landstander

You seem to have overlooked certain key points of CastIron's post.

qqy

Toronto Bike Stores: the good the bad and the ugly

The Bad:

- Racer Sportif (around Bloor and Runnymead): I don't even know where to begin. First, your treatment is proportional to the amount of money they figure they can take you for. When I walk in with jeans and a tee-shirt, I get totally ignored (I've spent well over $4K there and most of them know me from the store or riding). When I walk in with my Hugo Boss coat and suit, I get the royal treatment. Their work is decent, but if you have something replaced, don't be surprised if they don't give it back to you. I had to fight with them, in store, to be back my original handlebars, F'Der., and crankset back when I had a frame changeover. Of course, in the process I was charged all sorts of extra fees over and above what we agreed upon, and when I demanded an itemized bill from Dennis, he proceeded to give me the most BS bill I've ever seen and make up charges on the spot, even contradicting himself in the process. Their prices stink and they will drop them if they like you, but it's the mystery fees that really add up. The fitting process is pretty much a joke, as all they take are static measurements. The shop's for Euro-snobs only really.

- Duke's (E of Queen and Bathurst): A decent store with some good wrenches, but you have to be really careful about who you listen to. Now that Paul is gone, I don't really recommend this place to anyone. The guys work on commission, and it really shows in what they recommend. The younger guy straight up BS everyone for commission, and some wrenches are brutal for this. Once I limped in my beater bike with a out-of true rim which they had just "trued" 200km before as part of the total rebuild maintenance package. I just wanted the original work done properly, but of course, they tired to get me to buy a whole new wheel. We settled on just a new rim, but it didn't stop there. A few days later, I get a call telling me that they don't have the rim I asked for, but instead the wrench spent 5 minutes trying to get me to buy a Mavic OP rim (yes, for my beater). I said hell no, just use some cheap Alex or Sun rim. The wrench get mad and tells me he'll call me back. When he does, he says all he has that's cheaper is a Mavic MA3. If you've seen the rows hoops hanging from the backroom's ceiling, you'd know how laughable that statement is. All I wanted was a cheap, heavy touring rim and he refused to sell me anything other than overpriced Mavic junk (for the commission), even after they failed to true the rim properly in the first place. Of course, I got charged for all the work to fix their own errors. That said, there are some great, straight-shooting wrenches there (the older MTB guys) so really it's not all bad. If you go for a fitting, they will just fit you to the highest commission bike in your size (Specialized, mostly). They only give customer discounts on the high-commission big ticket items, so everything's a bit of a ripoff. The floor guys are pretty nice, but the service can be slow. When it's busy, you may as well go home as I've had to spend over 20 min waiting for a wrench for a tune up.

- Dave... Fix My Bike (S of Bloor and Dupont): While Dave himself is a nice guy with a good deal of skill, his employees are often suspect as best and their work and knowledge is not to a very high standard. The new store is rather bare, but the prices are highly marked-up (common in Canada, I suppose). My problems is that everytime I brought a bike to his old Harbord location, it would come back to me with all sorts of unrequested fixes. My most aggravating being the UNREQUESTED addition of a new set of STI shifters without first consulting me. They claimed that my old ones were broken, yet they worked fine when I brought them in. We fought over it, but obviously there was nothing I could do at that point. More suspiciously, they refused to give me back the old "broken" shifter, saying it had been thrown out. Their wheel-building skill leaves a lot to be desired, but I guess that if Dave did it himself, it would be to a high standard. Still, there's nothing more irritating that bringing a bike in for a tune up and a new set of tires, only to come back to a $350+ bill for a bike that cost $700 originally.

- Bikes on Wheels (S of College and Augusta): Again, not a bad store really, just some very suspect sales tactics. I bought a used bike years ago for a decent price, only to find that the bike had been badly crashed and required over $300 in replacement parts. I was still a bike noob back then, so I had no idea at the time. Never went back after that. Buyer beware.

The Good:

- Curbside (W of Bloor and Howland): really great service and honest, helpful advice. They don't push anything and stock good components. Eric really deserves more business and their wrenches are possibly the most honest I've ever encountered, even talking me out of high-priced stuff as it didn't best fit my needs (the lead wrench esp.). I would recommend the store to anyone and try to support it whenever possible.

- Sweet Pete's (around Bloor and Dufferin): not really that special, but their wrenches are great and one in particular builds a great wheel. Their selection is limited mostly to mediocre brands at over-inflated prices, but again, that seems to be the rule here in Canada. Nice service staff and a wide range of stuff - something for everyone. Good place for a road bike tune up - fast service and reasonable rates.

- Urbane Cyclist (N of Queen and John) a great, no hype, no BS store. I'd recommend any bike they build and wish more stores adopted their attitude. While the wrenches are a little overly know-it-all, that's not necessarily a bad thing. While opinionated, they argue their points well and carry a good range of FG/SS stuff and touring gear.

