Went in to buy a tube and some patches today, seems to have changed a bit. They had loads of new cycling clothes on racks that actually looked good value stuff. There were loads of pretty cool looking cycling glasses for a tenner or fifteen quid that weren’t there before. They even had a woman a a nnnNNGG(deep breath) WOMAN mechanic spannering a bike! and they seemed proper friendly and helpful. Did I not get the memo about Bikehut turning into a reasonable version of a bike shop?

This one used to have a really cool roadie bloke, obvious cycling obsessive for a spanner monkey, but he got fed up with all the £80 quid bikes he had to work miracles on, and left for a decent shop. I just thought he was a fluke.

They’ve also massively expanded their online operation, quality brands & prices in line with wiggle/crc/merlin. Have some great online sales too. Delivery times to my local store leave A LOT to be desired at the moment though.

Some are ok some not so. Bit like normal bike shops i guess. Apart from its the share holders that benefit…

Yeah, I’d noticed the online thing (got me a bunch of coloured singlespeed chains for 40p each :)), and a few threads about shimano bargins. The one and only LBS in this area are realy, I mean REALLY, going to have to stop being aloof miserable gits now. The LBS has such a huge building with masses of floorspace, and an area that is even not doing anything (it is an old car sales showroom). Surely, with this emphasis on bikes in Halfords, they’ll have to try to compete in a different way. Turn the LBS into some sort of “hub”, where cyclists can meet, have a coffee, listen to some tunes, organise rides, have a noticeboard, some sofas or something. Something to make them not go down the toilet now Halfords are on the case. I do think they will have to change their game as they are out of town as well, and are almost like a cycling version of a car showroom. I’m probably rambling, but was quite surprised with Halfords TBH!

Nowhere local will have the vast choice of West End though, no matter how useless they are.

I don’t think they’re useless though Ste, they’ve helped me out with things a lot in the past. And I buy things from there just like anywhere else, got some good clothing bargains there. Love the ancient octolink 105 chainset proudly advertised full RRP! have they still got that old Norco DH frame on proud display?! They deffo need to liven that shop up though! I thought cycling was supposed to be fun! 😉

My local Halfords has been pretty consistently good for about 20 years now- good staff hiring/training good staff I reckon. But I’ve had the authentic halfords disaster service from other branches.

Hit and miss with Halfords here. OK if I know what I want, but I wouldn’t trust the mechanic as far as I could throw him.
me ”do you have any power-links for a 10sp chain?”
him ”take this one, they are all the same” Hands me a connector for an 8sp chain.
very helpful when buying a huge spanner and penetrating oil to remove a BB though.
.
car dept likewise, very helpful when buying gearbox oil and gasket sealer when fixing gear selector unit.
went to buy paint the other day, spoke to the paint expert, found the right colour for me easy enough, I then asked how big an area that much would cover in one coat, no idea, basic question for an expert I would have thought. Just had to guess how much to buy.

I’ve not been in there for ages, but I remember a selection of random old frames. I’ll leave it there though, thread isn’t about them….

As far as my old local Halfords goes, nice to hear that they’ve improved. The guys were always eager to help, even if the advice was very much hit and miss.

andrewh – Member

I then asked how big an area that much would cover in one coat, no idea, basic question for an expert I would have thought.

Not a simple question tbh- depends how much you’re going to waste in overspray/respray, on the thickness of that particular paint required to get the right hue, which in turn depends partly on what colour of primer it’s going on… Also on the shape of the part (far more wastage painting edges etc, or panels with gaps). A pro sprayer will be able to make a good estimate based on his own experience but a paint shop person would have to be pretty brave.

Ok, I showed her the part which needed doing, and I was buying primer from them too so she knew what I was using. I wasn’t expecting it to be spot on but a rough guide as to how many to buy, need at least 2 coats so at least double it. It was just the way she introduced as the expert which lead me to expect more advice.

Staff generally willing to help by me but drew the line when they charged a women 3x as much as the bike was worth to service/fix. I had to step in and say something. Women horrified they’d already charged £70 for fixes. She bought as rat bike for £30!!! And they still wanted another £40 off her.

Some of these posts sound a lot like plants!!!!

Don’t post and drink people. I’ll leave it at that. Got a ride to sober up for!!!!!

andrewh, you still can only really guess unless you know the colour and the sprayer. Like, the renault green I used for the motorbike is surprisingly transparent, it needed about twice as many coats as the much lighter red of my old Ford, which you’d think would need more.

I reckon she made the right call not giving you a guess but I can see why you might expect more.

Fair enough, I didn’t realise it was that variable.
when I’ve bought bog standard Dulex emulsion it’s always had a bit on the tin which has said that it will do one coat of 5sq/m or whatever, I was expecting something similar for car paint.
planning on doing it this week so will find out then. I bought 4 cans to make sure I have enough, don’t want to stop halfway through to go and buy more so would rather have too much. Taking extra bits back has never been an issue withem to be fair.

I love the way this thread had progressed..:D

They haven’t changed much in some regards, here’s a list of what was wrong when I picked up my Boardman road bike a few weeks back:

– handlebars loose, so the first time i used the drops they rotated forwards and chucked me off
– one spoke so loose it was flopping about like a piece of string
– stem not straight with the wheel
– pedals not tight
– crank not tight
– replaceable dropout not tight
– indexing completely wrong, on both mechs
– stops not set on both mechs, allowing rear into spokes and front onto frame, damaging the paint
– brakes not centred
– brake blocks not aligned with rim

Basically anything they needed to check or adjust was not done correctly! 😆

The folks in Halfords try their best but it is an odd operation for sure. Not capable of getting stock in in a timely manner. Randomly stocked. Inefficient systems of work. I really wish my firm’s cycle2work scheme was not closed to anyone buy Halfords so I could have gone to a proper bike shop.