Back Bay Bicycles

Reviews 4

CH

Christopher Pimental

Terrible experience here at Backbay Bicycles, that ironically ended up being very beneficial in a funny way, back in May of 2016. I was leaving in a couple of days to do my first bicycle tour in Europe, over the summer of 2016. I had made a reservation to box my bicycle in cardboard so I could fly with it. I get to the shop and am immediately treated impatiently and disrespectfully by the staff. After I was finally taken to the back of the shop to deliver my bicycle, I asked a couple of questions to the bike tech who was going to be doing the boxing. He was extremely impatient with me and made me feel like I was stupid for asking such questions. Heres where things get interesting. After withstanding the staffs attitude, I get my bike back, beautifully boxed in cardboard and ready to fly to Europe. Fast forward a couple of days, and Im happily arriving to Lisbon International Airport in Portugal, eager to put my bicycle back together and just ride right out of the airport. To my great surprise, I finished putting my bicycle back together, and I notice something slightly important is missing from it... THE FRONT WHEEL! Ill give Backbay Bicycles the benefit of the doubt, and say that they forgot (errrr STOLE!) my wheel. So here I am, alone in Lisbon Airport, on my first bicycle tour, first time in Europe, with the few possessions I had for the next couple of months, and my bicycle with no front wheel. Despite all this, life has a funny way of turning things around. Right at that moment, two other cyclists were passing by, one being a Lisbon local. After they finished laughing hysterically at my situation, the Lisbon man invited me to his home along with the other cyclo-tourist whom he was hosting through Warm Showers. Gonçalo (the Lisbon man who hosted us) ended up being an amazing person. He hosted us for 3 days, showing us the beautiful city of Lisbon, giving me invaluable tips for cycling in Portugal, making us food, and even cycling with us on the last day when we started our tours! So long story short, in all its irony, none of this would of happened if it werent for Backbay Bicycles. I still got treated like crap, and they still did "forget" to include my bicycles front wheel in my bicycle box. But in a funny way, I guess Im thankful for Backbay Bicycles terrible service, as the start of my Summer 2016 Euro Bike Tour just wouldnt have been the same.

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JO

Joey Melnick

Buyer beware: Dont get the tune-up groupon here. Big rip off The short version is the mechanics were rude, tried to sell me unnecessary replacements and generally were unhelpful. Ive been to a lot of bike shops where they will give you advice and help you SAVE money. Sometimes even talking me out of having them do work on the bike because I can do it myself. BBB is not one of these places. They actually made my brakes worse then before I brought it in. I am really disappointed , maybe I just got unlucky but I wont be going back to find out. There are lots of friendly Local Bike Shops in Boston so I recommend you avoid this place. The long version I brought the bike in and started explaining to the mechanic what the issues were. Loose cone in the front, front breaks squeaked, and a few items I didnt want to replace because the bike is a commuter and not worth putting a lot of money into. He interrupted me to tell me my chain needed to be replaced. I had replaced my chain about 6 months ago and wasnt having any gear slippage so I told him, I think Ill hold off as I havent had any problems (again, its a cheap commuter bike). He gave me a little attitude and told me I could pick it up Tuesday next week. I was sorta annoyed he but whatever, maybe he was having a bad day. On Tuesday I called to double check the bike would be ready and I got more attitude (maybe the same guy?) "We will call you when its done, thats how it works". They quickly called me back to let me know that they couldnt fix the breaks with an adjustment, they were worn down and needed to be replaced. $30 for parts and labor. I opted to pass, I can replace my own break pads for cheaper and was skeptical as I had less than 500 miles ridden on the last pads. When I got my bike back t the breaks had been tightened. The rear breaks now didnt work at all and the front ones were squeaking even worse. I brought the bike to another LBS that I trusted and they confirmed what I suspected, the pads werent worn down, they still looked good. I just needed to adjust the break cables.

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CA

Carlton Galbreath

Incredibly disappointed to have to leave such a bad review here as I was really hoping to love this bike shop. We just moved in right next door and needed our bikes reassembled after taking them apart to ship in Amtrak boxes. Brought our bikes in for full tune-ups and heres the story: 1) The first day I got my bike back I rode it to work. When I stood up about 5min into my ride, the handlebars rotated toward the ground - almost crashed and would have been way worse if Id been commuting on a street instead of a trail which is usually the case. They failed to tighten the screws on one of the most important parts of the bike. I took it back in after tightening them myself to get home, they offered a $20 store credit. I figured theyd give a full refund but didnt wanna fight it as I was hoping to be coming there often. 2) I noticed the same day that my wheel was squeaking and chalked it up to the fenders. A couple weeks go by and its still happening - diagnosed that it was the front brake hitting the tire. I brought it in and the front office staff, David, simply took the tire out and put it back in, which fixed it. He then proceeded to tell me that theres no way the bike left the shop in that state. I didnt want to argue and cause a scene right there, but it DEFINITELY left the shop that way and I let him know so (without asking for a credit or refund or anything). He told me that if I didnt take my tire off then someone else did. He then proceeded to say something about "being honest with him" twice in the minute before I left. Everything short of being outright called a liar. So in summary - they gave a sloppy tune-up that could have cost me (and them) dearly had I crashed due to handlebar failure. In that same tune-up they failed to reinstall my front wheel correctly then accused me of lying when I came back to get it fixed. Bad tune-up, TERRIBLE customer service and attitudes. Even though I live so close that Ive given them their mail a few times after it was delivered to my building, Ill be going to any bike shop in Boston but this one.

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AN

Anilesh Sharma

I hope this review is found to be useful by consumers who are cost-oriented, not necessarily money-minded. People usually go by how things look on the surface without really digging deeper. It is same with Back Bay Bicycles. The shop looks great, there is a lot of stuff that you can buy and the guys talk nicely. But, it shocked me when i compared the prices of things that they sell with the cost of those same parts online! The difference was nearly 5X!! For example: a pair of break-pads which they charged $20 for, was available only for $6.98. Not only this... the additional cost of labor for putting them on bike was $10. Adding the tax it finally was $31.25. I went to Back Bay Bicycles after reading all those good reviews about it on google. Most of them only talked about how nicely they were treated. None of those reviewers probably bothered to check how much were they cheated. The cost for a single set of break pads is $6.98. These people buy in wholesale. They pay way way lesser amount per set than $6.98 in the first place. Charging nearly 5X of what it costs them, only because people may not come to know about it is totally unfair in my opinion. I am about to order tools and break pads online next time I need something like that done. Simple issues can be easily done by a regular user of bike and does not need any special skills. I would recommend that if you can work without your bike for a day or two (i.e. the time in which your stuff arrives from online order) then please do yourself a favor and wait. Doing it yourself is a more sensible choice considering the outrageous profit these people try to make out of less knowledgeable customers.

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