Time wasters - who's the worst

I went down to the LBS this morning to check out the bike I'm looking to
buy for my upcoming birthday. What I discovered is that bike shops and
computer stores have one major similarity, they have a lot of people
killing time pretending to be customers.

The bike shop guy i wanted to talk to was busy finishing fitting someone
on a bike who then said he wasn't interested in a test ride (so no
intention of buying the bike anytime soon) but then wanted a tour of all
the women's bikes, and then wanted to talk about how to carry kids on
bikes. I don't know how long this "customer" had been there when I
arrived, but after 20mins I'd had enough and left. He's probably still
there debating helmets, lights, tyres etc.

So while I'm standing there waiting I get to thinking what are the
differences between LBS time wasters and PC store time wasters (which
also drive me insane)? The LBS timewaster arms themselves with
absolutely zero knowledge, or any idea what they are looking for. The PC
timewaster arms themselves with masses of knowledge, so that any
question they ask is purely to demonstrate how much they know.

The major similarity would be that neither of them understand that a
shop is there to make money and if you are not aiming to buy something,
then either bugger off or come back at a time where you are not taking
away resources from customers that are actually going to buy something.

The annoying thing is the only time I can get to this particular LBS is
a Saturday morning, so I'll probably try again next week. Sigh. End rant.

DaveB

I have to agree with you Dave. I waited 2 months for my bike to arrive in
the shop - when they rang to say it had finally arrived I asked them what
was a good day to come down (200kms drive) get fitted, get some accessories
(ie racks, panniers, lights, etc etc ) and was told "just come down
Saturday". The guy that I spoke to was a funny sort of bloke who I didnt
have much confidence in so I rang back and asked if he was positive he could
fit, and could help with racks etc to which he said "absolutely!"
Sigh, I could have gone down a week later, but as he assured me to come I
drove down and arrived at 9am. By 11am I was still standing around the
#%$#^%$ LBS and they were running around serving everyone while I waited. In
the end I fitted the bike out myself, grabbing what I wanted off the shelves
etc and took them all home to fit up. I also adjusted seat etc as best I
could ( am fairly new to this riding business and would have loved a hand
with the fit up). The only things that they helped me with was a lock (which
I returned as it didnt fit my frame), 2 spare tubes both of which were for
26" and NOT 27" which was my bike and I had to return them also.
When I boooked bike in for its first service, I was told a day and time so
200kms round trip again to be greeted with "oh, we are too busy this week,
come back!" I was ****ed off. This time a differnt guy was there and he told
me my seat was too high, I told him that I was still waiting for my "fitup"
and he said "no time"
So much for assuring me that if I bought the bike from them they would set
me up. Do you know how long it takes a girl like me to put on the front and
back racks? I still dont know if my fit is ok as I am still getting numb
hands and have been back to the blardy shop several times but they really
dont want to know. Have decided as much as I love my bike I would never ever
buy anything from that shop again and have told them so. ( cost all up to me
was over $2000 so I think I deserved better service.) Friend also bought a
bike at the same time and has had the same treatment. There are bike shops
and bike shops I guess.
Meanwhile my gears need a touch up again and I am faced with the fact that I
will have to try another shop .
Kathy.

