Trail Head Cyclery — Local services in Cupertino

Trail head cyclery made me feel like they did not want to help or talk to me after selling me my bike.

I understand that with buying a bike from a bike shop you can expect strong, after sale customer service. I did not experience that at Trail head cyclery the two instances I had to go to them on bike issues shortly after purchasing my bike.

I purchased a turbo levo from trailhead. A 10k bike pre-tax (irrelevant for customer service expectation, but just for context).

1-2 weeks after riding the bike, I noticed the carbon wheels were starting to make noises. I checked the tension of the spokes and noticed that the spokes were de-tensioned by 50% posing a reliability concern. I went to the trailhead and dealt with the owner. He noticed I just purchased the bike. He demonstrated little to no empathy and wasn’t even sure if this would be a warranty matter. He said the earliest he could get me in for the work is 2 weeks out. That was unacceptable in my eyes as I just purchased the bike and had an issue. This is a 30min job.. After pushback, he caved in and was able to turn the wheels around in a couple days. He mentioned that I wouldn’t be charged, as you would expect for this situation. I go to pickup the wheels and they are looking to charge me for service which their service fees are outrageous. After pushing back on them again, they cover the service as they should for warranty work.

Shortly after this warranty issue, I also experienced a motor issue. Similarly, I go into the store, and receive no empathy on the issue with my brand new bike. The first thing that comes out of the technician’s mouth is that you will need to schedule an appointment for this (after talking to them on the phone about having a look) and that there will be a diagnostic fee for the warranty and service fees related to the warranty work.

This is unacceptable and also unethical business practice of THC. Specialized warranty contract reads that the consumer does not pay for any labor or diagnostic fees associated with a warranty. Specialized pays the bike shop and THC is double dipping with these charges. They claim that the payment received from Specialized doesn’t cover the shop hours, that is not my problem, and other bike shops have no problem following the Specialized warranty contract.

After going through the warranty process anyways with THC, they were unsuccessful with getting my warranty approved making this a waste of my time. Everyone else I talked to besides THC (including other shop owners) mentioned this is a warranty claim. I figured I would stop wasting my time with THC and went to a bike shop in Santa Cruz to do the warranty work.

I went to the bike shop and they were apologetic with the issues I faced. They looked at my bike right there and then and filed the claim. It took about a week for them to get the warranty completed and was super painless. They charged me nothing and were happy that I could go ride my bike again.

I will not return to THC for a bike purchase or service. I cannot recommend them to a friend and I suggest you consider a bike shop that does a better job with after sale...

Update again: I received email from Las on 11/5/19, he explained there's error in the work order and refunded me the duplicated charge, also apologized for the not so good experience I had to go through. I really appreciated he took time to make things right. Also I do have good experience with other shop staffs in the past so I adjusted the rating and review.

I dropped my Ibis ripmo to install new shifter/cable housing and cable a week ago, plus rear derailleur adjustment. I tried to explain to the staff the internal routing seems have issue because the cable housing will stuck in chainstay near bottom bracket (ripmo has molded tubes for internal routing so basically cable/hose can run through without routing tool), he then rudely interrupted me and started talking about internal routing requires fishing cable though and how yeti bike internal routing works etc. To be honest, I’m not a yeti owner and I really don’t care about that, I just want to let you know the issue I had and maybe get some insight from you why this happens since I think trailhead cyclery must have a lot experience with ripmo as a big ibis dealer. So when I tried to explain my bike doesn’t require fishing cable and my concern, he interrupted me again and basically expressed “you screwed up that’s why you’re here, so shut up and leave the bike”, of course, in a slightly more polite language.

At that point, I was thinking that’ must be the worst bike shop visit in my life until he give me the estimated cost: $160ish ???? Really, for install new shifter/cable housing and cable, plus rear derailleur adjustment??? The only part needed from the shop is probably some housing, so let’s say install new shifter/housing/cable, $30?; install new chain, $20? Adjust rear derailleur $30? Assume you charge me $10 for housing, I’m just really curious how did he come up with the number....

Update: picked my bike today and here's actual charge: $20 for install chain (kinda reasonable), $20 for 1 feet of cable housing (really?), $45 for install shifter; then a separate $58 for install shift cable/housing/adjust rear derailleur... well I would think when you charge install new shifter for $45, that would include install cable and adjust derailleur already, but obviously for this shop it's not, for $45 they literately just mean clamp your shifter on handlebar....When I questioned the charge, what I got is "Unfortunately that's the economy".

Anyway,...

Went into the shop asking questions about a bike I was interested in buying. After a few questions and test riding the 7,000$ bike I went back inside to suddenly be dealing with another young man who was only geared to sell me the bike. I purchased the bike and immediately received less feedback. No explanation on how to even plug in the charger for the ebike after telling them up front this was my first ebike. After riding the bike for 2 hours I hated it. Called shop immediately but was closed and called the next day. The shop then brings it to my attention that there are no returns. I had to then email the sales department and manager 4 times to get a response after 3 days. They were extremely reluctant to do any kind of restocking fee and refund me any portion of money for a bike I hated after 2 hours use. Once talking to a manager I got the typical response of nothing we can do . after further discussion they agreed to take the bike back but I would lose 2,000$ off my purchase. Don't listen to the garbage these guys spew about restocking fees etc. I've worked in bike shops there is always a way to please the customer and not gouge them for money. This shop is highly not recommended over REI or just ordering...