Diolopez

Okay I had my chain installed by a shop. They routed the chain wrong which caused my rear derailleur to bend a little and also get a pretty good gouge taken off the housing. The chian twisted and bent pretty bad. They replaced my chain and are going to order me a new derailleur. I have to wait but I feel they might try and pull a fast one on me. I called 3 other shops and was told if they messed up they would fix it "all of it". My question is, am I being an ass for having them order a new derailleur. It was a brand new Campy SR 11 with no miles on it. If they do end up not ordering it. What kind of actions can I take? You can check out the pictures of my Build under my signature. Thanks...

knobster

Hopefully you took some pictures prior to handing the bike over. Not sure why you'd think you may be an ass for having them order the derailleur. They did cause the issue after all. Whatever issues they caused, they should be held responsible to fix it with at least to put you in as good a position as you should have been when you picked up your bike from them.

Sweet build.

Edit: About the only thing you could do is small claims court if they don't honor their end of this issue.

B. Carfree

Of course, you can always be a jerk (like me) and tell everyone you encounter to avoid that particular shop if they don't make you whole. I had a much worse encounter with Paul's Bicycle Way of Life in Eugene (they stole my classic Trek 720 frame). By now I figure I have cost them several tens of thousands of dollars in sales.

pwdeegan

what the... last time i heard from you (my trip to Reedsport from EUG via Smith River) you were riding a Trek 720? what the heck happened???

nhluhr

It is almost unfathomable that they routed your chain incorrectly. Can you be more specific?

himespau 

How does this happen?

Diolopez

They routed my chain on the outside of the derailleur housing, instead of it being inside the rollers. I didn't even think about checking it. I was so happy to finally be done and get to ride this thing(at least a few feet until I tuned it). I am glad I put the bike on the stand and hand spun the crank. I can only imagine what would have happen if I tried riding it.





I need to hear about this as well.

abarth

Sad to say, but I did that a couple times myself where I routed the chain outside of that cross tab on the cage. I don't see how it can caused a chain to "twisted and bent pretty bad", especially if you only turned the crank by hand. Did the chain damage anything else other than the cage? I don't think you are asking too much from that LBS to replace your derailleur, since you derailleur was brand new. Other than small claim court, you can also file a complaint with your local BBB.

Diolopez

Okay so I called this morning and they said it should be in this Thursday. They seem like they are actually going though with it. I will update in a few days. Weather was nice today too. A little chilly but would have been a great day to ride.

Cyclist00976

If they are a Campagnolo Pro Shop, there is a lot of weight behind calling Campagnolo North America and complaining about the service quality.

Diolopez

I weight the bike today since I was bored. Total weight with pedals is 6.4 kg = 14.10 lbs . It sure was a beautiful today. Can't wait to ride it Thursday. I almost took it out for a ride today, but I figured I should wait till I get the new derailleur.



This is torture!!! I want to ride it but I cant.

Seattle Forrest

I don't think your saddle to bar drop is extreme enough. You could do another foot or two, easy.

B. Carfree

The Trek 720 I am riding now I bought last year from someone in Maine who had purchased it new in 1982 and never built it up. The Trek 720 that was stolen from me by Paul's was purchased new by me in 1982. It was in for a lifetime warranty repair/replace when they destroyed it. This bike has one weak spot: they left too little steel in the seat stay/seat tube junction. My new one started to crack while I was riding into Davis two weeks ago so I am now waiting for a framebuilder friend to replace the seat stays. I'll be on an even older Trek sort-of 520 (it was built by an employee for himself, so there are some modifications) until he sends it back to me.

himespau 

so they stole it or broke it while trying to fix it?

B. Carfree

Had they broken it while attempting to fix it I would have accepted that. Accidents happen and no wrench has a perfect record. This was entirely different.

