Has anyone here purchased from Slane Cycles in Ireland?

[malkin]

If you love them, maybe you could just move to Ireland and then they'd be your LBS!

[crazycanuck]

Dunno about that shop but what about chainreaction cycles..they're based up the road..

www.chainreactioncycles.com

[malaholic]

Moving to another country to be close to a bike shop...now that would be a damn good shop.

CrazyCanuck - thanks for the recommendation - unfortunately, doesn't look like they have the frame I'm most interested in (Pinarello FP7). They have other bikes in the same family, but for some reason the that one seems harder to find.

So far the Slane guys have been pretty responsive to my q's via email, so that is a good sign, and I've found further thumbs-up recommendations on them on other forums, so I think I may go ahead with this. Just need to visit my bike fit guy first and have him set up the sizer cycle so that I can do a comparison between the two smallest sizes to determine which one will fit best. I'll post pics eventually when I get it built out!

[tulip]

Seems like you should at least take a trip to Ireland to do the fitting and get the bike. Maybe ride it around Ireland for a few weeks.

[malaholic]

An Ireland pub crawl by bike...ya know, that's not a bad idea. Thanks Tulip!

[malaholic]

Since I'd raised this thread earlier, I wanted to post an update now that the purchase is complete.

I ordered an FP7 frame because I could not get one locally (here it is sold a complete bike only). I thought their price was quite low on the frame, based on the cost of the complete bike here. I also bought some 3T bars and Look pedals because their prices were quite a bit lower than I found on the same models here. They list prices in sterling with VAT tax included, but on the website you can change currency & delivery location on the website to get an idea of actual price. The price lowers when you change delivery location to the USA because they remove the 15% VAT Tax - that helps a lot!

Overall, I give the purchase experience a B+ and I would not hesitate to purchase from them again. I had written several emails prior to purchasing and they replied promptly (allowing for the 8 hour time difference). Their replies were a little short/terse; maybe not quite as helpful as they could have been. I notice they are advertising to hire 3 new people on their website, so maybe being understaffed is why they don't go into much detail in their replies.

They require credit card orders to be made with a card that is "3D secure". The first time I tried to order, it was with a card that wasn't signed up for 3D security and so the order was cancelled; I had to re-submit the order with a different card. But I verified that I was only charged once and I think extra security online is never a bad thing.

They took a few days to actually get the order packed and shipped, but they didn't date the invoice until the shipping date. Because of that I was still able to submit my warranty registration within the manufacturers 10-day period to get extended warranty. Shipping to the USA was free - HUGE plus there - and it took 6 days to get here once shipped. No import duties.

So, B+ because the emails could have been a little more helpful and took a few days to process the order. You definitely lose some convenience dealing online and in a different time zone - but I'm super-happy overall to have gotten *exactly* what I wanted, at a great price.

Now I just have to get her built up, and of course post some pics here when she's ready to ride!

[tulip]

Irish pub tour by bike would have made it an A+, I'm sure. Glad it worked out for you.