well you can jump on mtbr.com or god forbid pinkbike.com and ask the "experts" but you'll soon find out the only answers you'll get are a bunch of crap biased answers.. even from me. More recently i've been buying from shops and company's directly that have treated like their business depends on my $. I'll name 2 real quick... 1 shop and 1 company.
Shop: Universal Cycles... this name probably rings a bell even if you don't live in Portland. Universal Cycles has a big online shop w/ multiple warehouses. They carry a shit ton of goods at reasonable prices. I've bought many of the finishing touches for my Legend at the shop and Aaron at universal even put the whole thing together for me. Sure the work they do there on my bikes is great and they get me products real quick.. but whats best is that they take the time to answer my questions, they call me by name and they help me out with problems i have w/ certain components *cough..el *cough*..ixers.. uh* even though i didn't buy it from them.
I know they might not do this for everyone .. but i was in a bind and needed some work done on a Friday so i could ride on Saturday morning... i can't remember what i needed done but it was probably something time consuming and.. well long story short.. i explained that i needed to ride on Saturday and they had the bike ready Friday afternoon when i dropped it off that morning. These guys do a great job of treating everyone great and staying approachable... if you're in portland .. drop by their shop at 1820 NW 18th Ave. If you're not in Portland go to www.universalcycles.com to check out the massive amounts of inventory they have.
So that leaves us with the company..
Company: Deity - Holy crap, what can i say. Super fast, very personalized experience to say the least. I met Sadie and Eric at Sea Otter in 2010. Ever since i've bought, bars, 2 sets of pedals, 2 sets of grips, a stem, t-shirt and Sadie sent a t-shit out for my girlfriend. Its funny that i've bought all this (and plan to my exponentially more from them) when the first experience i had with their product wasn't the best. I bought some grips from an unnamed retailer and for some reason i only got a couple of screws for the clamps. It was a bitch getting the replacement screws from the retailer.. and they said they weren't accusing me of trying to get free shit but it sure felt like it. .. Well I just about gave up then i ran into Sadie and them at Sea Otter.. i told her about it in more about it and when i got home from the trip she called me at work and got my info to send everything out. In like 2 days i got my grips on and ready to roll. What a great experience (or as we say in my industry.. service recovery). Every purchase since has been rad... did i mention they are fast at sending stuff out... if they have it in stock it'll get to you quick. Beyond their service.. their product is amazing... i saw a guy w/ a mid-20lbs Ibis Mojo at blackrock recently.. and it was equipped with the new Decoy LT pedals.. nice choice if you ask me.
So all in all when you're buying bike gear.. go somewhere that is going to treat you with respect and not make you feel like a you're inconveniencing them. You're spending a lot of money on something you're going to break.. your business is important.
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