Imagine buying a new luxury automobile, you get home and have to replace the wheels and all the major components of your new car before you can drive it. That's what we experienced with Sean Fay's rail bikes.
Our company purchased rail bikes from Rail Riders LLC (owned by Sean Fay) based in Leadville, CO. Based on our experience, it is our personal opinion that this company is not selling quality products and that Sean Fay has no clue as to what he is doing in designing and building rail bikes. Furthermore, the customer service is awful.
We paid an exorbitant amount of money for the rail bikes, and expected a top quality product. What we got was garbage. In addition, the amount we were charged for the rail bikes was a complete rip off.
The first issue we had was that we were delayed 3 months as Sean said he could not get plastic to make the bike wheels. I called several polyurethane producers who told me they would have no issues making the wheels and could have them done in no time. Sean refused to work with these companies (in one instance claimed he was in court for months with one of the producers – which is nonsense Sean's company has never been in litigation in this state).
After the bikes were finished we sent a big rig truck to pick up the bikes. Sean called and said he was not ready to load the bikes and told the truck to leave. Are you kidding me?! So we had to pay a detention fee to the truck driver who sat at a truck stop 20 miles away.
As for the rail bikes: they were poorly designed/engineered and used cheapest peripherals on the market. The seatbelts tore or got caught in the wheels, seat anchors broke off, brake handles broke, the nuts and bolts sheered off and broke as high grade was not used, sprokets slipped off the axels. The brake handles were placed directly in front of one of the seats making it near impossible to get on or off the bike.
The worst part was the wheels. They were flimsy and not sturdy. We tested the bikes for 2 months before opening to the public. The wheels would flex and bow 30 degrees, causing the bikes to derail. The wheels would simply not support the weight of four people on the bikes. The bikes would derail on any curve and even on straight track sections, or the wheels would flex and slide inside the rail heads. In addition the wheel flanges were not concave but rather a sharp 90 degree angle which would cause them to life up over the rail head.
We had an excursion for our employees and their families and it was so humiliating as the bikes were derailing constantly and we had to cancel the whole thing. We had to replace the wheels and get new ones from another supplier (the new wheels work perfectly). I brought one of Sean's wheels to a local poly company who, upon examining the wheel, said they were made of the cheapest crap on the market.
We requested that one of our bikes be equipped with a Honda motor so we could use it to pull the other bikes. It was the most haphazardly design I'd ever seen. The entire motor was held on with ONE bolt that caused the motor to spin 360 degrees. The two drive chains were at angles and immediately flew off the sprockets. There is NO WAY this was tested or working when it left Sean's garage. Impossible. I had two retired mechanical engineers look at the rail bikes and the motor bike and they shook their heads in disbelief at the over all design. They both said whoever put these bikes together was clueless. They volunteered to fix our issues with the motor bike and basically had to rebuilt it.
In order to get the rail bikes safe to use we had to rebuilt and replace everything except for the frames. This cost us more time and money.
We paid $3,500 for parts that we never received. At first Sean told us they were coming in another truck, then said there was shortage of material, then admitted he just could not figure out how to attach the parts to our bikes. We asked for a refund and he refused. He kept our $3,500 for products he never provided. That is blatant theft. Other products he sent us would take forever (sprockets, cables, etc) and it turns out he is just buying from third party vendors and doubling the price and reselling.
I sent Sean an email outlining all the problems with the bikes and asked for a partial refund of our purchase price and a refund of the $3,500 for the parts he never provided. A week later I get an email reply in which Sean had the audacity to blame me for the problems with the bikes and basically told me to buzz off.
I have since spoken to several other tour operations Sean Fay has sold rail bikes to and they all had the same issued we did and are considering lawsuits against Rail Riders LLC to recoup their money.
No bike manufacturer should ever let junk leave their factory. People can be seriously injured with rail bikes derailing, seat anchors breaking off, seat belts failing, nuts and bolts breaking. But Sean doesn't care. He got his money. Out of all the tour companies who have done business with Sean Fay not one had anything good to say about him or his product.
Sean's wheels are currently sitting in our back room waiting to be thrown out with the trash as they are useless. If you want them I'll send them to you for free and you can make barstools out of them.
