I like the idea of The Hub ^[1]. It’s a co-op. Owned and operated by people who know and care a lot about bikes. And relatively close to where I live. It’s in the city. It’s not a chain. The Minnehaha location just moved into a much nicer space next door. I really wanted to support them.

Except that two out of the three times I’ve taken my bike there for service, they’ve lost or misplaced my service ticket.

In both cases, I got nowhere with my phone calls. Most recently I called a week after my bike was promised (two weeks after I took it in) and was immediately told that if they hadn’t called me it probably wasn’t ready yet. I’ll cut them some slack if they’re a little short-staffed. Plus, this is the busy season for spring tune-ups. They didn’t check on my ticket over the phone. I couldn’t get a revised time estimate. If it’s going to take a little longer, I’d be a lot more understanding if they would tell me so up front. But they just told me to wait for the call.

In both cases I finally had to return to the store after getting the phone runaround to find out what was going on, and then wait a couple more days after that for the work to be done. This time they cut 50% off my labor, knocking my $105-ish bill down to $78. I appreciate the gesture, but they’ve lost my business forever.

Anybody got a bike shop they like?