Crazy Horse

This comment is a little disingenuous. The customer has failed to mention that they hired a transport case from us for the cycle and asked that we pack the cycle for transport. When the cycle was delivered to us for boxing up we noted it was filthy and needed a full service as the chain, cassette and brakes were, in our view, all worn. We nevertheless simply did as instructed and boxed the cycle for transportation.

The customer then returned to the shop a week or so later and asked if we would rebuild the cycle the following day if she dropped the boxed cycle off the following morning. At this point we indicated that, from memory, we thought the cycle could do with a service as we thought we noted a number of issues (such as brakes, chain and cassette we're worn) existed with the cycle when we boxed it up a week earlier.

The customer pressed us for information on precisely what was required under service but, obviously, we we're unable to indicate more clearly from memory what would be necessary. We are sorry that the customer felt our inability to precisely recall with any level of surety what remedial work would be required on a cycle we had seen a week earlier, and which had been used, we presumed, for a week of hard riding in the intervening period, was contrived to irritate. The customer, irked by our inability to remember precisely what would be required to bring the cycle to good order, declined our advice at this time but asked us to simply rebuild the cycle and indicate what work would be required under service once we had sight of the cycle the following day.

We rebuilt the cycle the following morning as asked and, in detail, indicated by telephone to the customer the various things that should be attended to under service which included a new chain, cassette, brake inserts as well as a rear hub and headset service. We indicated, given the work required, the most economic/value for money service would be our Gold service at £99 labour as we would completely dismantle and rebuild the cycle. The alternative would be to charge for a Silver service at £69 and then charge individually for the hub service £15 (reduced to £7.50 if done as part of a Silver service) and the Headset service £25 (reduced to £12.50) totalling £89. For the additional £10 we would service the front hub and bottom bracket, work valued at £40 (reduced to £20). An overall saving to the customer of £10 if carried out as a Gold service. In our view this represented better value for money. Our advice was declined.

We said no more and left it at that indicating our fees for rebuilding the cycle and indexing front and rear derailleurs at £18. The customer complained that the cost of rebuilding the cycle was not the same (£10) as for originally boxing the cycle? We pointed out that we had not needed to re index gears when placing the cycle in the box originally, but on return to us the gears we're skewed and needed proper indexing in order to shift properly. U