Support Your Local Bike Shop - Just Not This One
I was in the market for a new bike, did a bit of research and found that Pacific Coast Cycles carried the model I was looking for. I wanted support a local bike shop (LBS) and this seemed like the perfect place to spend my hard earned money. The shop itself is unique and retro, has some neat bikes and owned by a seemingly friendly couple (Gretchen is very sweet and a good diplomat). I rode a couple of bikes and came back the following weekend with my wife. We both rode and purchased two bikes. I wasn't really looking for any discounts, but figured that by buying two bikes and adding some additional items to one of the bikes I'd get something off. No dice. Ok, not a big deal. Paid for my wife's bike, put a deposit down on mine. In total we spent around $2,300. No itemized receipt was given.
First off, Chuck the proprietor has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type personality. He can be a nice guy one time you see him and downright hostile and confrontational another time. No rhyme or reason to his behavior. Through numerous encounters with him during this process, I found that as time passed I was hating/dreading buying a bike from him. I wish I would have heeded the other reviews on the Internet about dealing with him and walked away earlier. But, I'm the type of person who follows through on commitments and I don't want to screw anyone over, so I kept on going.
Chuck was rude to both my wife and myself on several occasions both in the store and on the phone. Questions were met with blank stares and curt responses. It felt like I was bothering the guy. He was more interested in talking with his buddies that would come in the store or sit in the back of the store than to help my wife and I. He would send Gretchen to help us and communicate through her - to us...while were were standing right in front of him. Strange.
It goes beyond the attitude though and really into the service and attention to detail. Frankly, it just isn't there. Everyone raves that Chuck is a great mechanic. But when I received my bike, it had a misaligned brake lever, rusted bolts in the stem and fenders and a badly scratched up stem. It was supposedly 'new.' They promised to replace the stem, which would have meant yet another trip to the store.
More than that, after riding on the bikes for a week, both my wife and I realized that the frames we were recommended and eventually sold were way too big for us. Chuck blamed us for picking out the wrong size bikes and said we had ample time to ride around on them at the shop. The point of going to his store was to have an "expert" help us figure it out and make sure we had the right fit - not guess based on riding around the block a few times I could have bought a wrong size bike on the Internet with no help for $300 less. This was probably my biggest disappointment with the experience.
I called Chuck to ask about switching my wife to a smaller size and I figured I'd just live with mine since he'd replaced some of the components and I didn't want to burden him. His response was crazy. He immediately said to bring my bike back because "he'd lost too much money on selling it to me" and would switch out my wife's bike for a smaller size. I took both bikes back and he wrote me a check for mine and switched out my wife's. Unbelievable.
I immediately deposited his check. Then drove down to Cal Coast Cycles and met some truly friendly and helpful people. Configured the exact same bike, in the correct size and walked out paying $25 less than what I spent at Pacific Cycles, plus lifetime tune-ups included. More importantly, I felt a rush of relief knowing that my money went to support a LBS that cared about its customers and focused on making my buying experience simple and non-confrontational.