I’ve read quite a lot of topics posted on here relating to peoples bad experiences with Evans Cycles and whilst I may every now and then add a comment to some threads I read, I rarely start a new topic unless I think it important enough, so here’s another one to add to the list, you can judge for yourself how serious you think it is, personally I find it alarming how you can pay a company to do something that could end in your death!

So I pop into my local Evans Cycles Store and ask to speak to one of the mechanics regarding a leaking brake valve, a guy comes out and I discuss the problem with him, he suggests bringing my bike in and he will personally look at the problem and see what he can do. Oh he also adds that he was the most experienced of all the mechanics there, so I was happy to wait to bring it in 2 days later when he was next working, besides I couldn’t wait weeks to get my bike fixed elsewhere.

So I get a phone call saying he couldn’t fix the brake and it had to be replaced, so did the brake pads on the front (which had allegedly been contaminated with brake fluid) and the rear brake pads (which I knew about and had ordered some from Evans.com but still hadn’t arrived a whole week after ordering, I later called to find out where they were and found out they hadn’t even been dispatched yet, complaint number 1, how does it take a week to dispatch something that’s in-stock).

He also said my cassette and chain were too worn and also needed to be replaced (I’ve since taken my bike to the local bike store for a 2nd opinion and they disagreed saying they didn’t need replacing any time soon, perhaps it’s a matter of opinion but definitely seems Evans likes to pad out servicing revenue with unnecessary parts and labour costs, taking advantage of peoples lack of knowledge in bike maintenance – complaint number 2).

Anyway, I agreed for him to do the work needed to ensure my brakes were fully working including replacing both front & rear disc brake pads, I don’t know anyone who would want to ride around with any issues with their brakes….. I later go to collect my bike and notice that there was what I assumed to be mineral oil covering the reservoir case and other parts & the gear levers were sitting loose on the handle bar, I had to clean it up and ask for an allen key to secure the levers myself, not a huge deal but pretty sloppy I think (complaint number 3).

I then rode a short distance back to the house thinking that once the brake pads had bedded in, my brakes would be as good as new….. I was WRONG…..

The next day I was out on my bike, I took it fairly easy speed wise knowing that the brakes weren’t fully bedded in yet and after almost 30mins of cycling I came off a dual carriageway onto a cycle path, a few minutes later I’m cycling downhill and go over a small bump in the path, I hear a clang of metal hitting the ground, apply my brakes quite hard and look back to see what it was. Thinking I was applying equal braking to both front and back wheels, my rear wheel skids to the right almost throwing me off the bike and the front brake has failed and isn’t working at all. I couldn’t find the piece of metal I heard fall off but later find out it must have been a brake pad (given it was no-longer present). When I take my bike back into the store later that day, it transpires that this so called “best mechanic in the store” had forgotten to replace the pins through not just the front brake pads, but also the rear pads too. I was effectively cycling a bike that could have lost all braking capacity at any time. I was lucky I was riding on a cycle path when the brake pad fell out, had it been a few minutes earlier I could have been surrounded by cars and been involved in a proper incident, even more so had both brakes failed.

In retrospect, I should have checked to make sure that the pins had been replaced, I just in a million years would not expect not just a fully trained mechanic, but the “best mechanic in the store” to make such a basic and fundamental mistake. I thought about this a lot afterwards, wondering whether or not I was being over dramatic about the whole incident – both the mistakes made by Evans Cycles and the experience of finding my brake failing. But you know what, I don’t think I am, the only people I ever see cycling bikes that don’t have brakes are BMX riders, its basically suicide to cycle without brakes which is why we all have them. And when an individual or company is called upon and agree’s to provide a service
then they are obliged under the law to owe us a duty of care. Thankfully nothing serious happened as a result, I didn’t suffer any injury but if this happened to someone else, at another time, in another place, its a real possibility that they could crash into something at high speed or get hit by a car because they couldn’t stop. If they were unlucky enough to get killed then it is quite possible and likely that the mechanic would be charged with Gross Negligence Manslaughter, owing to the fact that he had a duty of care towards the customer and his negligence directly contributed to the death of that person. All things being equal, he would therefore be much more responsible for the death than say the person driving a car who kills the cyclist (assuming the driver wasn’t driving dangerously or recklessly) and rightly so I say. Cycling’s dangerous enough without paying companies like Evans to increase the danger levels.

