Gator Cycle

Worst experience I’ve ever had anywhere in Gainesville to date.
Took my bike in for for repairs and was quoted at $ 50. I never mind paying for repairs seeing that I ride my bike every day. Was called today and they raised the fees to $ 95… Which cost more than the bike itself.
What truly set me off however is when I delivered my bike, a $ 35 bike light was attached to it. Upon picking up my bike, said light was missing. When I inquired about its location they «looked around» for it (glanced at counter tops). When I asked them to replace or pay me for my light, they outright refused saying it was against their policy.
I’ll never recommend this business for anything. Not only do they over charge customers for repairs they apparently strip bikes for parts. Extremely disappointed. It’s not wonder that local businesses don’t do well in this town. Unbelievable.

I am not a big one for writing reviews, but when the manager of the shop lent me parts from his personal bike so I wouldn’t miss the Cycling Festival this weekend, I have to give kudos. Thanks Fred, you and your team are great!

had a flat tire this morning, got to GC at 9:30 and they replaced my tire while i waited so i could get to work at Shands on time. getting rid of my stress and making it possible to bike home tonight. thank you very much Fred.

This place is great! The first two times I stopped in, they did minor repairs on my bike for free! I asked them to oil my chain, and they even tested it and said it was no where near needing to be replaced. I inquired about a car rack one day, and they sent me home with I information, so I could decide without feeling pressured. I stopped in a few days later to buy it, and they helped me assemble and attach it without me even asking! Very professional, and helpful without making you feel dumb for not being a gear-​head.

Ok, I have to say that I did business with Gator Cycle about 3 years ago and I had a very good experience. Nonetheless I returned to the area and was interested in renting a bike for a week or so to enjoy the local trails without having to fly my own bike. Called on two occasions and they told me flat out that they were «too busy to attend to me», to call at another time or look for the info online. On the second attempt they told me they would call me back but of course never did. Way to loose business people!

positives: large selection for road bikes. probably best selection of road bikes in GNV.
Negatives: ATTITUDE. i came in one day to browse, they had a used recumbent bike outside. i was interested in seeing how it rolled. i asked the older gentleman manning the store to test ride it and was quite rudely told no. so, i spent my $ 900 for a recumbent elsewhere. way to loose a sale and my business forever.
there are too many bike shops in GNV for this dude to have an attitude.

I hadn’t been in Gator Cycle in the last 10 years.
It’s now under new ownership and management. The old owner is still a silent partner I’m told.
But they have totally overhauled the inside and have a nice inventory.
We needed a simple tire replaced for a jogging stroller. Cost was $ 7 for the tire and $ 7 for the labor to replace. Not bad. In and out the door within 15 minutes.
Very nice staff working there. I met Mike, he introduced himself as the assistant manager. Very nice staff.

came in because my husband has had 8 flats on his tires in the last month and everywhere we go in florida they want to sell us the wrong size innertube (we have recumbent trikes… German made so the tires are specialized) THANK God Gator had the right size… put lines in all 6 of our tires and had us on our way in less than 30 minutes. The man who helped us had only been there for 8 months but was HIGHLY knowledgable and answered a lot of questions.

Super friendly staff! I had broken pedal straps on my bike, and instead of selling a whole new pedal set, which I didn’t need, they gave me straps for free.
I shop for tubes here as well, and they have a good selection and decent prices, which is important because if I need tubes, I don’t have time to shop for them online.
This is now my go-​to place for accessories and service!

I have been working with this store since moving to Gainesville. Over the last three years there have been changes at the store (all for the better). One thing that has been consistent though has been the top tier staff. Everyone at the store is super helpful, knowledgable, and approachable. To that end I have purchased 4 bikes from them (kids and mt. Bikes). This store is not the most convenient to my house (others are closer), but it is worth it to me to go here to work with a group of people I can trust.

Gator Cycle is a bike shop on the border of being good or bad, but if you go in knowing what to expect, you might leave happy. They’ve had some bad experiences reported here and those reviews, while fair except for Nico’s anti-​semetic rant, may not represent every experience.
In short, avoid the old man/​owner. But the dog is friendly!
The staff at Gator Cycle are passionate about cycling and quite easy to deal with. The staff took care of a popped spoke on a moment’s notice without overcharging me for the convenience. They have most of the basic stuff you’ll need if you’re a casual cyclist to weekend warrior or even someone with some serious goals.
The shop, as far as I know, is one of the oldest in town. This is good if you’re looking to learn a few things and want some serious experience behind the recommendations.

