Our philosophy is that cycles should be supplied locally where proper attention to the customer's requirements can be carried out and after sales service done. (All our bikes come with a free first service). Bikes cannot be supplied properly mail order, so we don't do this. (Common sense tells you that once a bike is partially dissembled for packaging then thrown about by warehousemen and delivery drivers, it needs a full service before going out to the customer, not just a couple of adjustments. We constantly have customers bringing in brand new mail-order cycles which need a great deal of work doing to set up correctly. Many have been damaged in transit and of course the mail-order companies rely on the customer not bothering to package them all up again and return them. Often they sort them out at their own expense. Some people don't learn - one customer said "I had all this bother with the last mail-order bike I got").

Sadly, it is the same or worse with toyshop or supermarket cycles. In addition to needing a full set-up service, the quality of components on these machines is so poor that they often cannot be made to work. Gears and brakes can be appallingly bad. Again, we get scores of such bikes through our doors by people despairing of ever getting their cycle to work. They always say the same thing - "It's never worked from new!".

Quite simply, a working bike cannot be done for the £99.99 or less that these bikes are sold for. Some parents say "It's only for him knocking up and down the street" or "He always breaks his bikes so we just want a cheap one". Poor little Johnny is then given another piece of junk which is dangerous and is going to break whether he is careful or not.

Bicycle Repair Man does not sell such bikes (though we get offered them through the trade all the time). Our entry level adults leisure cycle in a mountain bike style is £200. We prepare this bike meticulously in our workshop and it stops and goes beautifully. We always encourage our customers to have a test ride and straight away they can feel the difference between a proper budget cycle and the piece of junk they were putting up with before.