So p@&&ed at LBS

[jodz1984]

He has been known to sell wrong sized bikes just because he had it in stock. He has also been known to take a warranty frame, keep the replacement and give the customer an earlier year model, lied to them to say they sent a time trial frame here's this one instead then a few years later admit the correct one is in is storage area. He also said to my husband he was doing a discount for the ultegra pedals and sold them to him for $160, but didn't give the cleats with them, so paying $40 for cleats plus the $160 for the pedals. The pedals retail at $199. He never said to my husband without the cleats because he would have paid extra for them.

I raced him this morning in a criterium, in c grade, and the a graders were racing at the same time and the first time they come past us he tried to jump onto their group, didn't make it (he's over 160kg) and was leading so I casually rode around the outside of him and picked up the pace, so now I'm a little less angry apart from him sorta trying to cheat. He started to get rude to me when I was still riding with him coz I'd started to improve with my extra training. For example I'd to 10km on front then as I'd go to the back he'd pull a dirty face and say is that all you are going to do, first time can be a joke but repeating it with the look it wasn't a joke anymore.

I have long legs for my height but a friend who is 4cm taller than me with shorter legs was told by him that 175mm cranks were th right size for him.... Because the owner was selling this person his old dura ace stuff so he could get the new series of it. The owner is 6"2 the other person 5"4. A little difference.

I'm moving forward and training properly now and riding hills coz the owner always says u don't need to train on hills, what a joke that is. Sure some ppl don't but I do and now I ride steep hills

[jodz1984]

Sorry. I did write him an email saying I wanted the 51cm but he didn't do anything about it and just kept telling me it was going to be too big. The LBS I ride with now even tried to organize it thru the other specialized dealer but they couldn't do much. I even rung specialized at the time to complain.

[marni]

I'm sorry but this particular "gentleman" seems to ha ve delusions of adequacy and he is I am sure King of the World, at least in his own mind. If it were me I would ha ve washed my hands of him by now. I'd rather ride and train alone any day than put up with spoiled insecure individuals like him.

By this time I hope your have your bike issues settled.

just sayin.

marni

[Kiwi Stoker]

But he's not alone. I have heard and know other bike shop owners who do similar things, both to suppliers and to customers.

See my comments on "Broken Bike Shop Model" thread but LBSs taking advantage of systems the suppliers have to feather their own nest is VERY common. Normally customers NEVER find out about what happens behind the scenes but swapping components on bikes as they are being built, warrenteeing items and keeping the replacement item and passing on a older item, yeah there's a bit of corruption out there as they work the systems to their advantage.

And also reps often work it for both sides so to cozy up to a LBS so their sales increase. Find a loophole in a policy, and the rep will know about it.

This is the true dark side of the cycle store industry.