I decided 2 weeks ago that I wanted to chip the rust off my bike and put it back into service. My rims were eating holes in my tubes from all the rust. Rim tape alone would not have been enough. However, I did not have any money at the time.
Finally payday arrived. It was a Wednesday that I was able to take my bike in for an estimate. I know this will sound ridiculously cheap, but that is because it is. Bikes are such a part of the culture here that the parts stores are almost as busy as auto parts stores. They deal in crazy volume. Plus many of the parts are cheap Chinese products.
I got an estimate for 2 new rims, all new spokes (64), a new seat, all new cables (brakes and gears) and a derailer cleaning and adjustment for a whopping total of $31.
Supposed to have been ready at 3:00 on Friday afternoon (2 days later). On Friday we buzzed by the shop and the bike was not ready. But, they said, it would be ready in a couple of hours. I could not get back on Friday evening, so I went by about noon on Saturday. Still not ready. I was assured that it would be ready by 3:00 since they closed at 4:00.
I called at a little after 3:00 on Saturday and the man said that it would be ready at noon or maybe 1:00 on Monday afternoon. I told him I was getting a bit frustrated with the constantly changing completion time. He absolutely assured me that it would be ready by noon.
Monday I called at 1:00. Still not ready. I talked to the man who was doing the work and he told me it would be ready by 2:30. By this time I was more than a little frustrated.
I ended up writing a nice long email to the general manager of the bike shop. They are a fairly large chain of stores here in the city, Bicimotos. I outlined my frustration with him and just asked that he respond to my email letting me know that he had talked to the store in question to find out what the issue was and to try and prevent it from happening in the future.
I got my bike that afternoon. Their excuse was that they could not get the rims I needed. They were at their main store downtown, but for some reason this chain of 10 stores was not able to figure out how to get 2 rims from one store to another. If they did not have the rims until Monday, why did they tell me on Friday to come back in a couple of hours and the job would be done? They either had the rims the whole time and just did not do the work, or they really did not get the rims until Monday but figured that I would be fine with them telling me to come back every 2 hours for 3 days until they arrived. Not cool.
The next day I got an email from the general manager telling me that he had a talk with the store. He also said that the problem was getting the rims to their location, but that it was no excuse and that he apologized for doing such a poor job. He also told me to take his email with me the next time I went there and I would get a discount.
While I appreciate his getting back with me and offering a discount, I will probably never go back to that store. I may go to another Bicimotos to buy parts or to have work done, but never to that particular location (Prolongación Montejo). You can only lie to me and treat me poorly just so many times before I take my business elsewhere. On top of that, I was not overly pleased with the completed job. Cables were too long.
My bike is nothing special. I bought it at a yard sale for $10 I think. It might have been $5. But for a store to hold my bike hostage and not do the work requested is just not acceptable. I somewhat worded it that way to the manager. I said that his store stole my bike for 3 days while they kept putting off the work.
