Enrique Shadah

Review of Back Bay Bicycles

My overall recommendation: Unless you live within ...

My overall recommendation: Unless you live within a 5 min walk from the place, look elsewhere.

I bought my bike there in 2005. Very happy with the product and life-time tune-ups. However, I would like to caution people on the following: I recently left my bike for repair to only find out the parts that went into the bike were grossly over-priced.

I overhauled the rear disc brake, replacing the disc brake pad and spring. The list price of this product online (Amazon) is $16.06 and was discounted to $9.83 plus free shipping. The shop charged me $25 for the same part! This is almost $9 more than the LIST price you find online. Moreover, they charged $25 labor, which I think is o.k. under the assumption this task took them 1 hour to complete.

I think the owner is being penny-wise, pound-foolish in overcharging their customers. I would suggest that he or she be more transparent with his customers letting them know the real costs and markups of the parts they install on the bikes. This way, customers can choose to support a local business instead of buying from some other place online.

The staff is nice, and typically knowledgeable about bikes. Sometimes staffers can be condescending and seem bored to help customers. I feel like a dunce for buying there.