Originally Posted by
Nuggetross
there was no need for me to complain in person or via e-mail. i just chose to no longer go to your shop. i did, however, get angry when my close friends were coming to me with negative stories about your shop. but hey! that's all. you guys also do a fair amount of positive things for the boston scene. i posted online because i know your shop. people online don't. they don't live in the area.
yeah, i talked some sh*t. but that's mostly because i was legimiately angry about you guys not appraising my friend's bike that was hit by a car. this happened very recently, about 2 months ago. he is my close friend and roommate for 2 years. there is no other side story. sorry. it made me upset because you guys try to put a name out for the boston cycling scene, but then you refuse to help someone out? c'mon.
the flat fix is the same story. of course he would have blocked a part of your shop. your shop is relatively small with lots of stock. but if a messenger, on the clock, comes in (WHO'S ALSO AN EFFING MECHANIC FULL-TIME IN THE WARM MONTHS AND HAS HIS OWN BIKE COLLECTIVE THAT SERVES THE COMMUNITY) then wtf? hook a brother up.
the wheelset was stolen outside of your shop. no, i can never be 100% sure. but your shop was still open. at that point, i was just angry. same roommate (busty bike) had his hand-built wheels stolen right there. not cool. i don't know how it happened. i feel like wheelset steals are rare in boston.
i don't like you because of these things listed above. i used to like your store vibe and yourself. you have helped me out on many occasions. in fact, i even bought a microkorg from you. i'm dave. you know who i am. i just haven't been to your shop in forever and no longer live in boston. you helped me out when i was a huge newb. i appreciate that and won't forget it. didn't mean to sh*t on your online notoriety, but i felt like my issues were a valid thing to bring up when everyone was saying how much superb is perfect. my b.
Like I said, we appraise countless bikes per year. I don't know who your friend is so I don't recall his situation but all I can imagine is there must have been some reason that we didn't appraise his bike. The only time I can think of when we don't appraise bikes after an accident is in the case where the bike is totaled beyond repair. When we appraise a bike, it is to fix the bike back to the condition before the wreck, if the frame is bent, or cracked or it would cost more money to fix the bike than a new one would cost, we can't really appraise that. In those situations I usually advise them to find the most similar bike that is for sale and show that to the insurance company and work it out with them. I don't know what else I can do for a totaled bike, I don't really know what dollar value to put on old used bikes, and in most cases insurance companies will give you enough money to replace the bike with a new one that is the most similar to what you had.
As far as the messenger and the flat fix, when running a business you need to have policies and stick to them, it wouldn't be fair to other customers for me to let him work on his bike on the sales floor but then not let the next guy that walks in the door.
Assuming that we stole your friends wheels just because it happened in front of our shop is a pretty big stretch, and I wouldn't recommend calling people thieves without some actual proof. Wheels get stolen everyday, a couple times a week in the summer someone comes in with a bike missing a wheel, and it is typically some crappy bike where the wheel wasn't even worth anything. It is the first time I have heard of something being stolen out front of the shop during the day, however, I'm surprised they wouldn't have come into the shop to ask if we saw anything? There is a known thief in the boston bike scene, on the fixed forums, and recently banned from our shop after being caught red handed. I'm not gonna name names, but it wouldn't surprise me.
I have no problem with people bringing any issues to me regarding the shop, but most of the time they are simply miscommunications or mistakes and can be easily remedied without a public forum.
Well now that you mention the microkorg I do remember you, and I feel like we only had friendly interactions so it bums me out that you don't like me to the point to say that stuff, but I'll try not to take it too personally.