Can anyone recommend a good bike shop in Leeds to have a tyre kick in?

Depends what you’re interested in?
Crosstrax are good (going big on kona right now which is no bad thing in my book) + the staff are great.
Evans, only if you’ve ordered a bike in to try out first.

Or go over to Stif, (not in Leeds anymore), who are expensive but completely awesome.

Shops tend to cater for a scene / style of riding. For a bit of everything in a mainstream kind of way, go to Saltaire and see allterain cycles.

garage bikes. morley.
proper bloke who loves bikes.

Cyclesense, Tadcaster, just outside Leeds – 20 mins down A64

Also Edinburgh Bikes in Chapel Allerton if thats the sort of shop you’re looking for

Woodrups – Kirkstall Road
Chevin Cycles – Otley

For a city its size Leeds has relatively few bike shops compared with somewhere like Bristol.

Newish – Holy Spokes in Horsforth mainly service work but new shop and growing.
Good lads as well.

Garage bikes Morley again, but not for tyre kicks – unless you want to kick the one demo IBIS.

As others have said, Garage Bikes in Morley. Top bloke who is genuine and honest.

A bit further afield, JD’s in Ilkley are also really good, staff really friendly and knowledgeable.

Contrary to what Binno says, I’ve found the staff at Crosstrax to be a bit vague and rude on both the occasions I’ve used them. They seemed more interested in watching the latest video on youtube than dealing with a waiting customer. I may have got them on a bad day but I wouldn’t rush back.

Sorry to hear that crag was it recently you had this experience. I own crosstrax if you don’t know

+1 for general recommendation for Garage Bikes (for all the reasons given previously) but also to note that Al’s not got a showroom full of bikes so the one thing he’s not much use for is tyre kicking (unless it is just tyres you want to kick – he’s got plenty of tyres, they’ve just not got bikes attached to them).

For demos Stiff have been ace to me , Edinburgh Cycles are also very good but a limited range at the moment (based on 30 seconds chasing my toddler round). Woodrup have been excellent for work on my bike but no idea re demos. Chevin cycles in Otley have an interesting range.

I have no experience of Crosstrax but will now visit.

Garage Bikes – great service and too easy to stay for a conversation!

Crosstrax – not used em since they moved from Rodley, but as with ATC, if they’re not busy (which they were quite a lot) then there was always good service and once they got to know you they were great. ATC is the same but with a bigger shop (and more tyre kicking opportunities)

not really used Evans

Edinburgh Cycles are good in their own way

Mates have used Holy Spokes but I’ve not

Sancho – Member

Sorry to hear that crag was it recently you had this experience. I own crosstrax if you don’t know

Posted 48 minutes ago # Report-Post

In fairness it was a while ago, maybe 2 years, so not particularly recent.

I’m sorry that we weren’t up to scratch crag . However the lads you dealt with have left to set up their own shop and we now have a completely new team who so far have transformed the shop and is pretty unrecognisable from before.
Hope one day you may return and enjoy a coffee and biscuits on us 🙂

Why’s no one mentioned Drakes in Harehills? Friendly staff and quite a bit of tasty stock.

Another shout for J D Cycles

Another shout for J D Cycles

Same here. A great LBS who stock some interesting kit and give good advice. Chevin cycles seemed ok (a mate bought a bike from them) but I never really liked them.

Forgot about Drakes. Used to live round the corner from there, nice little shop and friendly staff

J D cycles is in Ilkley, i wouldn’t call that Leeds

Cheers all, will check the map and see where to pop into.

I can almost see a spartacus moment in crosstrax, with people saying “I’m Crag” just to get tea and biscuits foc

+1 for CrossTrax, super helpful, frequently refuse payment for little things, treat us friends rather than customers.

+1 for Garage Bikes, as above but in Morley which is further from my house.

They seemed more interested in watching the latest video on youtube

This was also my experience when I went in to the Rodley store a while back, think the guy was called Ed, barely even looked up. I didn’t go back!

the lads you dealt with have left

Interesting, might have a look in then next time I need something if I find myself Adel way.

Another vote for Crosstrax, good staff, always happy to help.

+1 for Crosstrax. I’ve used them since they only had the wee lockup in Rodley.

Chevin also good but not used them for workshop stuff. Very patient and helpful when I was looking at roadbikes.

