Evans vs Cycle Surgery in Chalk Farm

There has been a very good Cycle Surgery in Chalk Farm for as long as I’ve lived in London.

Evans moved there maybe a year ago, setting up quite aggressively at a position just next door.

It actually amuses me how poor the Evans place is compared to the Cycle Surgery. In the Cycle Surgery every staff member knows way, way more about bikes than me, bluntly, and can respond to quite specific problems pro-actively.

In the Evans, for comparison, I just can’t tell whether they know anything about bikes at all. They just read from a script: “got a problem! Good, we’ll book you in. Ah, no availability until Tuesday. Well our mechanic will look at it then. Have a nice day!”. It is practically impossible to have a substantive discussion with them about the mechanical issue on the shop floor – they just defer to the mechanic. I think that’s telling. Also, they never, never pick up the phone whereas Cycle Surgery picks up after like 2 rings every time.

I find it surprising that in a situation where two shops are in such direct competition with each other, one (the Evans) could be so much more poor than the other (the Cycle Surgery). How come the Evans isn’t being eaten alive?!?

Evans = Starbucks innit

People will always use them regardless of the quality of the product. Big brand, big marketing.

Cycle Surgery has always had a different approach to who it hires. So you’ll always get proper bike people. And yeah, the Chalk Farm one has always be a really good one.

given a choice ill pick cycle surgery any day a bit more mtb biased ime as well as being better staffed, unfortunately evans seem to be all over the place these days!

oh and a bit late but i think cycle surgery at london bridge were offering free breakfasts today!

I used to work in the Chalk Farm Evans. I was, of course, completely useless. Dammit, you’ve outed me.

Ah… Cycle Surgery or previously known as Yellow Jersey. Nice LBS. Why bother with Evans when you have them?

i didn’t know there was a Cycle Surgery at London bridge?

It’s been a few years since I was last in London and I seem to remember, it felt like there was a bike shop on every corner….a large majority of them being Evans. All road bikes/hybrids and no mountain bikes.

I remember the Condor shop, twas difficult not to spend a small fortune. It was near my brothers pad at the time. Right, I’m up for another trip south:D

Cycle Surgery has always had a different approach to who it hires. So you’ll always get proper bike people. And yeah, the Chalk Farm one has always be a really good one.

They also have a very good training scheme for staff, both as an onboarding thing and as an ongoing program. Covers both product, sales and customer service skills. 8)

Would anyone care to guess how much Evans quoted for a bottom bracket installation?
Frame stripped, press fit. 5 minute job.

Both chains have good and bad staff, and shops, and both tend to sell what the customers in their locality want to buy which is a pretty good business model. Compare with the fate of Dirt and Dreams with branches in Covent Garden and Portobello Rd for those that are old enough to remember.

Evans in the Cut and Waterloo Road were both good shops once upon a time, though I suspect they might have changed a bit.

Evans at Chalk Farm is solely aimed towards your cool, skinny jean wearing Camden folks and in some part your well off Primrose Hill/Hampstead folks who are happy to spend a fortune on expensive rubbish!

Cycle Surgery is a much better shop.

Would anyone care to guess how much Evans quoted for a bottom bracket installation?
Frame stripped, press fit. 5 minute job.

£39.99 😮

I had good service from Evans Waterloo Road when I needed the pivot bearings on my Zesty sorting last summer. I wouldn’t tar them all with the same brush, it’s a case of finding a branch with a mtb friendly Manager/Workshop, which the Waterloo Road branch seems to be.

Evans’ price matching is also very useful. I felt the sudden urge to buy some DMR Vault pedals, rang a branch, they told me with branch would have the colour I wanted, nipped over to it and showed them the CRC price on my phone and walked out with the pedals at the CRC price.

I used to like Bike Park just off Covent Garden. Cannondale Pro team wrench monkey called Dean used to work there – top bloke and shop. They also had a huge subterranean place just off the Kings Road, sofa’s and video’s playing, coffee and grub – 12+ years ago. It’s now a hairdresser to the Chelsea set 🙁

I have a similar choice when in ccentra Brum and is it a no brainer. I will never spend a single penny with Evans after some truly terrible service when trying to spend quite a lot of money on a road bike with them. Cycle Surgery however could not have been more helpful, I have always had great service from them.

I agree that some Evans are very good (The Cut).

