The wave of new London bike shops

Guys, 1st my apologies if I am stepping on the wrong toes and/or if you are friends / fans of this LBS I am talking about, but I feel I have to say something about my recent and one and only experience with Sea Bass in Peckham, as they could have caused me serious harm. Also sorry for the long post.

Background story is that I have had a lot of trouble with fitting a Pelago front rack onto my new bike, so the LBS that built the bike found a way to fit the rack on not following Pelago's instruction: they fitted the plates onto the axle pointing forward rather upward* (this is an important point which I will come back to), not ideal, but still safe enough. Then we put some 35c tyres on and the rack no longer fit as it was literally rubbing the tyre.

I called around a few LBS looking for some hard to come by plates to replace the Pelago plates, and Sea Bass says they have it and if that doesn't work, they will find a way to make it work. So off I went to see them last week... The plates that I originally went to get, they said won't work as the holes ain't big enough and it would be very hard to drill them bigger, I trusted them. They then told me to drop my bike with them one day the following week and they will find a way to fit my rack. The initial idea was to cut the Pelago plates and weld them back to an L shape or similar to allow to rack to sit higher. Sounded good to me.

Dropped my bike with them, went back end of the day, they didn't do what they said they were going to do, instead they simply added another set of Pelago plates (the rack comes with 3 sets - 1 for axle, 2 for eyelets) on top of the set I wasn't using, so basically, they used the same setup that my other LBS had come up with and added 4 extra bolts and still charged me what they said there were going to charge me for welding. *They told me having the plates pointing forward is the only way any of those plates would fit the rack, pointing upward as this is how the plates should go, would not fit so I can go back to Pelago and tell them how to fit they racks.

I didn't argue as it's LBS and we are not taking about a large amount of money here - £15 in total. However, I was already very annoyed that whilst they said they wouldn't be able to drill the special plates I want to buy, they were only too happy to drill my set of Pelago plates for eyelets, even though a blind could tell there isn't enough material to drill for a 10mm hole, so now I am left with some broken parts. I held my cool and left...

2 days later, I was riding to Central London in rush hours, I was hearing some sublte rattling noise from every bump on the road, about 4 miles into my ride, I decided to stop as it became clear that rack had come slightly loose... I thought it was the crown fitting for the fork that came a little loose... however, it turned out that neither of the track nuts on my front wheel was tightened at all. I could undo both of them with my bare hand. I had only ridden about 16 miles with an empty rack since leaving Sea Bass less than 2 days ago. Understandably, I was shocked and very angry as I could have been serious injured if I didn't know better.

I went back this weekend to inform them of what happened, they weren't sorry at all. I mean they did say sorry, but they didn't look at me when I told them what's happened and carried on fixing their bikes, the guy who actually fitted the rack was too happy to walk in and out the workshop and didn't seem bothered in engaging in the conversation, except at 1 point where he asked me if I might have left my bike outside unattended that someone would have loosened my nuts, the answer is no. The other guy told me it's always a good idea to stop and check the bike if in doubt, I told them I know my bike enough to be alert when I need to and carry some tools with me, but how many people realistically, espeically them fair weather communters who can't even fit a punchture or carry a kit know what noise is normal and what's not? I cannot believe 2 experienced bike mechanics in a supposedly well loved LBS try and shift the blame with bullshit excuses. Like I said, they did say sorry, but they did not mean it at all, espeically with they fact that they A. didn't stop what they were doing with speaking with me, and B. those excuses, come in, they need to try better.

I also told them whatever they did, they also left a big scratch on the headtube which they said they couldn't see due to having bad eyes, even with my fingers pointing right next to it.

I will not use the again even when I have a death wish. Good luck for those who use them.