Just been on a visit to my local bike shops (Kingston-upon-Thames &
Surbiton) over the last couple of days. Firstly, I had to change the inner
tube on the Sturmy Archer bikes' rear wheel. I had no idea how to fix it
back up again so took to a little shop down the road called Recycle. Great
service, he dropped everything and the gears working in a couple of minutes
all at a truly outrageous price of "a couple quid, mate". 😉
Today, I went to Evans <spit> on the sole purpose of trying on some road
shoes then quite openly telling them that I was then going to buy fromn
Wiggle. As I arrived, a damsel in distress had a front puncture and Evans
said they couldn't fit in a repair. I gallantly stepped up to help but had
no tools with me. Evans refused to lend out any tools and when I asked how
much a box spanner was "we don't have any". Truly appalling "local bike
shop" attitude. I think she made off pushing her bike.
I went to try on the shoes but they didn't have any in my size in stock.
Shame, I was quite looking forward to telling them that they were still
never going to get my custom. As a little old lady came in and I held open
the door, as I left the alarm went off. As I hadn't stolen anything I just
carried on. I was stopped and asked if they could search my bag. I regret
this, as I should have point blankly said "No", but I let him look at all
the [censored] in my bag. "Oh, the alarm sometimes does that". Well fix the bloody
thing and don't accuse people of being thieves.
Finally, I went to Sigma and they were very helpful and I tried a couple of
sizes to make sure they fitted perfectly. Unfortunately, they don't do an
LCC discount, but I bought anyway as they are a LBS and as I am getting into
road biking they are very useful to have around.
So, once again elyob recommends not to use Evans.