Wrong sized bike

[Aushiker]

From what I hear no bike shop in WA will sell to you.

Damn, those four bikes I have brought in WA since July 2007 and the one Anne brought in 2008 must be in my imagination ... Maybe I can go and ask for the ~ $10,000 back that we spent

All the people I have recommend to go to Rick and Churchill Cycles ... a decent retailer in my view. Must have dreamed about that as well.

Must have dreamed about my supporting blog posting on Bike Force Fremantle too.

I know I didn't dream about my less than positive comments on Fleet Cycles, but hey they are a smart business. They have lost over $7,000 of sales from me taking your approach Jacks1071.

If yet again he took your advice of legal action, the shop would have got their backs up and said f*&k you - I'm not doing crap for you you rude pr*ck and wouldn't have helped. Did you learn something today???

Actually my "advice" was in agreement with Sogood's, which was to go and talk to the LBS. I thought I made it clear to to talk to the relevant state Department of Consumer Protection (not legal advice by the way) IF the outcome from talking to the LBS was not acceptable. I even suggested that some contribution by the OP may be appropriate (in the context that it has been a year since the bike was brought).

This is what I said:

I agree with Sogood and if you are not happy with the outcome, then I would chat to your Consumer Protection department. Retailers have legal obligations which they should be aware of and comply with.

Based on what you have said it does seem that they did the wrong thing and may need to be accountable at least in part.

Your advice I believe was to sell the frame on eBay .

Somehow I think that the advice I gave, Sogood, WombatK and others gave was far more constructive, don't you?

All the best with your business model
Regards

[god_of_detergent]

while i dont really want to get into an argument about what i should have done or shouldnt have done.
eg should have got a bit of knowlage about bike fitting before getting a road bike.

i would like to point out that one of the main reasions i went back to the local bike shop was because of my converstaion with the consumer afairs office and forum posts that assured me that i did have a form of complaint and that i was just out of luck had to live with my mistake of buying the bike.

fortunatly i didnt have to complain or argue with the LBS as on talking to him he aggreed that the bike might not be the right size.
infact the LBS was so helpfull i felt bad for thinking that they migth not be, and for not bringing up the issue when it was first brouh to my attention a few weeks ago.

but it was important for me to get more information, from these forums and other bike shops before talking to said LBS as i wanted to make sure i knew what i was talking about.
and what would be a resnable outtcome.

Jacks1071 i did think of selling the frame and getting a new one infact this was my origional idea, i was looking forward to building my first bike, guess that will have to wait.

i would like to thank everyone for their opinions and help.
ill let you all know how it goes once i go back tonight to take in my old bike and get fitted to my new frame.

[casual_cyclist]

G'day

It is good to see you have good customer relations in mind when you do business.

Or is more

oh I see here comes a noob, lets take a few grand off him with a bike frame that is the wrong size.

Stupid idiot brought it ... oh well he can ebay it and pay more for the correct one. Not my fault he didn't know what size to get. I am off to Fuji for a holiday to "get a life"

Thanks for reminding me (us) why not to spend money at your business

Regards
Andrew

Andrew,

You must think everyone is out to rip you off, how sad that must be for you. And how much spare time you must have on your hands because you're ready to pick a fight with everyone you deal with?? No wonder you have to buy everything on-line. From what I hear no bike shop in WA will sell to you.

In this case, by being polite the guy had his frame swapped. If yet again he took your advice of legal action, the shop would have got their backs up and said f*&k you - I'm not doing crap for you you rude pr*ck and wouldn't have helped. Did you learn something today???

By NOT following your advice the guy got a new frame.

WOW . Did you get up on the grumpy side of the bed this morning? That is quite a rant!

[Aushiker]

while i dont really want to get into an argument about what i should have done or shouldnt have done.
eg should have got a bit of knowlage about bike fitting before getting a road bike.

G'day

While I am glad you got your issue sorted by the sounds of things, I think you are being a bit harsh on yourself here. I would consider it quite reasonable to go to the bike shop and expect to be sold a bike that fits you and one that is suitable given what you have told the sales person.

While getting advice before hand is probably a good idea, one should still reasonably expect to be sold a properly fitting bike.

Regards
Andrew

[sogood]

I think it would be interesting to know if the person dealing with you this time was the same as the one who sold you the bike a year ago. Just guessing that some LBS employee may have sold the wrong product without the boss knowing.

[vitualis]

Best of luck on the new frame! One does wonder how the original oversized frame got sold though...

(AT) jacks:

Regards.

[god_of_detergent]

Code: Select all

While I am glad you got your issue sorted by the sounds of things, I think you are being a bit harsh on yourself here. I would consider it quite reasonable to go to the bike shop and expect to be sold a bike that fits you and one that is suitable given what you have told the sales person.

While getting advice before hand is probably a good idea, one should still reasonably expect to be sold a properly fitting bike.


funny you say that, thats exactly what i thought, i did do a littel bit of research but gave up because there was and still is so much varing information on bike fitting. i figured that if the shop is selling it they will know how to fit it. just wish i had got more information before hand and then i wouldnt have had this issue.

the person who sold/fitted me the bike was the owner of the shop. and the same person is helping me out with the new frame.
he cant remember why he sold me such a large frame seems to think he just made a honest mistake.
he did say it could have been due to my long leggs?

[colafreak]

Yes, but what do you all think about the Malvern Star ads???

[Mulger bill]

Yes, but what do you all think about the Malvern Star ads???

Absolutely fine if you like hitting your CF helmet with a hammer while being megaphoned by cops at intersections

Shaun

[Thoglette]

I'd goto a specialist bike fitter. This "touring style" and "racing style" is a bit of a strange term to use.

Once you get your rear-end the right distance from the pedals/bb the question becomes: How far do you want to bend over?

