK? so this meant that if i had not taken the bike in for a service with mikes, then nothing would have been known and i couldhave broken something or hurt myself on unlubed parts. He continued to say that i could have phoned and got my free service from them or he would have organised for my bike to get a service. Why would i take my bike for a service with them, or a partner if i have only found problems witht the way they build bikes and give them to their customers. At this stage i would like to stress the fact that i am not mad at the fact that i got the bike serviced at mikes bikes. i did this willingly because i like their service and their approach to bikes servicing. so this i not the problem. He then got pissed and myself aswell, which resulted in him trying to talk over me some more. In short he refused to re-pay me for the losses due to faulty workmanship or find any solution to our problems. I hung up the phone... 30 minutes later i got a call while in news cafe at lunch with work collegues. heres how the conversation started: "Im calmed down now..." tough poop, im not. he then realized that my words of writing to each and every magazine, paper and online blog wasnt a lie and offered me my "free service" value of 350 rands (shock service and bike service) to make up for the problems... WHY THE HELL WOULD I TAKE THE BIKE BACK TO THEM???? The result of this is still pending because that solution is not acceptable to me. So the end of this post is: If you are in the joburg/pretoria area and not at one of the major stores like fritz pienaar etc, who love bikes. then please visit MIkes BIKES. They have all the cool stuff, chris king, spank, downhill bikes, trail bikes, race mtbs. and the biggest love for mountain bikes (and roadies) in JOBURG. If on the other side you are a masochist then please phone Solomons Gifts in pretoria. I have learnt my lesson, rather spend the extra 50-300 bucks at a store like Mikes than spending less on the product at a place like Solomon and not getting the service delivery.
