I’m trying to find a bike shop I want to buy from. That’s a bit of a decision in itself! I’ve gotten quite a few recommendations from various folks. A lot are from people I work with, which is cool – but, I live in Toledo and their suggestions are often in Michigan, north of my work even. I don’t mind the drive, to be honest. But I want to find the best bike shop closest to home. I think it’s important to develop a decent relationship with the shop. I want to find a place that I’m going to want to bring my bike back to often. I fully intend to drop a bit of loot each year on upgrades and whatnot (wheels after the first year, for instance), and bikes always need maintenance. So I really do want to buy a bike at a place that seems interested in having me come back. I’ve been to a couple of shops so far. One didn’t seem all that interested in me and another one was kind of meh and folks I knew who bought at that shop didn’t really have glowing reviews.
So I stumbled on a place called Spoke Life Cycles in Perrysburg. They have some decent reviews online and they are close to home. They also replied to me on Facebook and their website looks decent. Yes, I do judge businesses by their online efforts. So I’m going to check them out after work today. What do you think? Do you have a particular shop you like? Why?
We’ve already had a bit of dialogue about it, but I have had very good experiences at Spoke Life. The owner, Brian, is attentive, knowledgeable, and helpful. One of the techs, RJ, has taken time on numerous occasions to help me learn about chain cleaning and other maintenance. I recently had some issues with my bike that, unfortunately, kept me going to another shop because it was a warranty issue that had to go through an authorized dealer shop. I wished the whole time that I could have just dealt with it at Spoke Life. I’m a supporter of local business and my experiences tell me these guys have got the customer service piece figured out. They are the kind of guys you can go in and just talk shop and not feel like they have somewhere else to be or that they are talking down to you.
I’ve purchased bikes before from Bike Works and those guys are quite knowledgable but it’s on the far side of town from me. I also rode a bunch of bikes at Mountain Man and they were helpful and not pushy, but ultimately I liked a brand they didn’t sell a little better.
Have fun shopping, trust your instincts, and if you need someone to bounce ideas off of, I’m close by!
Thanks brother, I really appreciate your input! I’m leaning heavily towards a Specialized model, convenient that this shop deals with them! Bonus that they are a local shop as until now, I’d mostly been hitting up Michigan shops. For some reason, Spoke Life didn’t come up for me on my first few searches. This time when I hit the ‘where to buy’ option on the specialized site, they were first on the list. I’m happy to have found a local shop before buying.
Mountain Main, on Reynolds near Central, is also a Specialized shop.
Mountain MAN
That’s one of the shops I was looking at originally. I actually just forgot to check them out really. I think from my house, spoke life and mountain man are about the same distance….