Girlfriend's birthday approaches, so the mad rush to find a present commences!
Now she strategically dropped many hints that she wanted a vintage bike, so i figured this year would be easy, until i remembered she is quite the picky one...
After trolling through the interwebbings to the point I had enough bike knowledge to work at halfords, I found a place that sold a bike that was cheap enough for my wallet, yet didnt look like it ;) The only problem is that the website looked worse than my year 7 IT word art PowerPoint project! Im sure nowadays in year 7 kids are actually building the next facebook!
Not to be disheartened by the website, I decided to find out where they were located. Luckily they were only a 25min drive away, so instead of risking my credit card details being sent to a Mongolian 'prince' im order to 'help' him give me a reward, I decided to visit the store.
Upon arriving, you enter a mini industrial estate (watch out guys, ur tom tom will actually lead you to the road after the estate entrance). The estate looks like an abandoned area, but if you make your way all the way to the back, you will find a little door where the shop entrance is.
All I can say is that the website does not do the company any justice. The staff there are really friendly and know their stuff. You can test ride bikes, and they will assemble bikes that are not on display just for you to look at. I spent the whole day there trying to decide which bike to get my girlfriend (the things I do for her!). Once I did, it took me another 20min to fit it into my 3 door ford focus, lol!
When you buy a bike, they offer a free service for your bike after 6 months, so you can pop in to make sure your bike is still in working order.
All in all, good shop, not so good website.
PS, in the end after all that, she didn't like the colour, lol read more