Unfriendly & Freindly Bike Shops

FRIENDLY

HEIN GERICKE in portsmouth. Everytime i go there a few guys always offer em advice about the bike, demonstare new producst and offer me tea.

Great bunch of blokes

UNFRIENDLY

CMW motorcycles in chichester. Most unhelpfull rudest sales man ive ever met!

Hugely overpriced and non negoticable. Offered me £300 less than every other dealer and his bikes are £500 more!


I'm quite happy to name and shame these clowns...they need some training in customer service!

Anymore

unfriendly

Devines in Glasgow

Didn't like J&S in new malden (is it new malden? its the one near surbiton / kingston). Was almost kicked out of the shop when i asked about their returns policy, and you only get back 90% of the price of the item you returned, even if its faulty.

I do like Sondel on highbury corner in london (opposite the tube station). They have provided me and maria with excellent advice on gear and have always been very helpful

Matt

Good

HG in Cheltenham - same as portsmouth by the sounds of things.
Peter Hammond in Cirencester - small family run bike shop, has official suzi dealer status but the owners and workers go round in oily jeans like they're supposed to rather than in pinstripe suits.

Bad

Only one experience to be fair, but it was a bad one. George White Swindon on their opening day last year sometime. Staff appeared to know little and care less, suspect they'd jacked their jobs in at McDonalds the day before, they got as far as selling me a bike though - before realising that they'd actually sold it already but no-one had bothered to do the paperwork.

Saltire Suzuki (can't remember whether it was Glasgow or Edibburgh I was in, but it was one of the two) were very good.
Bevans of Cardiff are friendly.
Hammonds of Cirencester are very friendly too. They went out of their way to help me even when I'd moved away from the area and seldom used them anymore.
HG seem to be consistently good at all stores I've had dealings with, only had one bad experience in one store. My brother rates the Portsmouth store highly, but I've not been there myself.

As Minimatt says, I got the impression a number of the staff at George Whites in Swindon (Suzuki, not had dealings with the Honda one) had never even sat on a bike. Best prices for buying a new bike, but it felt exactly like being in a car showroom, rather than a bike one.

[Steve_God]

HG in Leicester are always very helpful!

Can't say I've come across any very unhelpful bike shops yet...

Good:
Bevans in Cardiff
HG in Cardiff, but by the looks of things they all seem to be pretty good
And South Wales superbikes was really good. Trying on some gear and a guy came over and gave me bags of advice - That was cool.

No bad experiences yet...

Alex

M&S, Newcastle. They screwed up big time in the workshop / parts dept. They couldn;t get lucky in Amsterdam with 1000 euro's in each hand.

Startright, Jordan Bikes, Leeds. Good eggs all round.

Originally Posted by blueto

UNFRIENDLY

CMW motorcycles in chichester. Most unhelpfull rudest sales man ive ever met!

Hugely overpriced and non negoticable. Offered me £300 less than every other dealer and his bikes are £500 more!

I'm quite happy to name and shame these clowns...they need some training in customer service!

Anymore

I've heard that before. That's one of the reasons I didn't go there to buy my bike.

GOOD
Cheap on price. Groombridges in Cross in Hand, East Sussex, friendly service but slow and not v good at ringing you back.

HG always seem really, really good.

What used to be Motorcycle City, Infinity, Riossi are awful (bike salesman though eh). Although the one in Northcamp has a very helpful clothing dept.