Trek from Evans or Local bike shop?

[400bhp]

My experience of Evans can be summarised by saying that their web service is pretty good, but the shop service is poor!

The web prices are often quite good, they ship fast and never question returns or warranty claims IME - very happy with that.
The shops are full of under qualified or incompetent staff (no surprise if you look at their salary) and are therefore generally not very helpful or useful! However, this is usually the case for most LBSs too!

I guess most people expect a different service in a shop than via the internet. If you walk into a shop, buy something and walk out you would have no problems either!

The Evans shops you go to perhaps - care to name them.

My experience of Evans Manchester is completely different - the staff are very knowledgeable and very friendly/helpful.

 

[e-rider]

The Evans shops you go to perhaps - care to name them.

My experience of Evans Manchester is completely different - the staff are very knowledgeable and very friendly/helpful.

Hendon, Victoria, Waterloo, Bristol and Nottingham

 

[MrJamie]

Possibly a response to people buying cheap bikes/BSO's from online or supermarkets then expecting the LBS to sort them out. Problem is once the LBS has made the initial setup the customer will expect the LBS to put the bike right again FOC once the bike inevitably goes out of adjustment. The shop owners probably don't think the aggro and arguments with customers is worth the effort!

An LBS here wont work on supermarket BSOs, the guy was explaining how theyre very hard to work on without breaking things and stripping threads because the components are cheap. Essentially a lot of issues on £70 bikes would economically be close to a write off. They were more than happy to sell me a cheapy mtb wheel and put my old cassette on it for me for a 15 year old Raleigh though

 

[Sittingduck]

Evans or LBS? Which would you go for?

Times are tough (at least for most of us) and charity begins at home... Evans, for me!