The Wazoo had its one year ownership birthday this last week and I managed to completely forget/miss the 6-month checkup date, after paying £20 for the 12-months cover when it had its 6-week checkup last March. The blurb says they will fit new parts, bought from Halfords for free, but does anyone know how far this goes?

If I bought a spare FSA No.11N headset from them, which is currently a decent price last time I check (£16), would they fit the crown race on to my Carbon Fatty for me?

Or are they much more likely to say they would only fit that crown race to the default Wazoo fork?

I despair at my own procrastination sometimes, as regards getting non-essential things done, I guess part of it is down to to my pants stress management (a common symptom for SAD sufferers)…

There’s been a bargain carbon fork and carbon bung sitting in one of several PX wheel boxes since something like last June, but I kept putting off looking into getting it fitted, partially because I stressed about how much it would cost or whether Halfords could sort out the important bit for me for free (I very nearly purchased a crown race tool from Superstar in last months sale, but panicked about lack of experience and whether being a carbon fork makes the job more risky)! 😯

You trust the kids at a supermarket to work on your bike? Why don’t you find a proper bike shop, develop a relationship with them and get a real mechanic to sort out your bike? They are, sadly, quite accustomed to being asked to fit parts that customers have bought cheaply online.

If fairness, despite having fears along the lines of kids potentially working on my bike, the staff who build my Wazoo up for me last year were about my age (40+) and older. I had no issues with how they set they set the bike up for me.

Alternative bike stores near here are few and far between, Cycleworld became a Giant outlet sometime in the last year(?) and Dave Hardy Cycles ceased to be ~5 years ago.
Near work, there is The Hub and GA Cycles, while Hargroves moved from Millbrook Road West to Totton a few months back.

I guess I’m going to have to bite the bullet and contact Halfords themselves to see if they would fit a crown race purchased from them on to a fork bought elsewhere for free, but I was hoping someone here may have tried this route before.

You should just go on YouTube and see how to do it yourself.

It is very easy. You wont have to rely on others to maintain your bike.

Also look at the Park Tools website for maintenance tips.

I thought the kind of service they do is just change brake pads and index the gears, maybe change gear cable. Basic monkey work.

On the race fitting, it’s normally a doddle to do yourself with regular forks (block of wood, or pipe, + hammer, or use the proper tool). However carbon forks I hear warnings about how you support the fork while tapping with a hammer. Then again, they’re surely designed to take a lot of force along the vertical when riding.

Anyway, I’d be very wary of handing carbon forks to Halfords monkeys (even 40yr old ones).

If I want a crown race fitted for free, I grab my hammer and piece of hoover pipe and enter the garage. If I wanted it done by a bike shop, I’d choose to pay Cycleworld. I was in the Fareham branch the other day when a fella comes in with his “I bought this online” tale of woe. The mechanic didn’t bat an eyelid, just booked it in.
I reckon your best bet is to phone Halfords if you insist on having it done by them.