Evan’s Cycles

YAY BIKES!
I loooooove this shop! Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not the cheapest place on the planet (hence the 4 stars!!) but it’s a great shop with knowledgeable staff.
Robin B and I went to a wee «Fix It» do they had this evening, for the lay-​deeez! ;-) (I got an email last week offering me the opportunity to attend a «Females’ Bike Fixing» workshop/​class thingy. I thought this would be handy, as I’m preeeeettty useless about ANYthing to do with my bike-​other than riding it… so I signed us up!!)
I didn’t really know what to expect, to be honest… but I enjoyed it and it was really informative! Scott, the chap giving the chat was friendly and kept asking if anyone had questions, which was nice! A lot of the info was about road bikes and I have a hybrid, but I still learned how to change an inner tune PROPERLY, so happy with that result! :-) The whole presentation was engaging and full of useful info-​AND WE GOT A GOODIE BAG AT THE END! Always a MASSIVE plus! Lol
Other than tonight, I have been into the store A LOT-​due to a dangerous position VERY close to my office-I’ve also bought bikes via their Ride To Work scheme, through my employers! :-) I’ve always had no issues in picking my bikes up-​when you pick it up from the shop they build it for you-​which is massive bonus, I no longer have a shoogly basket! Yay!
As I say, not the cheapest bike shop around, but I find their variety of stock and knowledge both outweigh the cons… they stock Dawes Duchess bikes and they are THE BEST! Vintage-​looking, classic colours, elegant and they come with a BASKET! (My bike is a shiny black Dawes Duchess, called The Duchess… I LOVE her!!!)
I would recommend this store to any of my friends, but with a caveat that they may not like the prices…

The thing about Evan’s is that if they had staff who knew what they were talking about, and had a bit of customer focus about them, I would have bought a bike from them today. As it happens, they don’t and I haven’t.
Not yet anyway. I’m looking for a new bike and have tried all the bike places — Halfords, Gear, Alpine Bikes. But given that I’m after a middle of the range bike, Evans seems to have the best range of stock. Well on their website anyway. In their actual shop, they have ONE bike that matches my requirements.
We first went in at the weekend, and identified the bike that might be suitable. And this is when I first noticed their utter lack of customer focus. We spent AGES looking at this one bike, kept going back to it, and were standing discussing it for AGES. Hey there, supposed bike sales people, these are what’s known as ‘buying signals’! Not once did either of the 2 staff, who weren’t serving other customers, and who weren’t doing anything else actually, other than talking to each other, even throw us a glance, never mind approach to ask if we needed help. So we went up to the counter to ask, and one of them relucantly came over to the bike. Well, she knew nothing about bikes, seriously, she should go and work in a bakery or grocery or something where features of products are perhaps a little bit more obvious. So she went and got the other guy. He was a bit better, but still a bit meh — he wasn’t fully answering our questions. We left, as we felt we weren’t really getting anywhere.
So, home to the internet, and got a bit more detail on the bike. I phoned up to arrange a test ride, and the guy I spoke to was really good. He gave me lots of information, so I felt a bit more positive about buying a bike from Evans. I set off to the shop fully expecting that I might come home with a shiny new bike.
And then I arrived for my rest ride.
Well, the guy I got this time was something else. When I said I was there for a test ride, he looked at me completely blankly. Like I’d walked into a whole other shop that doesn’t sell bikes. He asked me where the bike was and I said that it had been upstairs but I was assuming that, given I’d booked a test ride, that perhaps it may have been brought downstairs. But no, he headed up the stairs anyway, until a faceless voice from the back shouted him back down.
The bike wasn’t even ready for me, and needed the pedals put onto it. He then put it on a stand while taking my details. I thought it was a bit shoogly, and was trying to prop it up a bit, but he adjusted it then left it. Two minutes later, the bike crashed to the floor. Yup, the bike I’m considering buying, and am about to ride about the town. They didn’t even PRETEND to check it was OK.
I took it out for a test ride and I actually really quite liked the bike. Apart from the fact that the gears on the left kept sticking. You know that way when your legs are going round and round super quickly and the gears just aren’t getting in gear? Yup, that. Not ideal when you’re going up a steep hill in the city centre, surrounded by traffic. When I told the guy about it later he gave me some flim flam about how the cables loosen when you start to use it. Yeah I know that, but not when you’ve used it for all of 5 seconds. I think they just hadn’t bothered to check it before they handed it over to me.
The other thing they didn’t bother to do was open the doors for me. This is a small point but completely demonstrates their lack of customer focus. Here’s a quick test for you. If a customer is walking to the door with a bike to take outside, what do you do? Open the door perhaps? Nah, you don’t even walk the customer to the door. On my return, there were 4 staff at the counter, and my guy putting some stuff on a display, and not one of them moved to open the door. Really? I have your bike and I’m trying to avoid hitting it with the door and you won’t even help. Hopeless.
The guy then completely failed to reassure me with the questions I had. Same questions that still haven’t been answered. All I want is to be reassured that I can get mudguards and a pannier rack fitted to it. That cannot be difficult, surely. If that guy (or any of the people I’d previously asked) could have reassured me today that I could have mudguards and a pannier rack, I would have bought the bike.
As it is, they didn’t, and I didn’t.
I have found my Evans experience really unusual and surprising. Normally when you go into a bike shop, you get a person who is really into bikes, and can tell you everything you would ever want to know about that bike, how it compares to other bikes, and whether this is the bike for you. These guys can’t even tell me if I can put mudguards onto it!
So, still on a quest for a bike. And I actually quite like that bike. But I’m not going to buy THAT bike, that they knocked to the ground and gave to me with crunchy gears. And I’m not going to buy it from THAT Evan’s. I’ll keep looking.