just us wrote:
I have to agree with you Dave. I waited 2 months for my bike to arrive in
the shop - when they rang to say it had finally arrived I asked them what
was a good day to come down (200kms drive) get fitted, get some accessories
(ie racks, panniers, lights, etc etc ) and was told "just come down
Saturday". The guy that I spoke to was a funny sort of bloke who I didnt
have much confidence in so I rang back and asked if he was positive he could
fit, and could help with racks etc to which he said "absolutely!"
Sigh, I could have gone down a week later, but as he assured me to come I
drove down and arrived at 9am. By 11am I was still standing around the
#%$#^%$ LBS and they were running around serving everyone while I waited. In
the end I fitted the bike out myself, grabbing what I wanted off the shelves
etc and took them all home to fit up. I also adjusted seat etc as best I
could ( am fairly new to this riding business and would have loved a hand
with the fit up). The only things that they helped me with was a lock (which
I returned as it didnt fit my frame), 2 spare tubes both of which were for
26" and NOT 27" which was my bike and I had to return them also.
When I boooked bike in for its first service, I was told a day and time so
200kms round trip again to be greeted with "oh, we are too busy this week,
come back!" I was ****ed off. This time a differnt guy was there and he told
me my seat was too high, I told him that I was still waiting for my "fitup"
and he said "no time"
So much for assuring me that if I bought the bike from them they would set
me up. Do you know how long it takes a girl like me to put on the front and
back racks? I still dont know if my fit is ok as I am still getting numb
hands and have been back to the blardy shop several times but they really
dont want to know. Have decided as much as I love my bike I would never ever
buy anything from that shop again and have told them so. ( cost all up to me
was over $2000 so I think I deserved better service.) Friend also bought a
bike at the same time and has had the same treatment. There are bike shops
and bike shops I guess.
Meanwhile my gears need a touch up again and I am faced with the fact that I
will have to try another shop .
Kathy.


I can sympathise with that Kathy.
Not knowing much, I bought my MTB (Giant Trance 3)in a shop where the
proprietor spent all of 30 seconds on the fitting...his loss.
When I bought my road bike,$3500, I didn't go near him...satisfaction
achieved. The shop where I bought the roady spent 45 mins on the fitting.
Halcyon

"just us" wrote:

I rang back and asked if he was positive he could fit, and could help with
racks etc to which he said "absolutely!"
Sigh, I could have gone down a week later, but as he assured me to come I
drove down and arrived at 9am. By 11am I was still standing around the
#%$#^%$ LBS and they were running around serving everyone while I waited.
In the end I fitted the bike out myself,

snip

Have decided as much as I love my bike I would never ever buy anything
from that shop again and have told them so.

Hey, don't hold back Kathie. Spill the name of the shop so it can be spread
on the net and others may choose to avoid their absolutely disgraceful
service. I symathise with you in this sort of situation, guess you don't
have a lot of choice in FNQ. There's an awful lot of good bike gear that can
be bought on the net from on-line stores, and in the past 4-5 years of
buying on-line I have rarely been disappointed. Maybe you should try this a
bit more.

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

On 2007-02-10, just us wrote:

SNIP long rant on *very* bad service

Kathy.

Please name and shame, an LBS like this do no one any favours.

Cheers

Joel

just us wrote:

Have decided as
much as I love my bike I would never ever buy anything from that shop
again and have told them so..

Wasn't "pump-ur-wallet" was it?

May I suggest the following:-

The big blue book of bike maintainence - $50
Torpedo-7 "Super-B" toolkit - $60 on special
A decent set of long ball ended allen keys - $15 (Supercheap)
A workstand - $80 delivered via eBay

100*3/16", 100*1/4" & 100*1/8" ball bearings for all pedal/front wheel,
BB and rear wheel maintainance - $10 at any bearing shop
A tub of light "molly" grease - $10 at supercheap

A discarded "Huffy" or other cheap and nasty dual suspension MTB which
supplies you with two "forks" that can be set into blocks of timber and
used for wheel truing and wheel building. - $6 at the local dump (and I
got a spare MTB front wheel out of the deal as well.

All of which will get you more than enough to get started on any basic
mantainence on your bike (and hubby's too).

Given the charges the LBSs up our way seem to think are "reasonable"
you will recover your total set up cost in the first major service you
do on your bikes yourself.



--

On Feb 10, 1:11 pm, DaveB wrote:
I went down to the LBS this morning to check out the bike I'm looking to
buy for my upcoming birthday. What I discovered is that bike shops and
computer stores have one major similarity, they have a lot of people
killing time pretending to be customers.

The bike shop guy i wanted to talk to was busy finishing fitting someone
on a bike who then said he wasn't interested in a test ride (so no
intention of buying the bike anytime soon) but then wanted a tour of all
the women's bikes, and then wanted to talk about how to carry kids on
bikes. I don't know how long this "customer" had been there when I
arrived, but after 20mins I'd had enough and left. He's probably still
there debating helmets, lights, tyres etc.

