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Evans above (moany bike purchase content)

pondo · 2023-03-26T09:55:36Z

New Bike Day last Thursday - I thought these things were supposed to be fun. :( I'm riding very little these days, so decided to get an e-hybrid to motivate myself to go into the office more. A bit of research finds Evans stock the Trek FX+2 - comes with rack, lights and mudguards, range "up to" 35 miles, and most importantly it doesn't look TOO obviously like an ebike, so hopefully less attractive to the light-fingered. I can use Cyclescheme to get that and all the other bits I need, so I email their Ride2Work address and ask for a quote on the bike plus a raft of other things - panniers, helmet, jacket, D-lock, etc etc. First snag - the reply comes back to say they can't do a quote, but I can get one in shop or alternatively use the online "wish list" to work out total cost. I go to the shop nearest me at work for a quote - "sorry mate, don't do them, haven't for five years". I report this back to Team Ride2Work, and a different person replies to say that is correct, I can either price things in-shop or using the Wish List, but they won't honour that as a quote, if a price changes before my Cyclescheme voucher arrives. Now that's a problem - if a price goes down, I'll have to change my order otherwise I lose the difference, but if one goes up (and the bike is reduced, so it COUlD go up by a couple of hundred quid) then I can't "top up" my voucher, it's either take things off the order or cancel the voucher and start again. Ride2Work confirm that this is the case. This is a frustration - to mitigate my exposure to price changes, I cut my order down to just bike and panniers. If Evans doesn't want my money, fine. The Cyclescheme website advises my employer takes an average of around two weeks to process voucher requests but this time they play a blinder and I've got it two days later - this is genuinely exciting! So I go to the website and order the bike and the panniers, select the store, choose Cyclesheme as method of payment and.... snag two. Out of nowhere, a £19.99 delivery charge appears. I'm buying a bike from a bike shop (an expensive bike, too!) and they want to charge me another twenty quid - where this becomes an issue is that there is no way, online or in shop, to pay this seperately, the voucher has to cover the ENTIRE cost. Fortunately, they have some Altura panniers for exactly twenty quid less than the Ortleibs I wanted, so I can swap them out and now place the order (either that or request a voucher for a different amount), but now I'm annoyed. I outline my frustration to Team Ride2Work - I don't want to have a go, but this is really stupid, and could have been headed off by providing a quote in the first place. The less sympathetic of the two Ride2Workers who I've been speaking to says I could have found the carriage charge of their website - I'm buying a bike from a bike shop, why would I look up a carriage charge? But the Excitement Of The New Bike is on me - I create an order with a second retailer that does Klarna for the other three hundred quid's worth of stuff and await notification that the Trek is ready to collect. Two days pass, then three and four - I look up the shop's number on the Evans website and call. Number doesn't work. No number I can see for Evans head office, I call another nearby Evans shop and they say no, the number for that shop doesn't work, so I go to social media and a helpful chap comes back pretty quickly to confirm the number doesn't work - there's no reply when I ask if they know when it'll be fixed. I find an email address for the shop, and a reply comes back to say they're still awaiting the bike, they'll chase it with head office - turns out it's still not been collected by the courier. Finally, fully 7 days after placing the order, they mail to say it's been picked up and should be at the shop that day, he'll prep it that night and let me know next day when it's ready. Excited, I got into the office and do indeed receive notificatiom it's ready, but snag number three arrives - they can't charge it as it has an American plug so I bounce down to the shop via Argos for a three pack of adapters then off to pick the Trek up - a busy but exciting lunch hour. The transaction is ok - I have one nice young person ask if they can help, I say I'm there to pick up a new bike, she says just bear with, she'll fetch somone else. Nice Young Person number two subsequently arrives, and exactly the same conversation occurs. Nice Young Person number three gets us into the transaction - there's some debate about whether the bike has been paid for (it's an online order through Cyclescheme, it was paid at point of order with this certificate I'm showing you), then we have a side debate to let me know that, if the voucher value is greater than that of the bike, I lose the difference - I tell them about the panniers and the penny drops. A courier package, still unopened with my name on it, is fetched from the back - inside are my two panniers, I clip them on, chuck the paperwor...

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reeksy

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<div id="post-12776585" class="bbp-reply-header d-flex justify-content-between w-100">
<div class="bbp-reply-author d-flex align-items-center flex-wrap"><span class="bbp-author-name">fazzini</span>
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You need to cut the grass/clean the moss of the drive/sweep the leaves.

Sadly lacking mention of weeds, so you can make amends when when @pondo gives notification of NBD2.0 😉😂

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My predictive powers are strong… I always leave something in reserve 😉

Posted : 06/04/2023 11:05 am

pondo reacted

Mister-P

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Stronger than your posting / post editing skills by the look of it.

Posted : 06/04/2023 12:15 pm

reeksy and pondo reacted

reeksy

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Stronger than my give a ****😆

Posted : 06/04/2023 12:31 pm

pondo

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Topic starter

A Happy Ending - Trek returned, cettificate cancelled, decided to treat myself to a discounted '22 Kona De-E DL. Kona Bikes UK were really helpful, great comms, work turned the certificate round in less than 24 hours, Kona were flexible with dispatch to ensure it turned up when I was at home - arrived this week, unboxed and assembled, just been out for a first spin and she totally owns. I love cycling again. 😀

Posted : 22/04/2023 1:36 pm

twistedpencil, cinnamon_girl and clubby reacted

tthew

Posts: 11884

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Always appreciated when someone comes back to conclude a thread. Glad you got sorted out with with a decent bike in the end.

Posted : 22/04/2023 2:22 pm

pondo reacted

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