Eric Buhler

Review of BYU Outdoors Unlimited

On a vacation, visiting Utah, I needed to rent thr...

On a vacation, visiting Utah, I needed to rent three Mountain bikes. This was the only store nearby that was able to get me three on short notice. But, I should've read the reviews first. When reserving, the guy seemed nervous that he would be able to get one of the possible rentals fixed in time. The next morning when I picked them up, I waited for one of them to be returned by another customer. They did no mechanical inspection of the recently returned bike. Five hours into my mountain biking day with my sons, the rear axle of one of the bikes had come unscrewed, locking up the rear tire as my son descended the trail. This shop does not use a quick release axle, so even if I found the missing nut, it would have required allen-head tools (which of course I have a full set of on the mountain with me for my rental bikes). So, five hours into our Saturday/Sunday rental, we were walking down the mountain with a useless bike. They had informed me that normal wear and tear was covered, but any unusual damage to components would have to pay for the cost of repair. Monday morning, some young mechanic trying to be front-line warrior for the corporation paying him an hourly wage made me argue with him about whether getting my rental fee refunded as a result of their faulty rear hub was justified, saying to me, "Well, you used the bike." Are you serious right now, lad? After much back and forth, he left me waiting forever and eventually and apparently talked to a decision-maker and reluctantly helped me with my refund. But, after a frustrating and wasted weekend walking down the mountain because of your quality control and equipment failure, making me argue with you about the axle and a small plastic handlebar bracket that definitely is not going to cost you $30 to replace, on a Monday morning, was very very very poor service.