Rail Riders Reviews
Imagine buying a new luxury automobile, you get home and have to replace the wheels and all the major components of your new car before you can drive it. That's what we experienced with Sean Fay's rail bikes.
Our company purchased rail bikes from Rail Riders LLC (owned by Sean Fay) based in Leadville, CO. Based on our experience, it is our personal opinion that this company is not selling quality products and that Sean Fay has no clue as to what he is doing in designing and building rail bikes. Furthermore, the customer service is awful.
We paid an exorbitant amount of money for the rail bikes, and expected a top quality product. What we got was garbage. In addition, the amount we were charged for the rail bikes was a complete rip off.
The first issue we had was that we were delayed 3 months as Sean said he could not get plastic to make the bike wheels. I called several polyurethane producers who told me they would have no issues making the wheels and could have them done in no time. Sean refused to work with these companies (in one instance claimed he was in court for months with one of the producers – which is nonsense Sean's company has never been in litigation in this state).
After the bikes were finished we sent a big rig truck to pick up the bikes. Sean called and said he was not ready to load the bikes and told the truck to leave. Are you kidding me?! So we had to pay a detention fee to the truck driver who sat at a truck stop 20 miles away.
As for the rail bikes: they were poorly designed/engineered and used cheapest peripherals on the market. The seatbelts tore or got caught in the wheels, seat anchors broke off, brake handles broke, the nuts and bolts sheered off and broke as high grade was not used, sprokets slipped off the axels. The brake handles were placed directly in front of one of the seats making it near impossible to get on or off the bike.
The worst part was the wheels. They were flimsy and not sturdy. We tested the bikes for 2 months before opening to the public. The wheels would flex and bow 30 degrees, causing the bikes to derail. The wheels would simply not support the weight of four people on the bikes. The bikes would derail on any curve and even on straight track sections, or the wheels would flex and slide inside the rail heads. In addition the wheel flanges were not concave but rather a sharp 90 degree angle which would cause them to life up over the rail head.
We had an excursion for our employees and their families and it was so humiliating as the bikes were derailing constantly and we had to cancel the whole thing. We had to replace the wheels and get new ones from another supplier (the new wheels work perfectly). I brought one of Sean's wheels to a local poly company who, upon examining the wheel, said they were made of the cheapest crap on the market.
We requested that one of our bikes be equipped with a Honda motor so we could use it to pull the other bikes. It was the most haphazardly design I'd ever seen. The entire motor was held on with ONE bolt that caused the motor to spin 360 degrees. The two drive chains were at angles and immediately flew off the sprockets. There is NO WAY this was tested or working when it left Sean's garage. Impossible. I had two retired mechanical engineers look at the rail bikes and the motor bike and they shook their heads in disbelief at the over all design. They both said whoever put these bikes together was clueless. They volunteered to fix our issues with the motor bike and basically had to rebuilt it.
In order to get the rail bikes safe to use we had to rebuilt and replace everything except for the frames. This cost us more time and money.
We paid $3,500 for parts that we never received. At first Sean told us they were coming in another truck, then said there was shortage of material, then admitted he just could not figure out how to attach the parts to our bikes. We asked for a refund and he refused. He kept our $3,500 for products he never provided. That is blatant theft. Other products he sent us would take forever (sprockets, cables, etc) and it turns out he is just buying from third party vendors and doubling the price and reselling.
I sent Sean an email outlining all the problems with the bikes and asked for a partial refund of our purchase price and a refund of the $3,500 for the parts he never provided. A week later I get an email reply in which Sean had the audacity to blame me for the problems with the bikes and basically told me to buzz off.
I have since spoken to several other tour operations Sean Fay has sold rail bikes to and they all had the same issued we did and are considering lawsuits against Rail Riders LLC to recoup their money.
No bike manufacturer should ever let junk leave their factory. People can be seriously injured with rail bikes derailing, seat anchors breaking off, seat belts failing, nuts and bolts breaking. But Sean doesn't care. He got his money. Out of all the tour companies who have done business with Sean Fay not one had anything good to say about him or his product.
Sean's wheels are currently sitting in our back room waiting to be thrown out with the trash as they are useless. If you want them I'll send them to you for free and you can make barstools out of them.