I wrote a complaint to Evan’s directly to the store manager 3 weeks ago now, I have yet to receive a response or even an acknowledgement or apology. I also more recently after not hearing anything from the store manager, written to Evan’s Head Office. Seems they have both poor mechanics and poor customer care, they can’t even be bothered to respond to such a serious complaint. Well I think I’ve given them enough time to respond, it’s time for the public to hear about it and draw their own conclusions. I for one won’t be spending anymore money with them, especially if they can’t even admit to and apologies for their mistakes.

Did you take it back to the shop to see what they said?

I also find it a bit odd that the lack of pins alone would do that – generally those pins are positioning pins, what stops the pads moving is their location in the housing, not a rather skinny pin.

I rode bmx without brakes for years and only died twice.

but yeah sloppy work, perhaps could be condensed a little to ease reading. Fairly coherant with undertones of local newspaper letters page.

6/10

photos would have helped get up to 8/10 perhaps a pic of the OP shaking a fist outside evans.

TBH we all have bad days…..

@ Bencooper,

I did say in my post that I took it back to the store.

Those pins are not positioning pins, they are there to keep the disc pads locked in place, without those pins, they are only held in place by friction and as demonstrated, uneven terrain will result in the pads eventually falling out of the housing.

Ah okay, I did skim your post. What kind of brakes? I’d still have thought that they’d need to be pretty slack to give enough space for the pads to fall out, but maybe brands vary.

I wrote a complaint to Evan’s directly to the store manager 3 weeks ago now, I have yet to receive a response or even an acknowledgement or apology

To be fair, if you wrote your letter in a similar way to your OP.

He probably hasn’t finished reading it yet.

I’m not disputing that a particular branch of Evans has failed here (in the first instance) and that their customer services department has also failed. But there doesn’t seem to have been much effort made by the OP to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Let us in on something. You took the bike back to Evans on the day of the incident in question. Any bike shop I can think of in a situation like that would be bending over backwards to resolve the issue as speedily as possible. Why didn’t they? Did they offer to put things right?

It sounds as if the mechanic hadn’t finished the job and somone else had thought it was done and passed the bike onto you??? There no way somone could forget 2x pad pins not to tighten shifters and not to clean excess fluid off, you could put it down to human error if he had missed one brake pin out

There’e enough drama here for a six part miniseries.

@bencooper

I’m no authority on these things, whilst an experienced cyclist I tend to rely on bike stores to do my maintenance like I rely on builders to do my DIY, I prefer to pay for a good job rather than do an ok or poor job myself.

The breaks are Shimano Deore and so were the break pads. I don’t think I follow your logic about them needing to be pretty slack to fall out, the 2 pads are held together by a thin spring and need sufficient space for the rotor to fit between them then adjusted when bleeding the brakes. I would agree that once assembled there doesn’t seem to be a lot room for a new pad to be able to fall out, but there is definitely enough room for movement and with enough vibration and knocking would eventually work their way loose. In any event if they were designed to be used with a pin to secure the pads in place, then obviously Shimano in their testing felt it necessary to utilise a pin, I’m not going to question their knowledge, I had no issues with them until Evan’s replaced them forgot to insert the pins and have had no problems since the pins were reinstalled…..

Brew anyone?

roadie_in_denial – Member
I’m not disputing that a particular branch of Evans has failed here (in the first instance) and that their customer services department has also failed. But there doesn’t seem to have been much effort made by the OP to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Let us in on something. You took the bike back to Evans on the day of the incident in question. Any bike shop I can think of in a situation like that would be bending over backwards to resolve the issue as speedily as possible. Why didn’t they? Did they offer to put things right?

They did fix it, that’s why I found out what had happened. But to fix it is not the point, something like this should never happen, which is why I wrote a complaint to the manager. The point being we have to rely on a company to competently perform the work required, it’s not like a broken spoke that they didn’t replace properly, having brakes that work is a fundamental requirement

The mechanic is probably a crackhead. When I was hooked on crack I used to forget everything.

@crftom

If the mechanic hadn’t called me himself to say my bike was ready I could agree with you, I’ve no idea how anyone could make such mistakes, but they did happen, I’d like to hear an explanation myself but Evan’s haven’t provided one.

Pins are now replaced? So someone has worked on your bike? Who? I’m still wondering why the original Evans didn’t bend over backwards to offer you the moon on a stick when you took the bike back that day.

Also, please stop referring to brakes as breaks…it really does break me (unintentional pun).

Futhermore you’ll find that the small spring in your brakes pushes the pads apart sqaurely rather than holding them together as you assert in your recent post.

