Action Bikes

I wanted a road bike for one day to go cycling with a friend when over from the States. Action Bikes rents a Trek 1.2 for £35 per day, which is reasonable in my view (back in April I paid $ 100 or £65 for a road bike for one day in Santa Monica; and last week paid € 30 for a road bike for one day in Tuscany)
The bike was fine, well tuned and I was able to use my own pedals.
I would use Action Bikes again.

I wouldn’t recommend Action Bikes, in fact — I’d steer you away from here. It’s clear to me that they just care about getting as much money from you as possible and not much else. Here’s my justification:
I was looking to buy a bike for under £350 and use Cycle Scheme through my work. I spotted a decent enough one at Action Bikes that was £320 reduced from £450 and spoke to the staff. They said sure — they take Cycle Scheme and I could use it for buying that bike, just come back during the week. So after taking a couple of hours off on Monday afternoon to come get the quote and try out the bike I was stunned that the quote was for £450. WTF?
The explanation was that reduction and sales don’t count for Cycle Scheme, but I countered that the same guy had said it would be fine just two days before. So now came his new excuse… Cycle Scheme only pays 90% so they lose out 10%. Tough titties? No — I was generous enough to then offer to pay 10% extra on the £320, even though it was an out-​of-​date model and I’d seen it cheaper online elsewhere. So they get to sell the bike and don’t lose out, right? No — the staff decided instead to insult me and offer 10% off the £450 full price instead. What sort of lunacy customer service is this?
Basically they’re saying… «I see you are using a nice green government-​funded service to help the country — can we please rip off you, your company, and the tax-​payers? We would normally accept £XXX for that bike, but because you’re using the scheme we’d like to make more money please»
I really hope they read this and change their attitude. I also hope that the thousands of civil servants working all around them realise they shouldn’t be allowed to participate in this government scheme.
I asked them to reconsider. They looked embarrassed but didn’t wake-​up from their idiocy. I walked right out. Not cycled.