jdtate101
Ex-Fatman
- Location
- Boring Birmingham
my point on bike snobs is there is nothing wrong with the bike,s Halfords sell i.e carrera, boardman,Voo doo e.t.c,but some peeps seem to think unless its a trek,cannondale e.t.c they wont go near it....
I agree the cycle mechanics in the main are pretty clueless and the customer service is in many case's pretty bad.
I had a BB issue with my boardman just after i bought it,i took it back to the shop,and the lad sorted it there and then.
any maintenance i do myself and i probably wouldn't take my bike back to Halfords.
people need to rise above the name Halfords and buy your bike and enjoy it..
if you need it fixed after the warranty runs out take it to your LBS...
I too bought my 1st bike from Halford's, which was a Boardman, and it was a quality bike, but it was assembled wrong and had numerous defects as a result. This was not due to the Boardman brand, but more the training quality of the people in the bike huts. I agree that sometimes you can get good staff in Halford's who do seem to know what they are doing, but equally there are a lot of kids working there who have the bare minimum of training and damage expensive bikes as a result. I would buy spares and accessories from Halford's (and have done) as it's convenient to walk in, but unless they up their training then I wouldn't trust them with my bikes.
As for brand names, well that can be said of any product, some people like to own quality items and are prepared to pay a little more for them. I dare say some would consider my Dogma overkill, but I race it and it brings a smile to my face every time I use it, so for me it's great value. Equally my cross bike (which I use more often than my Dogma) is much cheaper and just as much fun but for different reasons, and I bought it from Evans, another large chain store (but there the staff have a good standard of training, but not without some issues).