However the Camden one is poor. Maybe the mechanics are alright, and the staff are friendly enough, but the knowledge just isn’t there. Maybe they have a few employees who do know their stuff, I don’t know.

I also live close to Camden although my closest shop is the King’s Cross Cycle Surgery. I’ve always been very impressed by them.

I should probably add a few lines to my previous post, especially in light of things I’ve read since.

First of all, I worked for Evans for a number of years while I was studying in London. It was a good place to get trade price parts. I have zero loyalty to the company, in terms of it being a place to spend money now, or as a former employer I’d fondly remember – I certainly do not!

However, it is interesting to get a picture of how fond some people seem to be of Cycle Surgery. My opinion is that they, like Evans, have good and bad staff. Neither chain would jump out at me as better than the other, although CS seems to have a buyer with their head screwed on.

On the BB point raised above, I hear you. But you should try selling a puncture repair for £18.50 plus the tube. That weeds out the salesmen with shame from those without it.

While I worked at Evans I never once sold a “proper” mtb to a customer – and I don’t think that was a entirely consequence of my terrible sales technique, lack of interest, terrible attitude, or lack of loyalty to “The Company”. There is simply not the demand in Camden/Primorose Hill – most Singletrack forum types, for example, will mail order things rather than browse a shop. They know what they want and don’t necessarily want to be told about it by spotty BMX-buffing oiks.

That does not excuse the lack of mechanical knowledge of most sales staff in Evans’ London stores. Generally, it’s bad. (They don’t need gears on those bikes they ride round the South Bank…) Training is inadequate – my sense is of a complacent company that is too big for its boots (given its capacity to crush the little guys i.e. the LBSs, ever further). As for answering the phone, that’s something that even irritates off-duty staff when they try to ring in.

Finally, I think it’s worth pointing out that, cynical as it is, Evans doesn’t aim the shop in Chalk Farm at “real” mountain bikers. It is a store for people who want a BMX sprocket or a bike to ride round Regents Park on. Oddly enough, a good friend of mine in Kendal regards his local Evans as an excellent shop – precisely because of the expert knowledge of the staff. The roadie folks in the Cut are supposedly pretty good – although they’re the proudest exponents of the Evans Attitude (dumb ignorance) in my opinion. The point is the shop’s going to be no good for a mountain biker in London…because, very sadly, it doesn’t pay to cater for the very few who happen to live in that place. Shit chain or not (and it’s not as simple as that, surely?) you can’t blame them for not running a boutique mtb store for the vast majority of people to ignore?

But, as I said, it is a great place for a Saturday job when you’ve got three mountain bikes to maintain… I could have been out riding my bike, after all.

I bought an Orange hardtail from CC in Chalk Farm in 2004.
Decent shop then, but I haven’t been in since.
The frame is still in regular use. 😀
Oh, and for the record ,I was never , ever, a trendy Camden type. 😉

Hi jhw,

Thanks for the feedback. I was wondering if you have had bad experience only once or has it happened many times? We are not perfect but we always encourage feedback in order to enhance the service we offer to our customers. If it was a concrete case or incident, if you drop me an email at community.manager@evanscycles.com, I would be happy to look into it.

Thanks,
Balint @ Evans Cycles

Not a concrete case which I would want specifically followed up, more a general theme thanks. The quality gap between your Camden branch and the Cycle Surgery next door is really, really marked. Basically I get the sense that Cycle Surgery are actual riders, like me. I don’t with certain Evans branches. I might be wrong.

Two specific points please –

– pick up the phone; and
– have a shop-specific email on your website (I’m not sure that you do now; I may have missed it? Cycle Surgery does.)

Oddly enough, a good friend of mine in Kendal regards his local Evans as an excellent shop – precisely because of the expert knowledge of the staff.

I used to work at the Kendal branch. I was awesome.
FACT.

😉

have used evans in hendon a couple of times and they seem pretty good, though not very happy staff, by this i mean they dont exactly jump when a customer comes around.

Also the staff dont seem to like working at evans at all and most of the time it pretty clear they are here for the money not for the love of bikes.

workshop wise the work is good but is exspencive, also very cheeky when they make you sign the receipt for work to be done, then when i phoned up asking if it ok if i pick bike up next day, they say that is fine but it costs £25 holding fee for the bike overnight..

anoyed that they didnt mention that when i said i might not be able to pick bike up same day when i put it into workshop…..