Coach told me about Philip Shama and Shama Cycles months ago. I looked him up on the Internet and his shop was probably 30 minutes from my house, not a place I’d drive to Sunday afternoon to hang out. A fellow triathlete introduced us at a race, but I’d already checked him out and he just wasn’t convenient. Besides, I’ve got my local bike store with the employees I like.
That was until I needed a good bike mechanic. I bought an SRM power system, and my local store didn’t know how to install it. I took it to another shop, and they installed it incorrectly. I decided to give Shama cycles a shot. Not only did he fit me in as soon as I arrived, but he fixed the problem for free!
I haven’t really needed any mechanical help, until I had a problem with my SRM system and needed to send in the crankset to have the battery replaced. It was going to take 3 days at my local store. Three days for a job that should probably take them 15 minutes!
I called Shama, and they could take care of it right away, while I waited. That’s what I needed to hear because with shipping and repair time my crankset was going to be gone for 2 weeks.
While they were replacing the crankset, I had a good opportunity to talk with Philip about bike stuff. I told him that my local store had told me to change my chain to use with the new crankset on my race wheel. He indicated that replacing the chain is something that should be done every couple thousand miles or so, or you will damage the chain ring and have to replace them both. I’ve been riding bikes for years, bought two new bikes in the last year, and logged thousands of miles on them, yet no one bothered to tell me this before.
Aside from being irritated at two bike stores for not saying anything, I’m super pleased with Philip. They changed my chain, and made a couple other suggestions for me. While I was waiting, another guy came in needing an adjustment on his bike. They stopped work on the currently racked bike, put his on, made the adjustments, and then sent him on his way.
He did all this work for me, including fitting me in and calling me by my first name, without me having spent a dime in his store. Now that is customer service! I’ll be back there in a couple of weeks to re-swap out my crankset. While I’m there I’ll be replacing a few other parts and getting a bike fit. Hopefully the fit will stop the neck problems I’ve been having. The parts, well that will of course make me faster!!
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