Following on from a similar post I thought I’d give some praise to JE James.

I’ve been having a bad time with my Fulcrum rear hub and freehub bearings. Finally got some circlip pliers on Friday afternoon to get the last bearing out of the freehub body. Quick trip to the local bearing shop in Sheffield to find out its an odd sized bearing and they don’t stock them. Back at my PC and a chance search came up with JE James (my local LBS) as having some in stock.

Unfortunately, the bearings are in the warehouse and not in the shop, but they suggested calling their mail order guys to see if they can get them out to me pronto (I really wanted to put my wheel back together for the Nutcracker race at Parkwood this Sunday). Spoke to Matthew in Rotherham, who said they’d try and get them couriered out to me and delivered on Saturday morning … result!

Around 6pm on Friday evening a stranger on a bike turned up at my house in Sheffield. It was Matthew. He decided the courier wouldn’t work out, and as he was going to be going past my house on his way home (not sure how close he was intending to pass), he dropped them off in person. Now that is a proper result!

i think they are shit, massive road section in the Rotherham store, and they had a choice of 1 tub tyre in stock, then the mechanic tried to charge me £15 to fit it and said it would be 30 minutes,

I wouldn’t like to comment until they get back to me about the replacement brake lever I asked them to get me. Only been a couple of years so far..
That said they have always been great actually in person 🙂

i think they are shit, massive road section in the Rotherham store, and they had a choice of 1 tub tyre in stock, then the mechanic tried to charge me £15 to fit it and said it would be 30 minutes,

Nightmare customer alert! Dear me – not many people use tubs nowadays, I’ve not seen any in stock in any bike shops around me so that’s not unusual. And charging for mechanic work? How dare they charge the going rate for labour??? It should all be done for free!!!! Muppet.

In person they generally aren’t bad but their different websites always list stock they don’t have

If you are in sheffield you really should be using bike rehab just off dev green

I brought my BMX from them, great price, good communication, rapid delivery, free mug 🙂

Nightmare customer alert! Dear me – not many people use tubs nowadays, I’ve not seen any in stock in any bike shops around me so that’s not unusual. And charging for mechanic work? How dare they charge the going rate for labour??? It should all be done for free!!!! Muppet.

haha not quite

if they can stock £3k Zipp wheels, and £9k Specialized road bikes, in a nicely extended part of the building why can they not keep more than 1 tub on the shelf, Planet-X 5 miles down the road had a choice of about 5 – to be fair the choice of clincher tyres was equally poor

i did actually buy the one at JE James, and the tape, and a valve extender (which they only had 1 of as well)

ive never taped a tub, it took me 5 minutes start to finish, £15 was taking the piss especially when i was already paying for a tub/tape and valve extender, considering the work involved

ive never taped a tub, it took me 5 minutes start to finish, £15 was taking the piss especially when i was already paying for a tub/tape and valve extender, considering the work involved

I hope you told them this. It’s the only way they’ll learn.

Yeah, whinge about the massive price for such an easy job or, you know, do it yourself if it was only gonna take 5 minutes (yes, even though you were a massive top customer for actually buying 2 or 3 items from them.).

Used the Rotherham branch for years with no problems and excellent service. Had to use them twice in the last couple of weeks. Once for a Spoke for my Roval wheels. Couldnt source any where else. Last week for a problem with Abigales shock. Both sorted with enthusiasm and smiles. Abigale left a couple of bags of biscuits which I’m sure went down well.

Maybe its because when I go in I’m not grumpy and not expecting every thing to be sorted there and then. It cost nothing to be polite. A smile and a please and thankyou work wonders no matter where you are and what you are doing

Yeah, whinge about the massive price for such an easy job or, you know, do it yourself if it was only gonna take 5 minutes (yes, even though you were a massive top customer for actually buying 2 or 3 items from them.).

yer, im such a horror customer 🙄

generally, in most other shops ive been in, and indeed the ones that are local to me, if you buy the stuff its free fitting, doesnt matter if thats brakes or forks, or anything,

and £15 to tape a tub, come on you know thats taking the piss, £5er in my local

Sheff store has got progressively better over the years as more competition has come.
They use to be very too cool for school, but now I find both the guys behind the cashier and the workshop to be very friendly and helpful.
Ordered a pair of Teva Linka last Tue, did not have my size, first thing next morning got a call to say they where in.

Just out of interest wtf is a tub?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubular_tyre

Hmmmm bit high maintenance for me.

Only ever used them (Rotherham) in 2007 when I got a bike from there. Price was good but none of the staff seemed in the least bit interested.

Nice to hear the sheffield branch getting better. I stopped using them a few years ago. Got fed up leaning over the mechanic hatch hoping someone would actually put down their chips and help me

I stopped going into sheffield a few years ago because the staff were too busy lusting at pictures of hot hatches while the 14yr olds who were serving on the shop floor were concerned with impressing other 14yr olds with what a cool Saturday job they had got.
In recent years they have improved immeasurably. Staff know what they are talking about and are very helpful so they now get a lot of my business . The website still seems hard work so I now ask in the shop for mail order stuff and the van drops it off next day which saves uncertainty with deliveries but means two trips to the shop.

Spent 2k on a new road bike last summer at the chesterfield store. The guy who served me treated me like something he’d stepped in the whole time I was in there. Everyone else seemed fine, just one bad egg spoilt the experience for me.

They always have a great selection of mtb tyres in though, so props to them for that. And a mechanic wouldn’t just tape your tub, he’d glue and tape and the glue has to tack up and that takes 20 minutes.

Home delivery by staff on bike is epic customer service, they deserve major props for that.

If you take you car in for any work they will charge you a minimum one hours labour – why should a bike shop be any different?

I like JE James. They just sent me a pair of niche* pedals that I’ve been looking for for ages, less than half price. Couldn’t find ’em anywhere else. Happy customer.

* probably not that niche, more unpopular, but I like ’em and I just wounded my old pair.

you should all bear in mind that when @theonlywayisup rates JEJ he is using Dave Hinde as a comparator (to be fair it does sound like they did a good job this time)

Personally I gave up using them after far too many instances when they made it clear they had little interest in my money. I didn’t think I was being overly demanding in insisting that a test ride around the car park should be on the size of bike I wanted to buy not the one they had on display, or in wanting them to put somewhere near the right amount of air in the shock and fork first. I got hacked off with being spoken to like an idiot and took my money to EBC.