California Bicycle Inc — Local services in San Diego

Just had a terrible experience with California Bicycle in LaJolla where I purchased a Stromer ST2S e-bike, and the experience with Stromer wasn’t much better. A big part of what is marketed about the ST2S is its “connectivity” via the system they call Omni. This allows an app to do things like remotely lock and unlock the bike (and check to see its lock status), change various performance settings, and locate it via GPS. After purchasing the bike I rode it ~8 miles home and immediately found that the bike had no connectivity to the Omni system. (My cell phone was doing fine.) So the same day I purchased the bike I called California Bicycle and they gave me the tech support # for Stromer, USA. I called them and – after some off/on efforts, removing the battery, etc. they confirmed that, indeed, I didn’t have connectivity in my home in Del Mar. I should wait until the next day and try connecting again. The next day I tried again. No connection. Stomer said in effect: “Well, looks like you don’t have this at your home.” Thus I need to ride someplace else to do anything with the app.

The more I though about it, the more I felt that not having this key feature wasn’t acceptable to me for a $10,000 bike. So I emailed California Bicycle three days after buying it (and before their third business day) letting them know that I would like to return it. They responded in effect: no returns/no exchanges/no exceptions. And that: “…connectivity is out of our control”. In essence: it’s Stromer’s fault. They put me in touch with Stromer who said that they acknowledge that connectivity is an issue in some places and they will have a fix for this sometime in early 2018. They offered this fix “for free” and not the ~$650 charge. (Why should I even need to pay for this if what was advertised as a key function of this high-end bike was not provided to begin with?)

So… Even though the bike only had the 8 miles from their shop to my house, and one additional 12-mile trip, California Bicycle refused to take responsibility for the problem, refund the purchase price, and perhaps sell it again to someone who has connectivity. When pressed they came back with an offer to sell it on consignment for me – essentially as a used bike - with a 15% profit off the top. Really.

This has been the single worst customer experience at a bike shop that I have had in about 30 years of such...

I’ve only been in this bike shop three times. We live in AZ but I’ve made it a point to stop by each visit to this beautiful city each August. I met Jason on my first visit. Super nice and friendly. My second visit I was pleasantly surprised that he remembered me from my first visit and that I was “from Arizona”. I stopped by again today (another year later) and he still remembered me, even with me wearing a face mask during this COVID-19. Excellent customer service and such a great selection. I was happy to see that they have expanded since my last visit and making their store bigger.

August 2023 update: As I’ve stated before, we live in the Phoenix area but we vacation here in La Jolla every year. I always make it a point to visit this amazing bike shop at least once on every vacation. Every year I bring my bike with us and each year the week turns out to be my “biggest miles week”, beating the previous year’s mileage. This week while on my third ride I ended up having a major mechanical failure involving my rear derailleur. I feared my riding for the week was done and I wouldn’t be close to reaching my mileage goal. Not only did they get my bike working properly, but they went above and beyond my expectations. They must’ve sensed that my spirits were low and deflated when I dropped the bike off because they really hooked me up. I can’t express how thankful I am and how appreciative I am for...

Terrible customer service and highly over priced.

Follow up in light of response from owner to my original review above: I just read the response from the owner which was written 4 months after my initial review. He wrote "Response from the owner 7 hours ago Sebastian. Our staff were all helping clients upon your arrival. You were greeted and told we would be right with you. You gave us just a few moments before you stormed out of the store. Sorry we weren’t able to help you in what you thought was a timely manner" I find this response incredibly disingenuous. This is not what happened. I was completely ignored after repeated requests for help to find bicycling shorts. After which, I left as I couldn't find any shorts for under $100. I did not storm out and find it remarkable that the owner claims to remember this interaction 4...