Stiff were laughably bad ime, and not interested unless it appeared a customer wanted to spend £1k+. Not used them since they moved to Summerbridge

Never tried Crosstrax. Chevin are pretty poor in my opinion, very unattentive staff unless you’re spending a bunch. Stif have always been brilliant with me, friendly staff, knowledgable etc. All Terrain pretty good too.

Stopped using Chevin after I went in for two replacement chainrings for an LX crank. Their reply was sorry we don’t have any but we do have a new Deore crank which is £90 and comes with a BB. I insisted I only wanted replacement rings which they then magically found!

I used Crosstrax on many occasion when i lived over Yorkshire/Leeds way and always found the staff and the owner to be more than helpful and would recommend them to anyone.

You also have Woodrup cycles on Kirkstall Road and once again always found them to be helpful.

I think sometimes when you go into certain bike shops we as customers can perceive the staff or manager to come across as a little rude or arrogant or perhaps we as customers just expect staff or shop owners to jump at our every demand as soon as we walk in, but i quite like the fact that some bike shops are not like the majority of high St shops or certain so called major bike shops that want to get in your face to sell you this or that as soon as you walk in, whats wrong with a little quirky and the chilled out approach or the watching of a Mountain biking on DVD/you tube?! Thankfully we are not all the same!!

Another vote for Crosstrax.

Jump on the train to Saltaire – All Terrain are great and right by the station. Stiff is waaay out in the middle of nowhere now but there’s good riding out there.

Salts Mill is worth a visit to if you are interested in art/books/food/xmas gifts, or just get a pie over the road at that bakery!

Jump on the train Ride your bike straight up the canal to Saltaire – All Terrain are great

FTFY…

Crosstrax for everything – including mainly just shooting the breeze.
Chevin Cycles if I need something faster than the interweb and Crosstrax don’t have it.
Have used Woodrup a couple of times for Shimano stuff for the cross bike.

I’m sorry that we weren’t up to scratch crag . However the lads you dealt with have left to set up their own shop and we now have a completely new team who so far have transformed the shop and is pretty unrecognisable from before.
Hope one day you may return and enjoy a coffee and biscuits on us

Posted 1 week ago # Report-Post

Hi Sancho,

demo-ed a Zesty a few months ago & really liked it. Left contact details so guy in your shop could sort a price on a 714 – he never even bothered to contact me (so I bought one elsewhere). You can obviously afford to kiss goodbye to a 4 grand sale. Absolutely crap (your loss).
T/g

Trailgod
I’m sad to hear that.
But would you be able to give me a few details as we do try to keep customers happy though we are not perfect

Trailgod
I’m sad to hear that.
But would you be able to give me a few details as we do try to keep customers happy though we are not perfect.

Sancho

can’t remember exact date (you were in Spain doing computer stuff according to the really tall guy in the shop). It was when Lapiere were doing a demo from your shop (April/May-ish ?). Gave him my details as I say & he was going to contact me within next few days to do best price – never came back to me. I realise no-one is perfect but pretty poor never the less.

I didn’t ring to follow it up as I was pi55ed off really so didn’t see why I should.

T/g

Sorry to hear that.
I was in madrid yes. But from what I gather the tall lad left a message explaining that we couldn’t get a 714 at the time as they were sold out at hotlines. If you didn’t get the message we must have had the wrong number.
Sorry about that.

And I agree it’s piss poor if you don’t get an answer for an enquiry

I live in the wrong part of Leeds for decent bike shops, LS26, I’ve used ‘the bike shop’ (original) in Crossgates as it’s close but it’s really not very. some of the staff are ok, but they don’t really know what they’re talking about and don’t seem that enthusiastic.

Couple of my mates use Crosstrax and rate them highly.

I’ve not used Stif since they moved, but I used to make a special effort to use them in Headingly, always very helpful, and I never actually spent that much in there!

Drakes is a decent bike shop with very helpful staff – used ’em for years.
Only had experience of Crosstrax, at Adel, recently. Nice folks, very helpful and know their stuff – thanks for selling the Spark, chaps!

-1 for Woodrups

They left me without a bike for over two weeks and charged me £30 for work that didn’t fix the problem the bike went in for. One of their staff was an argumentative little so-and-so and denied there was anything wrong (dodgy freehub) but changed his tune when the mechanic agreed they hadn’t fixed the problem. They took the bike back in but another two weeks passed and they hadn’t even bothered to look at it so I took it elsewhere.

There’s a little place in Hyde Park called Re-Cycle run by a couple of decent blokes. They’re not MTB specific but all the work I’ve had done there on both my bikes has been cheap and to a really high standard.