One Kids Bike and One Horrible Experience

So, we decided it was time to get Owen his first "big boy" bike. He had been talking about getting a green big boy bike for awhile.

Bradley and I wanted to scout out the bike shops before unleashing a bike crazy three year old on them. The first shop was a bust. We were ignored for 5 minutes and when we finally got service, we found out they didn't have any 16" bikes in stock and none of the ones they could order were green. Stop two had several bikes in stock but they only came in red or blue, but the sales guy was nice and helpful. We decided to try Shop 3 in hopes of a green bike since a quick phone call indicated they carried a different brand than the others. They had a red one in stock and would be getting in a green one in the next week or so..

So, we decided to bring Owen back to let him try out the red bike. If he still wanted green, we would wait until the next shipment came in next week. So we picked up the boys from daycare and headed to the store..Performance Bikes in Reston. Owen loved the red one, so we decided to get it since he was whizzing around the store like an expert. We needed a new helmet for Gabe since he would be graduating to the kettler trike that Owen had been using, but the store didn't have any that were small enough. Instead, we decided to give Owen's helmet to Gabe and purchase a new one too. The guy helping us gave us the helmet and Bradley started to try to fit it properly...this is when things started going downhill. Bradley was having trouble getting it adjusted and asked for help. Our salesperson told Bradley how to do it. At this point, Gabe was done with being in the store, so I took him outside for a walk while Bradley finished. 10 minutes later I stopped in to see what was taking so long (we'd already bee working on the helmet for 15 minutes). He still couldn't get it right and was getting frustrated and the salesperson was no help and had now moved on to ringing up other customers while Bradley was trying to adjust the helmet on a now very antsy 3 yo that just wanted to ride his new bike. Bradley basically looked at the salesperson and said, "I need help with this now or we are leaving the store." So, I headed out with Gabe again because he was screaming. I came back 5min later and Bradley was paying....no helmet. The salesperson was clueless and unwilling to actually physically help adjust the helmet; he just kept 'instructing' Bradley. When Bradley had enough and said he couldn't get it right, the salespersons answer was that Owen would "grow into it." COME ON are you kidding me. A properly fitting helmet is the only think between my kid's head and the pavement. I can't believe he would say that.

At this point, we were totally stuck. We couldn't just leave because Owen loved the new red bike. So, we bought it sans helmet and were all in horrible moods when we left. Luckily after a little dinner we took the boys to the park and Owen rode his new red big boy bike and was happily as a clam. Of course Bradley and I are still steaming over our experience with Performance bikes.

Thanks a lot Performance Bikes in Reston VA...we'll never be back and ruined what should have been a cherished memory of buying Owen his first big boy bike. I am going to tell everyone I know about my experience.