Halfords: liars

A few days ago, I wrote about how friendly and helpful Halfords were when I took my bike in for the brake and gear cables to be changed. I didn't mind having to wait ten days because they were busy. I was pleased when the guy said he'd be able to do it 'today or tomorrow at the latest'.

I was less pleased but still fine when I called four days later to be told that the bike was 'half done' and it would be ready the next day.

I was downright annoyed when I called in today, assuming I could collect it, only to find that, far from being 'half done', it was completely untouched. A simple phone call to apologise for the delay would have kept me happy. Being blatantly lied to, on the other hand, just makes me angry.

So angry that I'm going to spend the day buying books. Oh, and looking at a flat.

On your bike

It's been, in a meandering sense, a productive day. I took my old boneshaker into Halfords (a car and bike stuff supermarket) for a service before going for a painful 60 lengths. I've tried to arrange Euro for my long weekend in Germany, and failed, and still need to look at places to store books. I mean, places to live.

There are two excellent bike shops in Wolverhampton, into which it's a geek pleasure to venture.

But. My main bike is a Viscount Apollo tourer. It's at least tenth-hand and is probably thirty years old, but was apparently a very decent cheap racer, despite the Death Forks, which I need to check. The two proper bike shops would laugh in my face. I love all the gear associated with proper cycling, and dream of owning a new Moulton NS Double Pylon (pictured below), but I wouldn't do it justice, and can't afford it anyway.

Going into a bike shop is like going to a record shop - you have to run the gauntlet either of sneery, superior gits who see your choice of bike/record as emblematic of your invertebrate status, or of pitying experts. My bike, bank balance and ego aren't up to it. And so I crawl off to unjudgemental Halfords, where they take my money and don't pass judgement.

Also, the main posh bike shop is manned by a guy with a goatee, baseball cap and facial piercings who addresses me as 'buddy', though we aren't acquainted. The man at Halfords, of similar age, talked knowledgeably in a genuinely friendly fashion without resorting to the trappings of false bonhomie, and for that, he wins my respect.