A seat stay braze had cracked. It had happened before to the other seat stay which was repaired by Trek under the bike's lifetime warranty. I brought the bike to Paul's, showed them the crack, and they told me to strip it down to frame, headset and forks so they could send it to Trek (which had been done successfully eight years earlier in a different city when the other side had the same failure). I brought it back to them and checked in every two months to see when it would be done. Each time I checked with them they told me they had lost my contact information and needed it again. It was a continuous run-around with the bike moving between their various shops and no one ever being available who could give me a straight answer.

Eventually, I got tired of dealing with them. I should add that my wife and I purchased matching bikes back in the early '80s; we never did get wedding rings since we prefer cycling to jewelry. The bike was a great ride and had obvious sentimental value. My wife finally started calling the shop and persisted until she got an answer. They told her it was in their way so they cut it up and tossed it in the trash. I'm not sure I believe them since such frames go for $400-$1000 on eBay, but it may be true.

So, I was left with suing and/or having them prosecuted for theft (in OR theft is defined as depriving someone of the use of their property), dropping it or making sure everyone in the local cycling community knows to not shop at Paul's. Since I can't bring my dead steed back to life, I decided to just be their own personal negative advertisement. I don't really get any pleasure from hurting their sales, it's just that such outrageous behavior should not go unpunished, in my opinion. I hope that every sale they lose is added to the sales of a good LBS. (I personally like Wheelworks in Eugene, which is the same name as the shop in Davis where I originally purchased the 720.)

For the next three years my wife scoured the internet and eventually scored a Trek 720 from the same year as mine that had never been built up. $1000 later I was joyously rolling through the hills on my old ride's brother. As noted above, this one developed the same failure as the other two, only much earlier. An old friend who builds nice custom bikes, Kimo Tanaka, lives in Davis, CA, which is where I was headed when the crack formed. He is cutting off the old seat stays and replacing them. He is also going to change the way they are attached to the seat tube to prevent future cracks. I would have had him do this to my original 720 if Paul's had not stolen it and Trek had agreed to maintain the warranty. Since Trek no longer hand-builds steel bikes they may have agreed to this if they had had the opportunity.

I'm glad it looks like Diolopez will have a much better outcome than I did.

Diolopez

I couldn't even reach the pedals. I had to drop the seat a good 6 inches. They must have raised the seat to fit on the work stand. I dropped it off today and will pick it up Friday morning. I took my son and 2 nephews to "The Greatwolf Lodge" today. Fun, fun, fun. I will shoot some video with my GoPro HD tomorrow.

himespau 

Wow, that is insane and just sucks. And they didn't offer to do anything to make up for getting rid of your frame?

ttusomeone

Wow - that's a crazy story. I'm sorry for your loss. It makes me want to move to Oregon just to not shop at that place. I don't blame you for preaching how bad the place is. I can't imagine what I'd do if I took something I owned into a shop to get it worked on, and then told that they just threw it away because it was in the way. Especially if it was something that had sentimental value.

Diolopez

Finally the bike is home. I will try and go on a short ride in a bit. Damn weather is getting nasty tonight for a few days.

TheHen

Yippee, I'm glad it all worked out. Hey, it's going to be a warm rain this weekend, so go out and hammer. You may need to take the chain off for a good cleaning after riding, but what could go wrong?

Diolopez

I took the bike on a short 12 mile ride to physical therapy. It was so much fun and it climbed hills way better the the Schwinn. It rides so nice and handles great. It was yesterday I went on the ride so the weather was still good. Shifts and brakes great. very smooth ride. Love it. I wasn't going to mention the LBS, but a lady had an issue with her bike and the guys started talking crap about her. I will not be going to Old Town Bike in Tacoma ever again. Just not good practice to talk **** about your customers for ****ty service provided.

abarth

I second your comment about Old Town Bike in Tacoma. While we are at it, I had bad experience with Bicycle West too.

Diolopez

That's too bad. A few years back (14 years) they use to help us with are BMX bikes. That's when they were here in federal way. Have not been to there store in Tukwila.

Diolopez

I found a really cool program called SportyPal I have used it once, but so far so good.
Going to try it out again. I like using my phone as a mp3 player and a data analyzer.

This is today's ride.