First published on January 30 2008
So I cycled home from town today, in the balmy dark of the winter-that-does-not-come, with my shiny new bike lights and reflectors. But I am getting ahead of myself.
My half-crappy bike, you see, was not well. It was experiencing chain trouble, and gear trouble, and a few other unspecified mechanical ailments. So I took it to the bike shop which has become, for me, THE bike shop. The only bike shop in the universe. And here it is.
This is a shop in the old style, run by a man and his helpers: people who like bikes, who care about their customers and who do their jobs with passion. I love those guys. I fucking LOVE them, I tell you!
This is in stark contrast to the bike shop where I bought the bike, the ubiquitous Cykelringen (The Bike Ring). This is a loud, shiny superstore with mass-produced Chinese crap, idiotic staff and “sales” that never seem to end. They sell rubbish, and they know it, and they will not help you with a damned thing unless they are forced to by either a lawyer or a stout length of wood.
I had trouble with an expensive lock I bought there a while ago. It seized up after one year and one day, and I took it back only to be told: “Sorry, your one year guarantee is up, we can’t do shit, and we don’t want to. Please go away.”
Here I will never go again. And neither, my Stockholm readers, will you. Cykelringen – avoid. Or feel my wrath.
So the nice man in the happy bike shop unscrewed a few things, fiddled with them and put them back on, and my bike was as good as new. “You can’t spend so much time on a bike of such bad quality,” he grumbled, and I loved him for it. Then when I tried to pay him, he said, “No, no, that’s on the house.”
I felt like hugging him. Instead I bought a bunch of new lights and reflectors, which I anyway needed, and which he installed while I waited.
So people, to summarise: go here for all your bike-related needs. It’s the only bike shop you will ever need, and, handily enough, it’s right across the street from Stockholm’s best Irish pub. So you can while away an afternoon sipping Guinness and watching kind people working. Does life get any sweeter than that?
/ paddy
Paddy K 
Those two Cykelringen thugs look just like some guys I had to deal with at a local stereo store here in the states last week.
I’ve only heard bad things about Cykelringen! Apparently they don’t just treat their customers and their merchandise like c**p, but their employees as well. No doubt it was they who stole my cheap Cykelpiraten bike last August.
I shall follow your example and pay the happy bike shop a visit as soon as the current non-season turns into spring.
Those thugs look like they have severe FAS.
If you have problems with locks getting jammed, I find it helps to pour a little bit of chain lubricant into the keyhole and leaving it overnight. Locks need lube too. :)
Jag äger en Skeppshult Soft årsmodell -05, en dyr cykel men fantastiskt bekväm. Lite tung är den men stadig och gedigen och jag köpte den i en härligt gammaldags cykelaffär.
Bojkotta Cykelringen och liknand ställen!
madnessmanifesto: Yeah, that’s the guys.
Tor: Good idea.
Ben: Well of COURSE I oiled the lock! I even kept the bike indoors most of the time, but the damn thing still jammed.
Blackout: I don’t dare buy a good bike as it would get nicked where I live. So I’m stuck with crappy ones, I’m afraid.
Jag förstår! Här stjäl de också som korpar men jag envisas med att bära in min dyra klenod på vårdcentralen där jag jobbar, jag och ST-läkaren delar ett oanvänt behandlingsrum där våra vrålåk förvaras på arbetstid men skulle hela personalstyrkan göra så hade vi inte haft plats för patienterna :-)
Thanks for the laughs. I wish I could go there!
:-) Beth
Fragtsar jag årpsur blah blah blah. What kind of shit is that?
Blackout: Or you could pretend that the bikes were patients.
Beth: But just click your heels together 3 times…
Dan “The Breast” Poulter: “That” is what is known as a foreign language. Being an American, you of course will not be familiar with this, but people from other countries actually speak in different ways! Isn’t that wacky?
Of course, the name of my blog, Swedish Extravaganza, might have tipped you off about what language it was, were you not a hamster with a brain the size of a raisin.
Have a nice day (and don’t think I don’t know who you are).
Ha ha ha, of course Dan” The Breast” Poulter is American. What else!
And Paddy, I just adore your language :-)
U know me? Listen buddy, if you really knew me you wouldn’t dare make comments like that. I have a good mind to come over to Swedish and break your neck. And all your readers too.
Who’s got a hamster brain now? U do hamster brain.
Ha Ha Ha Ha.
I win again
Yes – Cykelringen sucks!! And they don’t know anything about bikes. They tried to sell us an exercise bike at a discounted price that was incomplete – scratched, and not even the one that was supposed to be discounted, but an old shop model that was an older model than the one advertised.
When we pointed this out and accused them of false advertising, the pimply youths got all flustered and ran into the back of the shop.
never going there again except to buy cheap children’s bikes…
Ååååh, tack för tipset!
Min lilla röda Huskvarna från -52 behöver troligtvis klias lite under magen i vår… och jag vill att nån kunnig ska göra det… (och så är det nåt speciellt med riktiga cykelbutiker).
Karin: Yes, go there as soon as possible. You won’t regret it, and they will love you for your classic bike!
Sånt gillar jag… gammelcykelfantaster alltså…!
Så fort den röda 70-talssymaskinen är lagad och klar ska jag börja spara ihop till cykelservicen ;-).