Cycling from England to South Africa 2006 - 2007

Whilst I was in Istanbul I searched the Sercesi area (which is where a large amount of bike shops are located) for a bicycle shop with a workshop. Most of the shops in this area sold spare parts or new bikes, but didn't actually have a workshop to do servicing. The only one that I could find was called Saracoglu Bisiklet, which is located at the bottom of a nearby electronics mall (asking in any of the other shops will get you directions). My bike had a rear wheel wobble, needed a chain replacement, desperately needed a complete degunge and clean, two tyres replacing and a general service. All these things are pretty straight forwards, but not the sort of thing that you can do in a hotel lobby. Buhran, the owner, quoted me a price which was a bit stiff, so I got it reduced a bit. I left the bike with him over the weekend, and when I collected it, it looked like he'd done a good job. All the niggly things were corrected, and it looked nice and shiny... just like new!

Two days later, however, when cycling in the middle of a Turkish nowhere, the chain slipped and got caught between the middle and inner ring. I managed to get it out again, and retightened everything. The next day, the Shimano chain snapped on me. Luckily, I was in a town where a helpful bicycle mechanic tried to fix it with an ordinary link which snapped after 200m (lesson learnt there!), and then put on my spare Shimano chain for me, all free of charge (thank you!).

So, was Saracoglu Bisiklet to blame for my mishap, or do these things just happen and there is nothing can be done about it? I'm really not sure. Perhaps it was just bad luck that it snapped, or did he not fit it correctly? I can't be certain, so I guess what I am basically saying, is that if you are looking for a bicycle workshop in Istanbul, the details of Saracoglu Bisiklet are on this page. If I was to return to Istanbul though, I would try to find another bicycle workshop first. 

 

  

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