Finally, it might be helpful for you to go look at the shimano website. In the ‘Shimano Technical Documents’ link from the homepage you will find all the technical documents you need regarding your brake, including how to fit and maintain them. Should you wish to pursue your complaint further I would imagine that this information will be useful to you.

O right big cock up if he had actually signed off on the job!!

@JCL

LOL I’d be relived if he was given I doubt there are too many crackheads working in bike stores. TBH this guy seemed pretty good, I had no reason to doubt him when I spoke to him, I had every confidence that he would do a good job.

Ok apologies for the repeated question in the previous post. Seems we were both typing at the same time.

Now, I’m not sure what your problem is. They failed in the first instance, you took the bike back and they repaired it all to an acceptable standard.

Now more than three weeks later you start your first thread here to bad mouth them? I don’t get it.

In my experience the ‘customer services’ department at Evans are a bit over run. I wonder why?

Send them another couple of emails. If no more response, have a chat with them in the ‘social sphere’ on twitter. But be polite.

@roadie_in_denial

I took the bike back to the same store the day the incident happened, the mechanic who worked on my bike originally wasn’t there and another mechanic at Evan’s pointed out that the pins were missing. He then did everything that should have been done originally whilst I waited in-store. So they did fix the original poor workmanship.

I don’t think I do keep referring to brakes as breaks, not that I can see, if I have it’s merely me typing too quickly.

As for your correction in my knowledge of what a spring does, thanks! But I already pointed out I’m no expert in these things and I don’t really want to concern myself with how these things work, which is why I’m happy to pay for trained people to do these things when necessary. The issue here is I paid for something that was done poorly and could have put me in serious danger.

not disputing anything but it makes me smile when people get so outraged they have to join and internet forum to shout about it 🙂 Maybe we need a 1st post must be a nice post rule?

@roadie_in_denial

The point here is that fixing a mistake is not always an option, if this had happens to someone else and circumstances are different and that person ends up dead, whats their to be fixed? It’s all too late.

The whole point of complaining to evans is to make sure that they acknowledge that there are failures in their company and do something about it, not just ignore it like they ignore my complaint.

The reason I wrote this is to highlight these issues to others so that they can make a more informed decision given I and others can’t trust Evan’s to take the appropriate actions. Yes they did fix their mistake, a mistake that wasted hours of my time and compromised my safety, is that enough? what if it happens to others?

Poor service and you are right to be annoyed. I would expect a labour refund at least. Not much you can do but not use them again.

I had a similar experience but with a very poor bleed from a well respected mechanic that is now the CRC team mechanic. Brake failed and pulled straight to the bar on an decent at inners causing me to crash. Said to him about it but pretty much denied it was his fault. Never used him again and do all my own work apart from shock/forks.

Everyone makes mistakes though. Just hope your not trying to get the guy sacked!

@mikewsmith

You’re right mike….. as I said in my OP I don’t start posts often, only when I think it’s significant. That said, I’m also the type of person who has written to companies when I’ve been particularly impressed with their performance and or staff so don’t assume I’m one of those people who just like to complain, I’m not…..

The reason I wrote this is to highlight these issues to others so that they can make a more informed decision given I and others can’t trust Evan’s to take the appropriate actions. Yes they did fix their mistake, a mistake that wasted hours of my time and compromised my safety, is that enough? what if it happens to others?

Fair enough, welcome to Singletrack.

So which evans store? It would help to know so we can avoid it obviously. Apologies for sounding suspicious but joining somewhere to post a rant smells a bit fishy really.

It’s a very stupid mistake that. TBH, one I could understand, you get called away mid-job. Shouldn’t happen but does. Sure, brakes are safety critical but once you’ve done a job enough times, it gets easy to lose sight of that.

But 2 is bad, why would you move onto the second brake without finishing the first?

Re chain and cassette- it might not have needed replaced immediately, but if you’re a back-to-shop maintenance person then it’s better to do it a little early than it is to have you needing to make another trip to the shop for another.

Sherry,

I think people underestimate how bad it is to find you have no brakes, it’s a horrific feeling….. they just like to joke and belittle what you say because they think if it happened to them they’ll be macho enough to not fear injury or death…..

I wouldn’t trust my own work unless I took a proper course in bike maintenance, I love cycling but want to be sure I’m as safe as reasonable, call me a fool but I do like to think it’s better to have trained people doing things than thinking u can do it all yourself, but maybe I’m wrong!

