The wave of new London bike shops

Hackney's fourth cycling café:

Thanks, Kazakh. I haven't been there yet.

Have ridden past this a million times and always wonderered what it is, but never stopped to look. From the outside it very much suggests cafe rather than bike shop. Have heard Caballo is great too. May do some investigations this weekend!

I see there's a new bike repair shop in Camberwell!

Just saw a good crowd gathered inside.

Facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Seabass-Cycles/533053563429480
.

Hackney's fourth cycling café:

Thanks, Kazakh. I haven't been there yet.

my girlfriends housemate checked his bike in and they replaced the bars without his permission and gave him some random, tiny track drops and persuaded him to change the shimano STIs (that were only being used as brake levers but still perfectly functional) for some cross top levers. They kept the STIs and his old bars. Nonsensical and it all cost him...

Then i went in the other day for a tube and they didnt have any. Bike workshop/cafe that has no spare inner tubes....hmmm

avoid id say. The coffee might be good though...

OK, so there are actually TWO new bike shops on Camberwell Church Street:

Two reasons to be cheerful about the new Cycle Superhighway 5 at least.

http://www.seabasscycles.co.uk/

and

http://www.cycle-ps.co.uk/ (not yet open - has a sister shop in Kennington - will include a cafe.)
.

^^ I still haven't stopped by there, even though I ride past all the time.

Meh. Look interesting, but I'll stick to Edwards cycles.

I didn't know about these guys yet until I saw a link just now on the ICAG list:

http://getmorebikes.wordpress.com/

Meh. Look interesting, but I'll stick to Edwards cycles.

Never heard of them.

They're on the walworth road, just north of camberwell green. Have bent over backwards to help me, good range of stuff, friendly stuff. Very happy to recommend- I now go there from Streatham.

You're talking about Edwardes Cycles.

I've found Edwardes service to be hugely random and after painful experience of what cowboys they can be I would never ride a bike they put together (at least, not without taking it completely apart and replacing several components). I occasionally buy inner tubes etc. from them but I'd ride across London for better service, any day.

A shop of which I wasn't aware yet has just come up on BToB:

Old tag:
Velodro bike shop Tower Bridge Road/Grange Road

http://www.velodro.com/

Edwardes was the first shop I went to after moving to London and almost immediately having a crash that left my forks bent and front wheel buckled. The salesman sized me up, briefly ran a finger around the join between HT and TT and said 'yeah, your bike's fucked, buy a new one'. He was wrong. Asshole.

Fair enough then! Though, to be honest, I do tend to take the line that people make mistakes, sometimes at others expense, that's life. It seems every bike shop has managed to upset someone. I've been using them for 18 months without issue- quite the opposite- and would still highly recommend.

^See, when other people have had completely shoddy service on a random basis, all that makes you is lucky. I can go to bike shops where people don't ever lie to me or try to sell me faulty or inappropriate goods. Every bike shop may make mistakes, but a cowboy attitude to the trade is a characteristic, not random chance.

Or, if people consistently have good service, and you get bad, maybe you were unlucky?

Um, no. If a shopkeeper knowingly sold me a stolen watch and you a clean one, he'd still be bent. I might be unlucky in that I was the victim of his dishonesty, but he wouldn't be any more honest. Edwardes are cowboys, even if they sometimes sell functioning goods and don't always break things they service.

In three replies you've gone from saying they're a bit random and painful to deal with, to saying they've lied to you, and kinda suggesting they're selling stolen goods.

If you want to fully justify that please do, but I've really no interest in entering a 'they're shit' 'no they're not' type argument over the net.

I've used them regularly for 18 months, I like them a lot, I recommend them.

leaves thread

Bruce was giving an example, rather than what actually happened.

In three replies you've gone from saying they're a bit random and painful to deal with

I said they were cowboys in my first post. Go back and read it.

, to saying they've lied to you and kinda suggesting they're selling stolen goods.

No, I didn't. Ed has that right. But...

If you want to fully justify that please do

I've returned faulty goods to them, been told they'd order a replacement only to have them try and palm off on me the same faulty goods I returned. Not an isolated occurrence nor am I the only person on this forum to suffer similar treatment from them. It's not random dodgy stock, it's dodgy behaviour, as with the example given by antlers above.

leaves thread
Pram <<<<<<<<<<<<< Toys >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A shop of which I wasn't aware yet has just come up on BToB:

http://www.velodro.com/

Went here a few times. Vitas is nice.

Bought some levers from them for a quick fix but didn't fit my cable ends and so didn't fit them. Went back for a refund and they wouldn't do it.
Bit of a strong conversation later, I got a refund.
Legally they don't have to offer a refund but that kinda put me off from going there again.

Before or after the bottom bracket service?

I've noticed a lot of new bike shops opening recently that are really high end. I think what the UK is lacking is a good quantity of just good, basic and practical bike shops that will do repairs, have all those obscure parts, give out good unbiased advice and sell decent reasonably priced practical bikes. There are some great exceptions, but in general the UK consumer is only aware of places like Evans or Halfords or the high end roady type places that are full of De Rosas and energy gels and £200 gilets. It sort of mirrors the trend of cycling in London, where I see a lot of blokes on their road bikes now acting like twats giving everyone a bad impression of cyclists. While the boom in cycling in London is good, it's sort of unheathily skewed towards 'cycle culture' or fashion or roadie/sportive posing, and there always seems to be some kind of statement made in the activity of cycling rather than just doing the activity in and of itself.

Interesting perception, James. Happily, I can report that this is not at all the case in Hackney, where we now have more than 25 bike shops. (It's becoming really hard to keep that list up-to-date!) While we have some of the 'high end' places, too (e.g., Pretorius), there are a number of very 'low-end' (which I don't mean pejoratively in this context at all) repair services like the excellent Bike Yard East, Bike Mech, Lock 7, Cycle Pit Stop, etc. We have a wide array of different businesses, like Armourtex, as well as bike shops offering very different types of bike (e.g., Mamachari, Volt BMX), and, of course, our five cycle cafés.

Hopefully, this will spill over into other boroughs--there have been plenty of really good openings in Lambeth. It's really quite simple--where people use bikes for day-to-day transport a lot, you'll get the bike shops eventually, too.

^ I crossed paths with a Pretorius club run today.... Must have been about 20 of them; almost too many for Essex's little lanes.

What's the deal with their shop then? Wasn't aware of it til I got home and googled it. See!s to be a custom build place?

They were taking themselves very seriously I thought. But not as seriously as me of course.