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Ribble Cycles - repeated non-delivery of new bike - is it just me?
Just wondering whether I'm just unlucky or whether others have had (are having) similar experience to me..
Ordered new Ribble CGR Pro Ti di2 bike back in May this year. Projected delivery then was early October due to supply chain issues which seemed reasonable in the circumstances. Due to how I wanted to finance the purchase myself I have already paid Ribble in full for the bike.
So the first delivery date early October was approaching when I received an apologetic email from Ribble advising me that due to component shortages my build was being delayed to late October. Fair enough I guess, everyone knows the bike component supply chain is screwed so I can live with that.
As late October approached I contacted Ribble via their support chat to confirm my 'new' delivery date shown on my live order tracking status page was still on track. Oh yes they said, everything is correct with your revised delivery date. This was the case right up to 24hours before the delivery date, at which point it suddenly jumped back to mid November... the same thing happened again a few weeks later when the promised dispatch date approached and got bumped back to 03 December...
I tried contacting Ribble customer service again to get some kind of explanation for why they no longer see fit to advise their customers when their bike orders are being delayed but was simply given some flannel about 'supply chain issues beyond our control' but no apology or explanation as to why my order delivery date keeps being bumped back a month or so at a time with no actual reason given or effort made to advise the customer.
So this time I waited again for 3rd December to arrive. A week before this date I contacted Ribble customer chat again who confirmed my order was still on track for 03 December dispatch... however again this week the dispatch date suddenly slipped back to 17th December just a day before the promised dispatch date of 03 December.
The bit that really pisses me off with this approach from Ribble is that they seem perfectly happy to take a significant sum in full payment up front for a new bike build and then repeatedly mislead the customer with continually slipping magical 'dispatch dates' (which they no longer even bother contacting the customer to advise have changed - it's left to the customer to keep checking the fictional 'order status' on the website to discover the delivery dates just keep changing the day before promised dispatch).
We all know the bike supply chain is on its knees at the moment, and I can accept that my new bike build could be affected by that, but why can't Ribble just treat their customers with some respect and admit they won't be able to deliver when they promised, and instead give a realistic (and honest) projected delivery date? It's just too easy to hide behind 'supply chain uncertainties' excuse and not actually engage in any honest dialogue with the customer.
Can't help feeling that now they've taken my money they're happy to just keep brushing me off indefinitely. Not impressed at all. Would welcome any advice as to how to get some honest communication out of Ribble?
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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This is still a problem that isn't being fixed. Feb 23 & just got my Ribble SL after repeated delays and excuses. I ordered mine instore, £5k upfront (sold my car to fund it)no mention of a delivery/supply issue until the delivery date approached. Then another month & another month . Initial excuse was parts supply so I offered to spec different/stock components...then the parts were available?! Then another delay (parts apparently) so I suggested a refund. Parts were suddenly available. Then...another month because....it needs painting now (imagine) which apparently takes 28 days!?. Imagine telling your clients/boss this kind of story. It's like an Angela Rippon show taking money for nonexistent product. Avoid
I'll add my bike-buying-trauma (needs a word) to the pot. Ordered in Jan 2023 in the sale. After 4 months my bike still isn't delivered. I don't even think it's near the top of the queue. It's infurating given I've now missed 2 races. Support keep fobbing me off with apologies and new deadlines. There have now been 4 missed deadlines so far. The next coming this friday. I'm really not sure what's going on. I've been close to cancelling twice but I also really want the bike and cancelling after 4 months would be just so sad.
From a fufillment and a service perspective this is rock bottom. That's certainly how I feel about buying this bike. I definitely won't use Ribble again unless this bike literally hovers.
The 25 million residents of Shanghai have been under a strict lockdown since 28 March. Car and tech companies are warning that supply chain disruptions will continue. I don't know if it will directly affect bike and component manufacturers but it could get worse before it gets better.
Phew, Im not the only one then. I ordered an electric bike in July last year and was told October, which i was prepared to wait for. I can only echo that what has happened to others since has happened to me. Build and despatch dates put back. I did call Ribble when the 17th of December came and went and the lady on the phone said that they didnt even have my frame yet! My new date is May.
I was worried that Ribble couldnt actually make these orders. Other bike manafacturers have been able to source parts after the pandemic but not Ribble, do they have bad relationships with their suppliers or have not paid them? I was wondering if they are about to go bust? I am going out to the LBS bike shops next week, I dearly wanted a ribble bike but if it aint coming then it aint coming.
The most frustraing aspect about the whole drama is that Ribble make no effort to contact you and talk things through, no explanation, no apologies. If you contact them on web chat you will be lucky to get a reply in 20 minutes. As other commenters have highlighted: the company must be aware that approaching despatch dates have no chance of being met but tell you nothing. It really stinks, and is no way to treat customers who are putting thousands of pounds down with them in good faith.