- MEC (King and Spadina): while the service staff boarder on worthless, if you know what you want, it's impossible to beat MEC's prices. They'll do whatever they can to help you and are good about returns (as everytime I've returned something it's because they sold me something incompatible). Great, quality clothing and a good selection of sizes. However, their price structure is overly aggressive and many major manufactures are pulling their products (e.g. Park Tools and possibly SRAM).

- CyclePath (S of Yonge and Eglinton): A good store willing to go the extra mile to help you and very willing to do custom orders. Nice, helpful staff and a good range of bike and gear (again, overpriced). However, I do not recommend their main wrench for road bike work, as he seemed awfully surly whenever I dealt with him and miswrapped the bar tape, as well as doing a generally poor job with the gearing. Not a standout, but well worth your business.

The Ugly:

- Igor (E of Queen and Strachan): Toronto's bike chop shop - possibly the most shady operation in town. Good for a tube when in need and keeps long hours in the summer, but I don't trust the guy at all. The site itself is a total eyesore, across from the otherwise nice Trinity-Bellwoods park. Stay away.

- Uncle Jacob (S or College and Spadina): if your bike is stolen, this is a good place to start looking for it. The guy who runs it is a scumbag and well known for trafficking stolen bikes.

Moral of the story: you best bet is to invest in a good set of tools and learn how to do your own wrenching. As much as I hate to say it, unless you're rolling in dough, order online through the USPS to save serious money and get better selection. It's a matter of personal philosophy, but I feel that many LBSs just aren't worth their salt and don't deserve your business. My personal attitude is that if you're going to act like a hyper-capitalist business and try to extract as much money as possible from a consumer, I'm going to act like a hyper-capitalist consumer and buy from the cheapest business (online, like Nashbar) regardless of the various stakeholders involved and the cost to the local economy.

gruppo

EnigManiac, what did you say your name, phone number, and address were? Such information would allow the shops you've named the opportunity to contact you personally, and, of course, it would warn other shops. Suffice to say, your anonymous, dogma(tic) ranting serves no purpose other than to poison your own karma, which likely brings cheer to many, even though you're just a cartoon character. Regardless, your stuff is always good for a laugh, especially when you're attempting to defend yourself. Keep up the good work!

Serpico

if it's so easy--why did you take it to the shop???

weird

CRUM

The name change? Are you headed undercover?

KrisPistofferson

Again, this is a terrible idea for a thread, and some of you should see why. Some business owners are complete tools, and their shops reflect it, it's true in any industry, but I'd say a much higher percentage of "bad LBS" -posts are simply yuppie asshats who want instantaneous service at Nashbar prices, then want to take bread off someone's table if they weren't treated like King Solomon. The anonymity the internet provides brings these ****ers out of the woodwork, it seems.

Waldo

CRUM

Cool.

Your post gives me a terrible idea.

baj32161

I like this idea , let the shops have a list of PITA custoimers. Turnabout is fair play. I can't even begin to list why this thread was a very bad idea. I just love internet muscles. To bash a bike shop, or any other business and encourage others to do so behind the anonymity of the internet is the height of cowardice. Especially when one is only doing so via hearsay.

midgie

If your friend has a Walmart piece of crap, it may be cheaper or make more sense to buy a new bike than replacing cables(if you replace the housing, you should replace the cable or vise-versa), housing, and the labor charge to do it.

We had people who wanted to raise their bars on an old mtn bike(they want to turn it into a sport comfort) or cheap bike(that technically doesn't fit them). To redo all the cables and housing(not enough length to allow the new height), cost of new bars and the labor to do so came to 75-90 dollars or more.
When for an additional 25-40 they could have a brand new cheap bike.

So it would really depend on your friends bike to judge if that was a tactic or an honest evaluation

Michigander

Well Midgie, my friend had an older Schwinn Mesa I believe the model was called a "GSX". I haven't worked at a shop for a while now, but as far as I know, you would have a hard time spending more than 40 bucks for all new cables and housings unless you got that stupid and pointless kevlar garbage. Of course, I don't know how much labor would be on that, but it doesn't really matter because this guys dad is an engineer and backyard gearhead who definitly would have done the work himself. This friend of mine is now well on his way to being a nuclear physisist, so I think he could have probably figured it out too.

shaq-d

nice post qqy.

some other good/great stores in toronto, uptown:

Bicycle Specialties. Only open on Friday; Around Eglinton & Don Mills. Great shop, they charge whatever things actually cost, and fix any steel bike known to man.

La Bicicletta. Good place to get tires and excellent wrenching too. Might be a bit pricy, but they are meticulous and know what they're doing. also lotsa high end bikes on display at any one time.

the cyclepath on yonge, yonge/sheppard is decent, as is silent sports on yonge/steeles, north of steeles on doncaster.

sd

midgie

If your friends gsx works for him and all he needed was cables and housing(1 or all 4), and he would do the labor himself, then I'd have to say the LBS was wrong MHO.


I have known engineers and machinists that couldn't figure out their derailleur.