The Bicycle Chain – Raleigh

I have always been more than pleased with the friendly service. Once they changed out some cleats that were too tight for me to loosen and simply gave me some toe clips that they had hanging around; they put those on for my kid who doesn’t have bike shoes. Charged me $ 5.
They have a large selection of really sweet bikes, too, and all the gear you need for the sport. Can you get a deal? I didn’t research that.

Yes, I am a thirty-​something mom and not a 20 year old mountain biker. However, the rude, not friendly, can’t be bothered attitude cost this place a nice amount of business. Both the 10 year old and 8 year old are moving up to their first «nice» bikes and my husband will be replacing his bike soon as well. They were rude, wouldn’t explain their inventory, and really acted like I was a bother being in their store. We bought bikes today, but from another bike shop in Raleigh, and had a significantly better experience. There are other stores in Raleigh — don’t bother with this one.

My son and I flew with BMX bikes in golf bags from California to Raleigh, NC for the first time recently for a race out East. My husband is the bike guy in our family and although I could probably put the bikes together I wanted them safe for our upcoming race. I called The Bicycle Chain in Cary and they were too busy to fit us in on short notice, but they told me to call the shop in Raleigh. I spoke with a guy named Eddie and he told me to bring the bikes by and they’d fit us in. We rolled in at 6:30 PM and they built both bikes and got them totally dialed for our race in less than 30 minutes. You guys RULE!!!

Great place to buy a bike you can get the best deals in Raleigh on a name brand bike with name brand components I am comparing to performance bikes, here when they do a close out you are going to save $, and I have bought bikes from glen who is very nice to deal with, definitely check out this location on glenwood if you are the market for a new ride

With my limited experience here, it’s difficult to judge the store yet. Based on the purchase, the experience was okay.
The next step is going to be service and teaching a ‘tween who already knows everything how to properly care for her new bicycle.
I’ll expect my review to go up or down based on follow up visits.

Big shop, lots of bikes — spent most of a Saturday here finding a new bike for Blithe through a series of test-​rides. They were VERY accommodating, adjusting setup, over and over (and over) with many different bikes. There is a nice loop road through the low-​traffic neighborhood behind the shop to compare the road bikes, while mountain bikers could cross the street and head into Umstead Park for some gravel paths.
They did a very thorough final fitting once she made up her mind, and she is ecstatic with her new bike (I’m happy with the price too).
They carry Cannondale and Specialized. Small clothing section. No tandems or recumbents, sad face.

My wife and I went to the Bicycle Chain on black Friday because she wanted a bike — and mine needed servicing bad. Now for the shopping experience this would have been a 1 – 2 star review. But after 5 days I was able to pick up my bike and it is running beautifully. Now if I hadn’t paid attention I would not have gotten my airpump back — I saw that lying on the bench. And as it turns out I had to go back to have a little bag that’s attached to my saddle returned to me. So three stars — I wouldn’t go there to buy a bike — but for bike service this place is perfectly OK — if you make sure you get all parts of your bike back…

Long Story Short: at the end of the day after purchasing two new bicycles + accessories from the Bicycle Chain I felt like they wanted to take my money and never help me again. If anything goes wrong with your items be prepared to be nickel and dimed for customer service. Be prepared to have employees engage in arguments with you and be treated as a burden. Things were quoted for turnaround in 1 – 2 days, but actually took weeks. The explanations of services and fees were misleading, and overall I am left out hundreds of dollars with a bicycle I do not feel is reliable to ride.
Through my experiences, the sales team was not helpful in picking out a bicycle for my application. I had multiple failures in the same component; after my first, second, and third ride. After explaining this to the mechanics they acted like it was not their problem. They told me failures after every ride were a normal occurrence. They were confrontational and quick to pass the blame from person to person in the shop. They blamed my poor choice in bicycle, which is strange because they helped me pick out the model in the first place! The kicker was this: after arguing with me face to face, the manager coming in, and the OEM company sending a warranty replacement item for a bicycle part which had ~15 miles on it, the Bicycle Chain decided to nickel and dime me for an extra $ 10 on replacing these parts. $ 10 for a simple replacement of a WARRANTIED ITEM on a new bicycle.
I hope the final $ 10 of the hundreds I lost at this store was worth it to them. They have lost my business forever and hopefully others are prevented from making the same mistake I did shopping at this location

We went shopping on Monday afternoon. It took 2.5 hrs and one very patient sales associate, but we walked out with two bikes and a bike rack. This was the 4^th bike shop I’d visited on my odyssey to find a new bike. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted (yes, I’m sure I was the annoying Goldilocks of bikes), so a lot of test-​riding was involved. Our sales associate, Glen, dutifully adjusted every single bike I wanted to try to fit my frame (7 bikes??). This was the first place we went to that had a wide enough selection of bikes available in my size for me to test everything side by side. They had the Trek I wanted to test and the Specialized I wanted to test, so that was a big plus. I was able to pick up a 2011 model on clearance, so that was even happier.
I’m giving this 4 stars and not 5 only because I haven’t taken my bike in for service yet, but I anticipate no problems.

I purchased a Specialized Rock Hopper from these guys about a year and a half ago. I was just getting back into mountain biking and they were great about showing the newer technologies that had arrived since I last rode. They got me on the right size bike and helped me out with all the accessories.
I rode that bike for a year and brought it back for tune-​ups and repairs during that time; I have always been sent away happy.
Since I outgrew the ability of the Specialized and kept breaking things on it, I purchased a new BMC online this past spring. After a few months of riding I started getting a creaking noise out of the BMC and I took it in to The Chain to have them try to track it down. They were great — the tech did everything he could to find the creak, I’m pretty sure they disassembled the entire bike trying to find the cause. They were able to quiet it down but never really found the cause. Considering the work they put in and the fact that I didn’t buy the bike from them, I was amazed when they didn’t charge me much at all for the work.
They always greet you when you walk in the door and are quick with repairs even in peak times.

Expensive but you can hit plenty of sales. Staff were knowledgeable but did not seem to be overly motivated to truly help the customers.
I bought a Mountain bike at the spring tent sale, rode it maybe 3 times around neighborhood on paved roads. Went back stating tire has a leak. they wanted to charge me $ 10 bucks just to look at it and another $ 6 to replace the tube. I mentioned that I had their 5X Extended Warranty which it states on their web site as «covers ALL LABOR CHARGES». Even showed the mechanic the 5X sticker on the bike. Nope that made no difference he said. I tried to get him to explain why a tire would be leaking after maybe 12 miles of riding and NOT be a manufacture issue. This went nowhere so I left. They should have dealt with tire for free!
Also a staff member pointed out that the bike is too big for me. REALLY! For the price they should have pointed that out at purchase time instead of pushing the bike out the door with no customer service.
My co-​worker just bought from Performance Bikes and all that is included plus she could return her bike anytime for refund or exchange.
I would still recommend them, but use caution and ask lots of questions so you get what you need.