I’ve only bought parts and a cycling jersey here, not a bike, but I will say what I rightfully can regarding their selection and moreso, their service, as the latter seems to be hotly contested issue about Gator Cycle on Unilocal.Whenever I’ve been here, I’ve been overall pretty unimpressed by their selection of upper-​end bikes but that’s probably because I am more into mountain bikes and BMX and favor Specialized over Giant and Trek (the brands carried here for mnt bikes). Also the location is not the best and the parking lot is tricky to get in and out of off Archer Road. If you’re on a bike, it’s even worse. In fact, this is probably the worse possible location for a bike shop as you’d hope they would be more easily approached on bike than they are. Chain Reaction trumps them in that regard given their bike-​friendly location near campus.
As far as service goes however, I’ve always found all the guys here very friendly and willing to help. They know I ride an upper-​end Specialized mountain bike and probably won’t buy one of their Treks, either. I’ve asked about ordering a BMX bike and they gave me the latest paper catalogs for the brands they carry. Not a whole lot more they could do because they have hardly any BMX bikes in stock but that’s’ typical these days as most BMX kids order online anyways.
I don’t understand Nico’s focus on calling the owner «cheap Israeli elitist»: whether cheap or not, elitist or not, why bother pointing out that he’s Israeli? I don’t care if he’s Chinese, Jewish, Greenlandic or from Utah myself. He’s been decently helpful to me. Calling out his national origin in any case seems suspect: replace that with «cheap African-​American elitist» and see how it reads. If she had a bad experience, just say so without trying to make it about ethnicity. I was surprised she took this approach because normally she writes awesome reviews.
Overall, I’d have to recommend Super-​Cool Bike Shop over Gator Cycle but if you have reason to shop here, I don’t think you’ll have a really bad experience.

Gator Cycle is getting some serious hate thrown on them here on Unilocal and I’ve been meaning to write this review for a hot minute, so let me offer up my opinion.
My boyfriend bought his Trek 1.2 from Gator Cycle years ago and when it was time for me to get a bike he insisted I get it from there because he loved them. After doing research on what time of bike I even wanted, it just happened to work out that they had my style and size on sale. I went in, we purchased and they had it built within a couple hours.
The customer service was… odd. There was a girl alongside my main salesman who seemed pretty useless and was just there maybe as an apprentice and my main salesman didn’t really ask me many questions to try to explain anything, considering I hadn’t ridden a bike in years. I expected more considering it’s a nearly $ 1k purchase.
But the bike turned out great and it was on sale. My boyfriend has great things to say about the place, so I will agree with Unilocal’s 4 star «yay! I’m a fan.»

DO NOT GO TO THIS BIKE SHOP!
The owner is a cheap Israeli elitist that is only interested in the type of people that go to his bike shop to buy $ 9,000 bikes (that you can find for $ 5,000 on eBay). He holds a water dispenser behind the counter that he offers to his customers that come in sweaty after riding their bike around town. I was one of those customers. Did he offer me any water? No. He just stood there, deprecatingly observing me and my gear-​less bicycle before directing me to the «maintenance area» (woo-​hoo you have technical names in your fancy bike store).
BUT THEN IT GETS WAY WORSE!
The young dude I was directed to was to change my tube, which he could have done and I would have been on my way. But when he put the wheel back on, I asked if the chain tension was too tight and he responded with some «I know better than you so just shut your mouth» kind of response. Then he proceeded to rudely give me advice about the upkeep changes I should make to my bike. I CAME HERE TO GET MY TUBE CHANGED, not to hear a contentious prick talk about how ‘not up to par’ my bicycle is.
By far the worst bike shop in Gainesville.

Went here looking for a cruiser. Because I am petite I was hoping one of the people who worked there would be able to point me in the right direction. There was only two guys there (who I saw) working that day. A guy in his thirties and an older guy with an accent. The older guy helped me and he was polite but didn’t seem very interested in selling his bike or even helping me find what I was looking for. He asked me if I needed help told him I was looking for a cruiser and I had seen one I liked. He set it up for me to ride outside. Advised me I could get more practice riding and then asked me what I wanted the bike for. When I told him what I wanted to do with the bike he said a cruiser was not the one for me. He pointed me to some bikes that I wasn’t into. That was all he did. He didn’t try to figure out what bike would best suit me for what I was looking for. He had a kind of Take it or Leave it attitude. He was never rude just very uninterested. Went to Super Cool Bike Shop on West University and 34^th after Google-​ing for more bike shops in the area and after seeing the customer rating figured I would give it a try.
As soon as
i walked in I was greeted. Both were young guys, very polite and energetic. long story short I ended up buying from them! See their review and you’ll see why!