I work a few hundred yards from Ribbles warehouse, and have visited their old shop on Watery Lane in Preston a number of times many years ago.
They have always had a bad reputation, in fact the old owner Terry Dove was quite open in admitting he knocked the arse out of the prices because if he wasn't the cheapest nobody would shop with them.
Around here they have always had a bit of a reputation for not giving a stuff about their customers, way back in the late 80s a mate bought a bike from them against my advice. One week later he needed to adjust the seatpost but couldn't get it out. Eventually he got it out, but ruined the seatpot and dented the seat tube. It turned out they hadn't reamed the seat tube nor used any grease, simply hammered it in. He complained, they weren't in the least bit interested as they had their money.
Whilst there are some decent builders at Ribble now, there are also some who are, shall we say, a little untrained and a bit rough.
But again, once they have your money and you have the bike, if you have an issue with it, unless you kick up a real stink, by and large they don't seem to give a fuck.
I ordered a Cyclocross bike and paid in full in early January 2022. I was told that my bike would be available in March as it was a "best availability" model with no optional upgrades like a paint job. My bike has been constantly delayed first from March to April then April to May then brought forward to April then today I received an update stating that it has been delayed until June. I am not happy with Ribble as they have been basically lieing all along about its availability. Last year during the height of the Pandemic I purchased a Specialized bike from the US which only took 3 months to arrive so Ribbles excuse that it is down to the pandemic are false especially seeing that my bike has no Shimano parts just Sram. If Ribble would have told me the truth from the start in regards to dispatch time I would have been OK with that but to blatantly lie just to get my money is totally unacceptable. I am going to demand a refund and I would advise anyone who is thinking of purchasing a Ribble bike only to do so if they have them in stock in the shop and are ready to be taken away. Never again will I use Ribble!
I suspect Ribble's problem is that they are using some quite poor build planning software. It sounds like the sort of problems we would get when using MRPII software in the 80s. These systems work fine with good availability, but as soon as there is poor availability they go to pot. Worse is that they don't cope with capacity constraints, so bottlenecks lead to build plans that are just not realisitic.
I suspect every week they run a new planning run for the build, and it starts from scratch, and as new parts are delivered for one build it scavenges the rest of the parts from a bike that was nearly available aside from some part that will come in next week - so now the next week, the parts that had previously been soft allocated to the bike have been used on another bike and so the bike gets kicked back until the next delivery of a different part. If that part then becomes available, the delivery date then changes to the next part that is in short supply. Depending on the order the software choses to allocate parts, it is possible that a bike never gets ahead of other bikes that steal its parts.
The trouble is that the software was probably good enough until the supply crisis, and performing an installation of a new planning system simply is not trivial.
Depending on the software, you can hard allocate parts, but if you do too much of that, you end up with a warehouse of parts that are not being used because of waiting for some other parts.
That doesn't make Ribble's performance acceptable, but I doubt they are lying and being deliberately misleading, they just don't have the proper systems in place to get control of what they are doing... and if the bike builders are fully employed, the management may not really be seeing the mess that is happening from the customer end - their factory is pumping out the maximum number of bikes it can so they may simply think they've got a capacity problem, not an organisational problem in making the bikes in a reasonable and fair order.
That all sounds very plausible.
A quick update Ribble contacted me by phone on Good Friday which surprised me as it is obviously a holiday and offered me my bike but without the carbon seat post and a partially integrated handlebar and not the evo 5 fully integrated handlebar that I originally ordered and paid for but they added that they would give me a refund for parts not used. I obviously declined the offer but they did mention that parts are slowly coming through and they are doing the best they can. It looks like the only way to get them to contact you is if you leave a review on Truspilot which is what I did and it was one of the managers who contacted me on Good Friday. So it looks like my bike is nearly complete with just the seatpost and handlebars slowing things down.I will bide my time a bit longer but I will be demanding a refund when my patience runs out.
I ordered an Endurance SLR and it was with me in less than a week!! Luck of the draw?
Which groupset has it got?
Shimano Ultegra R8000 53/39
First time post long time lurker
Just sent this to Ribble
Dear Ribble Customer Services
My frustrations continue and patience is getting stretched.
I originally place my order on the 28th June 2021 with an initial estimated date of October. This has since varied from being moved out to January, bought back to the middle of October, then the beginning of December, then to February 11th, then the middle of January only to be told my order has been missed from an automated update, then February 11th again and now February 18th, i feel that I have missed a few more changes it seems in between.
