REI

Bike staff was outstanding in every respect: responsive, thoughtful, efficient, prompt, and highly skilled. Went in for a tubeless wheel setup and it was done with perfection in under 15 min. REI is fortunate to have such a great staff. I just read from another review about the possibility of unions there. I hope valuable people like those in the bike shop realize they deserve protections to enjoy some decency in employment. Good people all around. They deserve the best.

update: it looks like the employees @REI Durham have successfully unionized and i'm glad to see there have been some efforts to remedy the situation. REI Durham has currently put an employee on administrative leave for his involvement in trying to form a local union. While I like REI’s products, this behavior shows no regard for their employees’ wellbeing or humanity, and I’m deeply disappointed in the management. I will be buying online or at other REI locations because I believe in workers’ rights. @REI Durham management, I hope you do correct your actions so that your employees are treated humanely as fellow human beings.

I went to this REI to look for a backpack, but I was struggling to figure out what exactly I needed, and this employee named Chris came up and helped me out. He was very knowledgable, kind, easygoing and thorough with taking my measurements and telling me about all the different options for hiking backpacks, then he even filled a backpack with weights and had me walk around the store and make adjustments as needed. This is a great place to go if you're new to hiking and camping and need some help to get you started. It's worth it to go in person for the expertise provided!

The best. Got me a CTY bike from here. Love what the CoOp stands for. And they adjusted the reach on the bike and tuned me up quickly the next day without having to make an appointment. I really felt like a priority as a customer here. Special thanks to Kate for info on the membership and extra special shout-out to Sara for the attention to detail on my bike adjustments

I don't have a great concept of why everyone else rates REI so well. All of the goods here are jacked up in price by at least three times and you can find cheaper, better quality models of most equipment online. Now the clothes that least are of a superior quality, but don't go here if you're looking to pick up a couple extra things on the cheap, because you won't find it even with a sale. I can also admit that if you're into biking there store is almost par none in the industry outside of specialty shops. The employees are trained in the style of constant bothering that no one really favors and retailers keep on preaching anyway. They probably sell more if they let people peruse in peace and made them self available when needed. Barnes & Noble has a good model. REI has a bad one. I usually try to find the positive and everything, but really the most I can say here is that if you're an REI fan with disposable income it probably wouldn't matter to you too much how much they jack up prices. Not only that but there's a certain subset of fitness oriented outdoorsy types that it just speaks to. For me and my money? Someplace online.