Road Cycling - Criticizing LBS to other LBS- bad form?

the LBS where i bought my bike, well, they're not good. they installed the cranks slightly off the splines, insuring i'll have play in them until they finally strip completely out. they tried to fix it twice, unsucessfully, before i diagnosed the problem myself after talking with a friend at another shop. then i gave it back to them to put the warranty crank on, and asked them to swap my step for a shorter one. well, they did that (after about 2 weeks) but managed to hose me in the process- swapped out my ritchey for a kalloy ($40 or so difference retail). to make matters worse, they installed the $!#@% new crank at about a 60 degree angle to the other crank. you can imagine, at this point i was fed up and vowed never to deal with them again. i took my bike to another, smaller, LBS. he took one look at what they'd done and started laughing. at this point i started to go off on the first shop, and he agreed that half of his business was catching their screw-ups. my question, if you've not already gathered, is was it uncool of me to trash one shop to another? clearly they already knew the first shop was terrible. i felt bad doing it, but i just had to vent to someone who understood. am i a bad person?

My personal opinion is...
As a general rule I wouldn't specifically bad-mouth one shop to the employees/owners of another. I would let them know of having problems at "another" shop. The probably already know who you are referring to, if it's in the same area. I WOULD let other riders in the area know about the shop and the bad service.

No, you are not a bad person though.
:)
We all need to vent now and then.

When inquiring about bike fit, my LBS said, "just pick one you like, we'll adjust it to fit ya."
I went elsewhere. The new shop knew exactly who I was referring to when I told them the problem.

ChipR

As a shop employee, I hear a lot of criticism about other shops in town. I usually let the person vent, but make sure to keep my mouth shut. I've learned long ago that no matter how big the city, the cycling community is still "small town".

Smack between shops is bad business no matter what. All shop employees should be able to get along with one another. Our competition shouldn't be with one another, but rather with the "X-Marts" and the crap they sell.

As far as a being a customer, you talk as much as you want. No problems there!

L8R

Should one shop ask me the source of a problem, I would be inclined to tell the truth I suppose, but would do so in a straightforward, factual way.

More to the point and to my advantage as a customer though, I do make certain that both LBS are aware that I do business with each of them.

I believe that the knowledge that I am familiar with both stores product lines and services and will patronize either store lends a little friendly competitive edginess to our dealings.

One store clearly has the edge, so to speak, since they don't share the same brands of bicycles and all three bikes in my house are the same brand. Parts, clothing, accessories and maintenance though are generally of equal quality and of course share a good deal of commonality between stores.

I don't see how excluding one entirely or doing or saying something to make one or the other angry with me, or each other for that matter, would work to my ultimate advantage as a cyclist. After all, what happens when one shop is successful at luring away the best sales person or mech from the other store? :p

I wouldn't call dogging one shop to another tactful, necessarily, but it's not a big deal. Thing that gets me is one shop employee dogging another shop. That will get me out of that shop as soon as possible. I haven't seen it in bike shops, but car dealers are really bad like that. (What do you expect from car dealers?) Like a couple of folks have already said, the shop you're now going to will take a look at the jacked up work you're taking them from another shop and immediately know where it came from. You probably don't have to tell them who it came from.

if a cyclist friend asked for an opinion about a local bike shop, how they do there work, and you have a first hand information on that paticular bilke shop, I don't see anything wrong , if you tell them the truth, "Remember The Truth hurts

I agree with 'a2psyklnut'

I run a small mail order company simply because locally there is no market for bikes over $250 and many manufacturers simply try to put you out of business when you sign contracts. Simply no help from manufacturers. So I do my own thing. Very weird in todays industry but customers love it.

Anywho, Simply do not shop there. No need to bad mouth it as other may like their service. That was simply your experience. Besides it may simply have been some 'stupid' guy whom worked on your bike. Remember people work there and they depend on the business to live so do not take that away from them. It would not be nice if they went to your work and complained to all about an issue they had with you. Later you loose your job.

I have many friends whom own shops locally and I know such people that blab all over town are not allowed back in. I know a few guys that are basicly not welcomed in 3 local shops. They simply do not get service or stuff sold to them. That is bad for them.

You mentioned you went in the end to a small shop. Great! Most big shops are franchises and such and basicly hire people that do not know the business. They do not care of service as they can manage to buy tons of goods (many grey market) and offer for low price. People love low prices so they stay in business. Do not support this.