Everyone does make mistakes, but some are acceptable and other much less so.

Ok, so some might think no harm no foul, but the OP is right that Evans and their employee have a legal responsibility here. It doesn’t matter that he could have checked it himself. Once the service is being provided to him it’s their responsibility to ensure their work doesn’t put him at potential risk. TBH I thought all bike shops use a safety checklist to ensure this kind of thing can’t happen and many shops quote it in the service description. While it’s a bit melodramatic, the OP is being a responsible citizen in warning others since Evans have not even acknowledged the complaint let alone suggested how they’ll prevent it happening again in the future.

I’ve read quite a lot of topics posted on here relating to peoples bad experiences with Evans Cycles and whilst I may every now and then add a comment to some threads I read, I rarely start a new topic unless I think it important enough

You’re right mike….. as I said in my OP I don’t start posts often, only when I think it’s significant.

Not sure any of that’s right.

You have never posted any comments on any threads. ?
And you have never started any other threads. ?

You only joined a few hours ago.

@nealglover

I was talking about all forums not just this one and relating to all topics not just cycling related, although I may not have made that apparent….. I actually only came across this site earlier when googling Evans to see if they had a complaints procedure, the results brought up a list of complaints people made on here and so I thought it perhaps time to stop hoping that Evan’s would give a sh*t and reply

Besides, the duration of my membership here has nothing to do with the subject matter….. you’re obviously just very bored to point these things out. Why is it there are always people in all forums that have the need to deviate from the subject matter? Isn’t that why you read the post to begin with or is it just that you have nothing else to do at 2am?

Well I am suffering from insomnia at the moment, so I’ve not got much to do to be fair.

But joining a forum purely to complain about something is generally a bit “suspicious” yes.

Haven’t you got anything better to do at 2am ?

And im not really deviating from the subject matter, I’m commenting on it. Trying to establish how reliable the information is.

yep it’s nearly 2pm here where I’m sitting and generally after dark there is a lot of spam and drunk posting. Some of it under new user names. So when somebody joins and posts something contentious late on (when the hard working mods are asleep) it does ring a few alarm bells.

I hope evans get back to you, and when they do please post up their reply. Hope you get some resolution but in the end of the day it’s better to just move on an not get hung up on it.

to be honest i have limited sympathy simply because if you can’t work on your own brakes you shouldn’t really be out there. What happends if you’re in a forest or on the side of a mountain and they fail ? you just hope for the best ?

I can understand people not being able to ‘face’ a frame. But to not be able to replace their own pads is just poor.

I think the OP suggests that the bike wasn’t taken in for brake pad replacement but that this was added by Evans as work that needed done and that the OPer went with it as he had no pads at home. I don’t think there’s grounds for banning him from the trails quite yet.

I had a similar experience when a lbs dealt with a braking issue. I picked the bike up (noticing but not thinking about a massive smell of WD40) and got on it outside the shop to ride it home. 200 yards later a bus pulled out from a stop and I put some pressure through the brakes. Nothing happened. I put a lot of pressure through the brakes and still, nothing. In the end I managed to dodge the rear of the bus (just) and run onto a thankfully empty pavement where I dragged myself to a hault with my feet.
Turns out the mechanic had done the job and finished up by giving the bike a big dousing in WD40 or something like it. Including the braking surfaces.

Harsh words were shared and, obviously, I haven’t been back. Luckily a fantastic new shop opened up near by very soon after.

to be honest i have limited sympathy simply because if you can’t work on your own brakes you shouldn’t really be out there. What happends if you’re in a forest or on the side of a mountain and they fail ? you just hope for the best ?

I can understand people not being able to ‘face’ a frame. But to not be able to replace their own pads is just poor.

That’s irrelevant, isn’t it. The bike shop should be able to do the job they are paid for.

I have plenty of sympathy for the op, but would suggest this is the lesson to teach him to buy his own tools and use all the great resources on here and elswhere on net so that he will never have to waste his money in a bike shop ever again.

Mostly I find Evans decent but there are a couple of the London stores where the staff dont appear to particularly like bikes or cyclists. Makes you wonder about how they came to be working there…

Not defending what happened here, but its unfair to tar all of Evans with the same brush, a lot of stores have great staff who do a decent job of both sales and repairs.

If one lbs made this mistake would you stop shopping at all independents?

Compare the 40 Evans stores with 40 random lbs shops and their wouldn’t be much difference at all.

double post