Plaine’s Bike Ski Snowboard

Eh. Pricey. Small. Limited inventory. I suppose that could be because it is mid February and their season, busy season, is winding down. Nice lady helping us find what we needed.

My Experience (Scroll to the bottom for the overall impression):
I grew up in the 413 and spent a large chunk of my life here. Over the years I’ve bought everything from bikes to helmets to snowboard gear to service from my bike for them. I think my parents were doing business with them when I was into BMX and I ended up getting a Mongoose some time in the 80’s.
I’m about to ride across the USA, from Massachusetts to Southern California to Portland (~5,000 miles). Then I’m taking a month off. Then I’m off to New Zealand to bike the South Island. As you can imagine, I have some very specific needs. I’m visiting family here in Western Mass and was calling around looking for a kickstand. Claudia, the manager/​owner answered the phone and was immediately pretty curt with me. I explained to her that I was looking for kickstands and calling around to see what people had. She immediately tried to brush me off, told me they had kickstands downstairs in the shop and tried to hang up on me. I told her to wait, that it wasn’t just the standard kickstand I was looking for. She sounded flustered and passed me on to Nick (Bike Tech… hope I got your name right) downstairs.
Nick was absolutely great. I told him I’d need a stand that could hold up to 100lbs with all my touring gear, and he said he had a Greenfield stand (well-​made USA brand) that would attach near my rear dropouts. I checked online to make sure it would work for my bike, which it looked like it would, and proceeded to ride the over 5 miles one-​way through horrible traffic in Pittsfield and Lenox (my choices being either Route 7 or Holmes Road, both very busy) to get the kickstand. I only mention this because Claudia made the assumption that it would be a breeze to just swing on over and who cares what I needed, I could find out when I got there. That is not the case: I only have a bike and I need to know that you’ve got what I need before I get there.
When I arrived, Nick was working away on a bike. I recognized his voice, told him I was the one that called, and within about 5 minutes we had the new kickstand on and it worked great! I went upstairs to pay Claudia for the stand/​labor and once again she really seemed like she didn’t want to deal with me. Although there were no other customers in the store, she certainly didn’t seem interested in selling anything to me (although I was asking about shoes and mirrors, a possible $ 200 sale on a dead-​day) and took my money for the stand.
I later realized, after biking into Price Chopper near Guido’s on Rte. 7 that she had charged me for the basic kickstand, not the more expensive touring stand. Perhaps a little bit of karma coming back? I wasn’t going to ride another 8 miles through horrible construction on Rte 7 to fix her mistake, but it fit with her lack of engagement with I, the customer.
Overall:
I give the customer service a 2 and the shop experience a 5. The poor attitude and lack of interest was very apparent. They’ve been voted the best shop because there isn’t much else for competition out there and Pittsfield isn’t a very bike-​friendly town. I’ve met the head of the shop Tom before, and he seemed very knowledgeable, but it’s been years so I can’t give you any more info than that. Still, if you need things fixed, they have always had decent techs and will do things up right. Their selection isn’t amazing, stocking the mostly expensive (but nice) Cannondale brand, with a slim choice of shoes and a good selection of helmets (currently). The Arcadian Shop has a better selection overall (shoes, helmets, bikes, accessories), but they are equally or more pricy.