So, my old bicycle that I bought second hand finally decided to give up the ghost. Thusly, twas time to invest in a new mechanical steed to carry me on my various quests around the city!
As Harry and I are in the throws of saving for Japan, buying a decent bike outright was out of the question. I was in the market to finance a mid-​range bicycle, and that narrowed my options down somewhat. Highly recommended on the financing front was Evans, who will do 0% finance from £500 upwards. I also was advised that if you wanted to buy a cheaper bike, but were able to make up total cost to £500 with accessories, they would finance that as well.
The process of buying was a little more drawn out than I’d have liked. This was mostly my fault because I wanted to test drive my primary two candidates, the Trek Neko WSD SL and the Pinnacle Cobalt 2014. Alas, the Pinnacle in my frame size seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth, and the Trek bikes were not kept in store. I had to put down a £50 refundable deposit to order in the Trek Neko for test driving.
When they had what was to become my bicycle and built it, they called me to let me know. Unfortunately the weather was horrific and they don’t let you test the bikes when the weather is bad for obvious reasons. When the wind and rain finally let up, I was able to take a 20 minute test drive (you can take up to 30 minutes, and they’ll lend you a helmet and high vis gear). I fell in love! Don’t tell Harry.
Now comes the financing bit… after my test drive, I was all set to start the buying process. Sadly, it was 15 minutes before closing, and they said the application could take a half hour or more. Booo! So I came back two days later. Now, I knew I would have to bring ID, but nobody had informed me that I had to bring a utility bill or bank statement until I got there — though I can’t complain two much. The poor guy was new on the job. This was made doubly tricky because I had just moved house the weekend previous… Cue an adventure to the nearest internet café to print off my bank statement! And at last get the finance done! Happy days!
Anyway, the guys were very knowledgeable and helped me pick out the bike lock, mudguards, and pannier rack to fit my requirements. Even better, they fit them on the bike for me at no extra cost! This of course meant I had to wait another day before receiving my bike at long last. Anticipation is such sweet agony!
Long story short, my mechanical steed is magnificent as she flies silently through the streets. Tis the girliest mount I have ever ridden as an adult.
Still to come, the 6 week bike service to work out any kinks that have popped up! Will they get the coveted fifth star? Only time will tell!

Ok so im in the market for a new bike and trialed a few bikes shops with this being the last on my list. I entered with trepidation as its a well known cycle shop which is quite big and part of a chain. this usually means hawking the priciest bike on you by proxy.
I was pleasently surprised that this wasnt the case. Got talking to a lovely lady staff member who not only gave me lots of advice, survived through my constant questions and showed me a vast range of bikes all at the mid range of the scale, streering clear of the expensive bikes as they wouldnt be right for me. They then offered me at a later date to test drive a few of the bikes i was interested in!
They also do a whole load of kit, gear, accessories and general technology such as a bike gps. I will definetely go back here to buy my bike.