East Burke Sports — Local services in Burke

Dear John and Vince,

My wife and I have been loyal customers of East Burke Sports for nearly 20 years. We’ve always appreciated your support for the Kingdom Trails community and your dedication to outdoor sports in the region.

Unfortunately, I’m writing to share a recent experience that left us extremely disappointed and questioning whether we’ll continue to shop with you.

We were in town for a multi-day trip over the Memorial Day weekend, we intended to rent a high-end bike for our son, who had recently outgrown his current bike. During a short test ride in the parking lot, he was unexpectedly reprimanded by your store manager for not wearing a helmet—despite not being informed that one was required at that stage. In fact, the test ride was at my recommendation as known in the store, recommended it, or even put him on the bike to ensure proper fitting, which I thought was kind of odd.

Also, to gauge his comfort level on the bike, I asked my son to ride up the grassy knoll and over the curb stop at the edge of the market’s parking lot. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to see how he would handle the bike over the curb, which is very similar to many conditions we would see on the trail (he’s coming from a 26 inch wheel bike so the jump to the 29er was concerning although it was the right size for him per the metrics). In the process he lightly tapped the pedal and crank arm on the curb, lost his momentum and then got off the bike after coming to a near complete stop (bike remained upright entire time). He was then subjected to further unsolicited criticism from your store manager —this time regarding his riding technique.

The tone used was condescending, not constructive, and frankly inappropriate. Our son felt embarrassed.

I explained to the store manager that while I understood his concern, we were in fact about to take this bike trail riding, and if the expectation was that it was going come back in mint condition without the risk of scratches, particularly on exposed parts like pedals and crank arms, then maybe that should have been made clear from the start and we would have opted to rent a bike elsewhere (given that such an expectation is patently unrealistic).

The store manager proceeded to rhetorically ask us if we knew that this was a $6k bike and so on, and at that point, he suggested that maybe it’s best that we not rent it.

We agreed and handed him back the bike.

My wife and I left feeling disrespected. This was not the kind of experience we expect from a business we’ve supported for decades.

We ended up going to Rifugio and they had no problem renting our son a bike two days in a row that ultimately resulted in us buying a bike for him from them (as that was the ultimate plan all along given that it’s was his birthday and we just wanted him to rent a 29er first to see how he would do on it before we committed to it).

We averaged over 11 miles a day with our thirteen year old that weekend Sunday through Tuesday and had one of the greatest riding experiences we’ve had in a while.

And then just a few weeks later, we ended up purchasing my older son a bike for his high school graduation, and coincidentally that was a $6K bike that originally I had seriously contemplated purchasing from your store.

We also referred friends of ours to Rifugio that resulted in a bike purchase for their son given the positive experience we had there.

I hope you’ll take this feedback seriously. The bike we wanted to rent from you was top-tier (and would have likely translated in to multiple bike purchases and ancillary products from your shop) but the customer experience was the opposite. A little empathy and discretion would have gone a long...

We tried to rent bikes from these guys and they told us we could only do it online even though we were standing in the store with them. Our phones didn't have good service so we asked for the wifi but they said they didn't give out the password and we needed to go elsewhere for internet. We asked about pricing and bike options, and prices where reasonable, but they didn't supply helmets with the bikes. I've worked in bike shops in 3 states for over a decade and never seen a bike rental require a helmet purchase. The bike shop seemed to want to make it as hard as possible for us to rent bikes. We went elsewhere.

Edit after shop's reply: Your response unfortunately underscores my point that you push customers away and create a toxic environment. I guess my own "litmus test" worked well for going with another rental company that actually cares about their customers and has basic friendly business practices.

Good luck...

I have been going to this shop for the longest time, I know the staff and all, everyone is quite nice, but with the new management, prices skyrocketed, and i was charged 40$ for them to fix a wheel that they ended up not being able to do, then another 115$ for them to just fix the rim tape on a wheel (would be at most 40$ at any other shop), this is my new opinion, and its definetely not the local welcoming shop it used to be, but it is what it is 😿 they still got the job done so its not the worst thing in the world, but still not happy with the pricing, from everyone that ive heard from said the price is absurd, so idk

Edit after viewing shop response: I still dont think that 155$, i told what happened to many people and none of them thought that price is reasonable, its a fairly new wheel and definetely shouldn't be an excuse for a professional shop to start flaming...