Gorilla Cycles

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to start a thread about a guy selling budget custom bikes in London under the name "Gorilla cycles". A friend of mine recently bought a bike off him and what seemed to be a good deal (£300.oo) quickly turned out to be a badly assembled and dangerous piece of rubbish. His facebook page is here :https://www.facebook.com/Gorillacycles

Be warned these bikes are bad. Very bad. After 2 weeks the bike was loose, making a grinding noise (which probably means he didn't install the bb properly) and the headset was loose, then the left hand crank fell off and the right side pedal broke off, the pedal cage separating from the pedal axel. My friend brought it back to Mike, and his response speaks for itself.

A. His first answer to the condition of the bike was, "well if you had a faulty car it wouldn't be the manufacturer's fault, would it?", to which my friend replied "yes of course", which seemed to really make him angry.

B. When my friend also pointed out, that after two weeks it was rickety and squeaking he commented that, this is perfectly normal for a bike.

C. The discussion continued like this until his parting comment which was,'' you paid £300 for this what do you expect, you know nothing about bikes!'' as if this was completely acceptable for a bike of this price.

Bottom line is be wary about this guy, he sounds like a complete shyster. Someone who has cashed in on the bike wave and knows little about building a safe working bicycle. If anyone else has had dealings with this guy I would appreciate hearing about the bikes you have bought.

Was it a refurb or new machine? Did he get the money back? Slap the trading standards association on him I reckon. Esp if he's not offering up a full refund.

He's right on one thing - you did pay £300 for a second hand "refurbs" bicycle.

Beside that, he's a cunt, get money back from him, sound like another Dani Foffa with a potty mouth in the work.

I left him a recommendation - link to this page.

Well, it certainly doesn't sound good.

The real measure of a services, business or company is how good their customer service is when something goes wrong - if that's genuinely his attitude, then I can't imagine Gorilla will be around for long.

There are two sides to every story though so hopefully he'll follow the link.

And not to be confused with the real Gorilla Cycles

Hi Everyone,

I am Mike the guy you are all talking about, i've been in the bike trade for many years now and still am ;) , i've never had to defend my work because i've not had many complaints, this is the first one...

i am going to post a picture of the bike in question, a bike i sold at loss because i'm soft, this girl first got in touch with me in july 2011 after seeing a bike i made for an acquaintance of her, after messing me about for a couple of week she said that she could not afford it 325, the conversation ended in good terms but i felt bad because i like making nice bike on a budget

fast forward to october she gets in touch determined to get one we discuss, then we agree for a 300£ single speed bike
by the way i buy my parts at retail prices so if you look at he bike and know anything about refurb you'll see that i did not take the piss, fully striped and taken to armourtex, i finished it up and got the colour wrong (misunderstanding) and told her to ride and bring it back in january and i would have it repainted free of charge, i think that is pretty good customer service.
i heard nothing for a month and a half, and then i receive a very rude email saying all kind of things and suggesting i did not know what i was doing, i asked her to come by with the bike so i could have a look, she was late, rude and with a friend, i invited them in, they both were very "standofish", i did not like that at all, checked the bike and i realised that she obviously crashed the bike, not sure how but the excuse she gave me was that the crank fell off... and that a friend of her hammered it back... although the allow was as smooth as new, but the crank was about 70 degrees out of place and not about to move with the grey cap untouched... so think what you will my conscience is clear, if she had been nicer about it i would have helped her out, but she was not

thats my side of the story

Peace

you should check before you judge...

People always make a loss selling heavily refurbs bicycle, unless you ripped the customer off a la Dani Foffa.

i did not... and who the hell is Dani Foffa? and should you not reserve your strong opinion before knowing the full story?

I'm always really suspicious when someone sells me something and tells me they are losing money on the deal.

i did not... and who the hell is Dani Foffa?

The bloke before you.

ok it seems i'm talking to a bunch of trolls... enjoy you sexless/joyless/meaningless lives ;)

Says the bloke who made a loss of selling second hand bicycle.

Hey Ed do you want to resolve this over a cup of tea? or you would rather troll so mo'

in fact anyone willing to discuss this face to face is welcome too

It's a little suspicious that you pulled down your Facebook pages and claim you didn't received complaint.

GorillaCycles, you've clearly not been on here before if you think these people are trolling you, this has been surprisingly tame considering your explanation of events.
From the sound of your 'explanation', you seem like the type of guy who throws a load of shit on a frame, sells it as a single speed to an unwitting punter for a vastly inflated price and then wriggles out of providing a refund when it inevitably goes tits up.
Oh, an getting the colour wrong on a custom build and then telling the customer to come back 3 months later is not good customer service.
Where's this picture then?

i don't know what you are on about?

Like I said, it's almost impossible to make a profit on selling* "custom" *refurbs bicycle, unless you drive the price as high as a new OTP hybrid bicycle.

oh, and good work on the (very) thinly veiled threat of violence ^^^^^

seriously?? timi...

oh, and good work on the (very) thinly veiled threat of violence ^^^^^

Doesn't look like it TBH.

ok Timi i'm ingoring you, and Ed the invite still stand, i have nothing to hide so if you want to talk to me about this and see one of my bikes to make your own mind you'r welcome, same for whoever reads this just get in touch, except you Timi...