Racers like to have their bars waay below the seat, tourers have theirs just about the same height and city/cruizers tend to have their bars hire than their bums. A bigger frame tends to have the end of the steerer higher

(The analysis of the Specialised Globe range on BFTRUU has some indicative photos.)

As others have said, then you need to get your hands the right distance in front of you - mustache bars and drops have very different proportions.

So, at 175ish I'm a little cramped on a 53cm with drops and a 110 stem. And very comfortable (if with little, ah, short of teabag-over-the-bar room) on a 62cm with the sort of bars associated with English country vicars.

[AUbicycles]

small moderator interjection and reminder that disagreements are fine but lets deal with the issue and not the person.

[herzog]

How could they have got it so wrong in the first place?

The OP thought he was 180cm tall until now, when he has measured himself as 174.

When the salesman asked him his height, it's entirely possible this was given as 180cm, exactly as he responded in this thread.

That could have thrown the salesman right off, it's almost 3 inches difference!

[sogood]

The OP thought he was 180cm tall until now, when he has measured himself as 174.

When the salesman asked him his height, it's entirely possible this was given as 180cm, exactly as he responded in this thread.

That could have thrown the salesman right off, it's almost 3 inches difference!

Perfectly possible. Hence the importance of finding out what exactly was the circumstance of that initial sale.

[wombatK]

The OP thought he was 180cm tall until now, when he has measured himself as 174.

When the salesman asked him his height, it's entirely possible this was given as 180cm, exactly as he responded in this thread.

That could have thrown the salesman right off, it's almost 3 inches difference!

Perfectly possible. Hence the importance of finding out what exactly was the circumstance of that initial sale.

It would be perfectly unprofessional and negligent for a bicycle fitter to not measure the buyer's height. It's probably the simplest measurement to take. In any case, most experienced people doing this for a living can tell you someone's height within 1 or 2 cm without a tape measure - so he'd know the guy was wrong if he said 180 cm. They also get good at estimating your weight.

Cheers

[thomas_cho]

I am 178cm and fit a medium. He was fitted to an XL. Thats two sizes larger ...

In any case, no bike shop asks you for your height and then fit you ... they either try and eyeball your height, or measure you to themselves, and then pick a size to start.

Definitely a case of trying to clear floor stock.

[god_of_detergent]

hi everyone

Finally an update on the situation,
took my bike in on Thursday night to LBS, and got fitted out to the 54cm frame, the seat height on the frame was set 1.5cm lower than it was on my old bike, with out changing it from where it had been set up originally, (seems to make me think maybe this is the right sized bike).

After fiddling around and looking at bike position, making a few measurements from pedal to top of knee, LBS seems to think this is the bike for me, didn’t seem to think it was worth trying out the larger frame. maybe it was a mistake not trying the other bike but i was pretty happy with the fit on the 54cm and they LBS seemed to think it was the correct bike and setting up on the 56 was a waste of time.

Left my bike with him overnight, and got a message in the morning saying he had swapped the bikes over.

Went in that night after stopping of at another bike shop to get a new bike computer! (didn’t want to put my old cat eye back on new bike)

Got fitted to the new bike, lots of playing around with seat height and a tape measure to check my position.

Also changed the cassette from a sram to a new ultegra one. This was done because the bike was really rough in the lower gears when on the large chain ring and wouldn’t even shift to the lowest gear. LBS seem to think that it was because the chain was 1 link to short? He did play with the derailleur to try and adjust it couldn’t get it right. Had the option of changing chain or cassette, as I had just changed the chain only two weeks ago I opted for a new cassette I had done about 5000k on the cassette, and have read that some people replace cassette and chain at the same time? and at around 5000 or 6000 k's?

Anyway after changing everything over finally got home and went for a ride,
First impressions of the new frame wow its small! And really twitchy, it seems to fit nicer, I don’t feel like I’m too high or low on the bike, the drops are quite low, and when using them have to strain my neck to look up the road. Which is what the bike fit said it would be like. Can’t say I had any back problems, knees seemed to hurt a tad, but maybe that was because I was pushing a different gear I’m not used to.

Anyway here are some pics http://picasaweb.google.com/davin.sleeman/MyBike#
New bike is the white one

[Aushiker]

G'day

Pleased to hear that it sounds like it is sorted for you.

Regards
Andrew

[sixx]

Nice work g_o_d, I thought I was looking at my bike.

I think you'll get used to the more suited proportions pretty quick. Better to have a bike you can throw around a bit than just be hangin' in there.

Looks sweet!

[sogood]

Good outcome.

But I don't quite understand the logic of only changing the cassette when the chain is suspected to be 1 link short. Running a short chain is risky as many have busted their RD because of it.

[god_of_detergent]

yeah seemed odd to me, he said it would fix the problem because the new cassette would mesh better with the new chain because they were both new and because they were bot ultegra?

also being a smaller bike wouldnt the chain need to be smaller?
and wouldnt you need to break the chain to get it off the bike to put it on the new one? so then wouldnt the chain have been shortened?

[greasefinger]

I'm 6"1 and struggle to reach my bars, was fitted to a 61 top tube 60 seat tube. Best fit 56 x 55's and 55 x 55's. I'd ridden BMX for years, so I thought maybe it was normal to be able to ride along next to 4X4's with a head clear over the roof looking down. Well, looking back the guy that fitted me was a little bald runt going through a midlife crisis, so I take it he was making some kind of unusual attack on height? Learning point for me, few years later with an empty wallet and no other frame.

Riding with a 30mm steam, it wasn't easy but I've gotten use to it. I just can't afford another racer, on the hunt. Some bike shops are filthy like that. Ah well, better lived and learned, you'll know the benefit of a true fit after it.