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London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
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@DFP
In Birmingham,
Sprocket is a good independent shop, with sound ex bmx racing owner. One of the few places that sells a lot of well re-conditioned old bikes. You can find a few gems & bargains. Shop is crowded with random stuff but adrian can order in petty much anything you want. Mechanic is great old chap, wiry from decades of cycling and loads of history & knowledge.
On yer bike, good place if you want to spend a bit more and get a brand new big brand bike for MTB or commuting etc. Dont know too much about the manager, but the staff are very nice and helpful, shop has a very relaxed environment. Which is great compared to cyclesurgery or Evans.
They have a very well equipped modern workshop up front where you can watch them fixing your bike. Dan (wentskiing) has sourced a good few products to stock specifically for us Birmingham fixed gear riders and dug out old bargains from the basement.
Birmingham City Cycles, Independent specialist for high end road bikes. A little snobby but knowledgable & helpful if you have MONEY to spend. Also have weekend road rides from the shop - very cliquey though.
Cyclesurgery, nice bright (daylight from big windows) well laid out shop. Prices high on the pegs, but they do internet pricematching. Pistaboy used to work there.
Bike Pro Racing (kings heath)
Independent shop been around since 1990 I think. Always sold a mixture of MTB & BMX's which it did well and made the shop a great success. Later focused more on Hybrids and eventually became a GIANT specialist dealer. Recently owner has decided to tap into the 'fixie' market. He sell Giant Bowerys, Charge bikes & Aerospokes! Shop is a little overpriced for most parts but he can match prices on Giant complete bikes (or so he told me) Also sells SE (I think) and unbranded singlespeed frames for about £150
Ladypool Cycles. (Balsall heath)
Very long established bike shop on ladypool road ( the one with all the restaurants)
Started and run by an old fella called Arthur for about 30years I think. Shop was very popular and well known in the 80's when it was one of the best suppliers of BMX's during the boom.
Went downhill from mid 90's to 2008 as Arthur got old & bitter with poor/no profits and debts with landlords. Shop was messy & cluttered, there was a liftimes collection of old bikes in the back room. All in bits decaying. In 2008 the shop was taken over by the landlords, gutted, all old stock, and huge decaying old bike collection (a mountain) discarded. Shop cleaned up, and refitted.
Now is a very tidy place, churning out low end bikes to kids/parents. (fake mountain bikes) also sells haro BMX's and a decent range of practical bike stuff like racks. But owners dont really know anything about bikes or repair. All they learned was from arthur, who hated them and was senile to boot.
Now for the important one:
Evans Cycles (temple row)
Evans are a soul-less corporate giant out to only fleece you of every penny possible even if it means selling you inferior products. They only employ the dimwitted & unambitious who will be content working a dead end unrewarding job to grow their empire and be discarded the moment sales fall. I also have it from good sources that they are a bunch of racists.