Maybe, but maybe 2 weeks later they'll come back and buy something.
It sounds like the LBS you went to was understaffed, which is more the
problem than a few tyre kickers. We get that sometimes when there's
only one of us in the shop, and it's difficult, but you can't pick
who's genuine and who isn't (although we do get our share of loonies
and serial timewasters, but you can suss them out pretty early on
generally). It's the very small one man shops that really suffer from
this, I suspect. Especially when you have mechanical work to do and
customer service - you can't get *anything* done like that.

Service in an LBS is critical, any LBS shop owner with a brain knows
about the 'net, ebay etc and that the only was an LBS can survive is
by giving good service so that customers become clients, and they buy
into the 'LBS experience'. The trick is having the right people to be
able to do that. I'm regularly amazed by people coming into the LBS I
work at complaining about rude or disappointing service at the LBS
down the road. We then get a new client, generally, even though we're
probably a little more expensive for most things.

Kathy's problem is solved either by doing it herself (which may or may
not be an option, everyone here suggesting a book and a toolkit knows
little about human nature, not everyone is inclined to fix mechanical
things, even if they're physically and intellectually capable of it,
they just don't want to do it, and when it comes to fits, there *is*
no good book way to do it, not yet anyway ... and probably never will
be, the Fit Kit is a sham, the formulas are vague and arbitary
statistical averages etc), or by an LBS that has enough resources (we
have a fitting person, who does our fits, and a booking diary to make
sure there's time to do it) to do the job promptly and with courtesy
and respect.

DaveB Wrote:

The major similarity would be that neither of them understand that a
shop is there to make money and if you are not aiming to buy
something,
then either bugger off or come back at a time where you are not taking
away resources from customers that are actually going to buy
something.

DaveB

another major similarity is that timewasters in each type of shop are
invariably male:-)


--
ProfTournesol

On Feb 11, 9:03 am, ProfTournesol ProfTournesol.2lt...@no-
mx.forums.cyclingforums.com wrote:
DaveB Wrote:



The major similarity would be that neither of them understand that a
shop is there to make money and if you are not aiming to buy
something,
then either bugger off or come back at a time where you are not taking
away resources from customers that are actually going to buy
something.

DaveB

another major similarity is that timewasters in each type of shop are
invariably male:-)

Incorrect. We have at least two that I know of, serial female
timewasters that come in every few months.

Bleve wrote:
On Feb 11, 9:03 am, ProfTournesol ProfTournesol.2lt...@no-
mx.forums.cyclingforums.com wrote:

DaveB Wrote:




The major similarity would be that neither of them understand that a
shop is there to make money and if you are not aiming to buy
something,
then either bugger off or come back at a time where you are not taking
away resources from customers that are actually going to buy
something.

DaveB

another major similarity is that timewasters in each type of shop are
invariably male:-)


Incorrect. We have at least two that I know of, serial female
timewasters that come in every few months.



I am in two minds with this one. Obviously bike shops need to
sell things to make money, be it physical items, or services.
However, when you have bike questions that need answering, it
would seem that there is few other as well equipped to answer as
an LBS employee. They know about bikes, know what size you would
likely be, what you can fit to a frame, what extra's you'll need,
good locations to ride, handy accessories to make thinks easier
etc etc. Often I find it is good to go and ask about something,
even ifyou don't particularly want to buy it, just so you can see
if you are going down the right path. And when you receive good
advice, you are more likely to go back and buy from that store.

I admit, though, that I did feel bad about one episode, where I
said I was just looking at what I could get for around $2k, and
the gentleman started ringing up suppliers to find frames and
shoes etc. I didn't know at the time, but later he came up and
said he could find a last year frame for a rediculous price, and
could have some shoes here in less than a week, plus had sums
done to show me how much I would be saving. I had to tell him,
no, I'm just LOOKING at what I could get for around $2k. When I
come to BUYING I will ask for some more help.

Got to admire his enthusiasm though!!

Brendo