Has Free Wheel jumped the shark?
Jun. 23rd, 2006 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkOn a recent bike ride, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
minnehaha noticed that my back wheel was seriously warped. Sure enough, there was a broken spoke. Yikes! Not having a new spoke lying around, I decided to take it over to Freewheel on the West Bank for a new spoke and maybe a small derailleur adjustment, since it's been downshifting a little reluctantly. Actually, I got Richard to take the bike in for me, since the West Bank is a long way from where I spend my days. So he took his bike along too, hoping to get his derailleur adjusted and maybe a minor overall tuneup.
Freewheel used to be a hippie coop, functioning as a friendly, low-cost neighborhood bike shop. The hippies moved on a while ago, but the place looks the same and I guess Ive still thought of it as having the same no-ripoff, no-pressure mentality. I'm afraid those days are gone.
They said it would take two days to get to our bikes, despite the trivial nature of the repairs, so Richard left them. It is the busy season, after all, so that didn't seem unreasonable. So... 2 days later Richard gets a call informing him of the "bad news." My bike "needed" $120 worth of repairs, including new brakes and a host of other things. His bike "needed" $250-$300 worth of work, including replacing virtually every moving part on the bike. Let me point out that both bikes are perfectly rideable as is (well, except for the broken spoke). My brakes work just fine. I squeeze the lever and the wheels stop moving, which is my idea of working.
Richard called them back and said no thanks. When Richard expressed a disinclination to pay more for a tuneup than he had paid for the original bike (a mere 10 years ago), the guy tried to sell him a new bike! There was no attempt to explain which of the suggested repairs might be most important or why bike systems that appeared to be working fine should be replaced. So R went and got the bikes and paid them the $15 for the spoke (which they HAD fixed, thank goodness). Needless to say, that's the last they'll be seeing of us. I've kind of grown to expect that kind of sleazy upselling from mechanics, but it's harder to get away with it on a bike. It doesn't take a degree in bike mechanics to see that the brakes are working, after all. Or that the chain, although it may be a little rusty, is still doing everything a bike chain is supposed to do.
Oh, and as frosting on the cake, my bike came back with the emergency tire pump missing and, worst of all, serious damage to the BRAND NEW bike computer that I installed just last week! Since I didn't transport the bikes myself I can't absolutely rule out that R might have lost the tire pump and damaged the bike computer inadvertantly during the trip. But he says the bikes didn't fall over in the van. I am not happy. I guess I need to call Free Wheel and see if they have the bike pump, but I'm not sure if I should mention the bike computer or not, since I don't know for sure that they broke it.
I'm annoyed about the computer, and also feeling kind of forlorn that one of the last places of business I thought I could trust has gone bad.
minnehaha noticed that my back wheel was seriously warped. Sure enough, there was a broken spoke. Yikes! Not having a new spoke lying around, I decided to take it over to Freewheel on the West Bank for a new spoke and maybe a small derailleur adjustment, since it's been downshifting a little reluctantly. Actually, I got Richard to take the bike in for me, since the West Bank is a long way from where I spend my days. So he took his bike along too, hoping to get his derailleur adjusted and maybe a minor overall tuneup.Freewheel used to be a hippie coop, functioning as a friendly, low-cost neighborhood bike shop. The hippies moved on a while ago, but the place looks the same and I guess Ive still thought of it as having the same no-ripoff, no-pressure mentality. I'm afraid those days are gone.
They said it would take two days to get to our bikes, despite the trivial nature of the repairs, so Richard left them. It is the busy season, after all, so that didn't seem unreasonable. So... 2 days later Richard gets a call informing him of the "bad news." My bike "needed" $120 worth of repairs, including new brakes and a host of other things. His bike "needed" $250-$300 worth of work, including replacing virtually every moving part on the bike. Let me point out that both bikes are perfectly rideable as is (well, except for the broken spoke). My brakes work just fine. I squeeze the lever and the wheels stop moving, which is my idea of working.
Richard called them back and said no thanks. When Richard expressed a disinclination to pay more for a tuneup than he had paid for the original bike (a mere 10 years ago), the guy tried to sell him a new bike! There was no attempt to explain which of the suggested repairs might be most important or why bike systems that appeared to be working fine should be replaced. So R went and got the bikes and paid them the $15 for the spoke (which they HAD fixed, thank goodness). Needless to say, that's the last they'll be seeing of us. I've kind of grown to expect that kind of sleazy upselling from mechanics, but it's harder to get away with it on a bike. It doesn't take a degree in bike mechanics to see that the brakes are working, after all. Or that the chain, although it may be a little rusty, is still doing everything a bike chain is supposed to do.
Oh, and as frosting on the cake, my bike came back with the emergency tire pump missing and, worst of all, serious damage to the BRAND NEW bike computer that I installed just last week! Since I didn't transport the bikes myself I can't absolutely rule out that R might have lost the tire pump and damaged the bike computer inadvertantly during the trip. But he says the bikes didn't fall over in the van. I am not happy. I guess I need to call Free Wheel and see if they have the bike pump, but I'm not sure if I should mention the bike computer or not, since I don't know for sure that they broke it.
I'm annoyed about the computer, and also feeling kind of forlorn that one of the last places of business I thought I could trust has gone bad.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 07:42 pm (UTC)To be absolutely fair ..
Date: 2006-06-23 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 11:25 pm (UTC)