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I ordered a titanium CGR from Ribble back in January and was looking forward to taking delivery this Friday (May 7). That’s a long wait for a bike, I know, but given the impact of the pandemic, and the handsome good looks of the Ti CGR, I figured it was worth it.
Over the last few (long!) months I’ve made a couple of minor changes to the spec I put together on Bikebuilder and Ribble were more than helpful.
This morning, just a few days before the big day (maybe three more sleeps?!) I contacted Ribble to clarify whether the May 7th date on my order form was the delivery date or build date.
Horror of horrors, I was told that due to parts shortage caused by the pandemic, my bike isn’t due to be despatched until week ending July 30 … that’s a 13-week delay to a bike that was ordered 13 weeks ago.
As frustrating as the shortage of parts is, the increased demand for bikes during the last 15 months is understandable. What I’m struggling to understand is the woeful communication from Ribble, whose slick marketing sadly isn’t translated into other parts of their operation. A simple email in the last few weeks would have been both the courteous and proper thing to do.
I’ve got a buyer for the bike the Ribble is replacing (a Cannondale Topstone) – he was expecting to collect it after the weekend. Thankfully, the Topstone was his N+1, so I hope he’ll understand.
I’m about to ring him and break the bad news: it seems the decent and respectful thing to do, rather than wait until he rings me on Monday to ask what time he can pick it up. If only Ribble’s customer service team thought the same way.
Rant (whinge) over – I’m away now to re-fit all the parts I’d removed/changed from the Topstone…
PS Here’s the explanation from Ribble for the 13-week delay (although no explanation for why they couldn’t be arsed telling me until I contacted them today):
Hi John, I have taken a look into your order and can see that we are still waiting on receiving the majority of your components and as such this has resulted in a delay to your order. We are currently looking at dispatching your order to you the week ending 30th July. Please accept my sincere apologies for this delay and be assured that we are doing everything that we possibly can to reduce this delay. Our build dates are based on the dates our suppliers give us for when we are likely to receive the components for your build, and unfortunately, the unprecedented demand for bikes worldwide during the pandemic has severely affected the bike industry as a whole with many suppliers struggling to fulfil orders for components from not only Ribble but other cycle providers as well, and unfortunately, as we do not manufacturer the components ourselves, we are reliant on receiving these from the suppliers and this is impacting on our ability to be able to meet the dates. As such, the build dates do reflect the fluidity of the dates that we expect to receive the components and again my apologies for the delay.
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Final update from me – as I
Final update from me – as I finally have the bike!
Following my post below, I put a negative review on Trust pilot. That got me a phone call within a couple of hours, and whilst that at first that felt like more fobbing off, it actually got me one dedicated person in customer service dealing with my bike and chasing things up. As a result, I was able to pick the bike up from Bluewater on Saturday. There were still a couple of issues – it had clip on mudguards rather than the full sized one, and when I was looking to mount an outfront Garmin mount I found that the thread on one of the holes on the stem was shot – they’d just used a threadlocker glue to hold the bolt. A slightly longer bolt (thanks to my LBS) has sorted that for now, but it wasn’t great. However, a quick email to my customer service contact and all sorted. They’re sending me a new stem; the right mudguards when they’re back in stock; will reimburse me for getting my LBS to fit them; and they’re also giving me a £50 credit note (though they don’t seem to sell much other than bikes these days, so not sure what I’ll spend it on!).
Their Trust Pilot site makes interesting reading. It’s a combination of 5 star reviews from people who got their bikes early, and one star ones from people suffering delays and no information! It looks to me like their systems are just rubbish – that can’t all be down to which combination of components you’ve ordered – and it’s just a lottery when your bike arrives.
Having said that, the bike is lovely. I’ve done a couple of 30km – ish runs so far, and on Friday I’ll be really putting it through its paces with a 160km ride to the coast.
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