I am well aware by now of the effect of the global pandemic on the supply of bike components but the wait of over 7 and a half months and counting is taking its toll and making question will I ever see my new bike? More to the frustration though is I am logging in almost daily to see what is the date it is going to change too next as I dont seemed to get notified by email. I have thought about cancelling my order a few times but the bike I have ordered it was I have set my sights on.
Just being nosey - what bike have you ordered?
CGR Sport Tiagra. I think the delay is squarely on the groupset. The GPX build seems to be on a three month wait.
No answer to my email yet but it is now IN PICKING despite "Awaiting Stock". Just for another laugh the date has been put back a further 7 days to February 25th
I think "in picking" is a good sign, so hopefully they might stick to this date. Fingers crossed for you.
Well the bike has now finally been delivered which I am delighted with. Still the story continues though. I ordered the bike with a 11-34T cassette as I live in a hilly city and I am use to lower gears of a mountain bike, without notice the bike was delivered with 11-32T. After having to prove to Ribble it was not what I ordered they said the workshop fitted an 11-32 so I could have my bike sooner. I then pointed out that it would be good customer service if someone called to check that I was happy with the change, they just said the workshop do it off their own back. When I asked when will I get the cassette that I ordered the bike with, the reply was initially "You won't as we have already received the bike" followed by "it should be instock in April, you can contact us then". I still think that If I was a youtuber or Influencer that had ordered a top of the range bike with custom colour paint scheme I may have just of had a smidge more communication that what I got in reality!
I am drafting my Trust Pilot review now!
Still the story continues though. I ordered the bike with a 11-34T cassette as I live in a hilly city and I am used to lower gears
This rings true! When things are not ideal or bad, they tend to stay that way. When I had a failed wheel with a collapsing rim, they eventually sent the replacement with a CentreLock hub and no adapter for the 6-bolt disc (which I had carefully removed because I knew nobody would bother to ensure a disc came with the new wheel). However, they did send an adapter promptly when I complained. They did get the last laugh, though, as the replacement rim was even more crap than the original despite having a rather good hub- this rim is now knackered after only 6 months from riding on rough tracks , not unreasonable use as it was sold as a gravel bike.
How can they constantly get things so wrong. The simple things with keeping customers happy should br the basic bit of pride taken. I am almost dreading riding my bike.
This is still going on . I wished I had seen your post before ordering. After all the similar stories, mine needed 28 days in painting apparently. Very tiny brush.
Not on the same scale as that, but rather than full mudguards mine came with short clip on ones. They didn't warn me or even point it out when I picked up the bike. When I raised it, they said the full ones weren't in stock so they put those on to nore delay the bike. To be fair, they did then they send me the right ones when they were in stock and would pay for my LBS to fit. (They then sent me another set of the wrong ones, before finally getting it right.)
Thats Unbelievable really. Well after posting my 1 star trust pilot review Ribble reached out and have kindly offered to send me the correct cassette and pay upto £40 for an LBS to fit it
and pay up to £40 for an LBS to fit it
Crikey! Is that how much they charge for 10 minutes work?
Maybe they can do a couple of mechanical checks while they are at it
If you have an issue with your bike once you receive it, Ribble tell you to take it to your local bike shop.
In the end, that's a pretty good response (as I had) - but it shouldn't take you having to complain on Trust Pilot to get the response.
Given all the issues with mine, they also gave me a £50 voucher. Only problem is they hardly sell anything other than bikes these days, so there's nothing for me to spend it on. (They used to have a much larger range - I bought my panniers from them 6 years ago.)
I think that is one of the most frustrating things. If they had just got in contact properly to checked my preference for the rear cassette and maybe even chucked in a couple of bottle cages as an low cost apology I would have had a completely different opinion of their customer service. In my book things go wrong and it what you do to make thing right, I certainly would not have written a 1 star review.
The Cassette arrived in the post yesterday and i looks like it was purchased through Certini in Birmingham although shipped through Ribble! I will get a LBS to fit it and check over the rest of the build while it's there.
I was looking at upgrading my Mountain bike in 2023, despite liking the look of them, it will not be a Ribble.
I'll be staying far far away from Ribble reading this thread. At least Dolan delivered my bike on time, despite their diabolical after sales team. Why does customer service seem so difficult for bike brands? Only positive experience I've had so far is Cotic, but their escapade won't take a road chainset
I bought a CGR AL105 for winter use in September 2020 and it arrived on time just before Xmas that year. Great bike but some build issues such as rubbing front derailleur and badly positioned hoods which meant I had to trash the bar tape to correct. Have been thinking of getting the Ti ULTEGRA version but am put off by reported delays. Have also been looking at Dolan Ti ADX and they have been very good at responding to my emails regarding sizing but I am put off by their no refund policy. What was your issue with their after sales service?
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