I hesitated several times before I decided to post this, but now I’m completely disgusted.
I went to Fit Werx NJ for a tri fit, and ended up buying a new QR bike from them.
Joe LoPorto, the location owner, is a personable, and seemingly knowledgeable guy, who spent a good deal of time on my bike fit. So I ordered a new QR bike in January which Joe assured me I’d have in time to train on and use in several out of state races in late spring. Not only did the bike not arrive when promised - which I can understand - but I had to move heaven and earth to get Joe to respond to my inquires. They almost never answer their phone, the voice mail is ALWAYS full, and they rarely respond to emails. When they do respond, it’s not within any reasonable time, and often not responsive to my email.
When I finally picked up the bike it had a paint defect at the bottom bracket. Joe told me he would inform QR and get back to me. Of course he never did, and I never heard from QR. (I finally contacted them directly.) I have tried on 2 occasions to get Joe to tweak my fit, but he never responded to my emails and calls.
Best of luck if you decide to use them – for anything.
Oof. I had a poor experience with them roughly 6 years ago when I was in college and had just gotten into triathlon. In retrospect it was a very bad fit experience and their communication was terrible after. Hell I’m pretty sure Slowman even intervened to get a part back that they had taken off my bike and just decided to keep. Unfortunate things haven’t changed.
I hesitated several times before I decided to post this, but now I’m completely disgusted.
I went to Fit Werx NJ for a tri fit, and ended up buying a new QR bike from them.
Joe LoPorto, the location owner, is a personable, and seemingly knowledgeable guy, who spent a good deal of time on my bike fit. So I ordered a new QR bike in January which Joe assured me I’d have in time to train on and use in several out of state races in late spring. Not only did the bike not arrive when promised - which I can understand - but I had to move heaven and earth to get Joe to respond to my inquires. They almost never answer their phone, the voice mail is ALWAYS full, and they rarely respond to emails. When they do respond, it’s not within any reasonable time, and often not responsive to my email.
When I finally picked up the bike it had a paint defect at the bottom bracket. Joe told me he would inform QR and get back to me. Of course he never did, and I never heard from QR. (I finally contacted them directly.) I have tried on 2 occasions to get Joe to tweak my fit, but he never responded to my emails and calls.
Best of luck if you decide to use them – for anything.
I didn’t want to post in this manner either:
Did you ever get in touch with him? He currently has my bike and dozens of phone calls and emails can’t get in touch with him to get my bike back.
They have a lot of âï¸âï¸âï¸âï¸âï¸ reviews on Google; maybe give them âï¸ to even things out - just copy & paste exactly what you have posted here
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They have a lot of âï¸âï¸âï¸âï¸âï¸ reviews on Google; maybe give them âï¸ to even things out - just copy & paste exactly what you have posted here
Didn’t want to do this but here we go.
Joe did my fit on my Felt ia3.
He needed time to order SRM hydros.
No problem
2 weeks turned into 3.
Last week after 15 phone calls and 10 emails to corporate fitwerx finally made contact with Joe on Tuesday 4/23.
Joe advised it would be ready for a 4pm pick up.
Bike wasn’t even being close to complete. Made me wait another 90 minutes.
Changed is invoice from the initial 30 min labor to full hour and charged me additional $80.
It gets better:
Checking the bike over last night. The watshop brakets were not secured and the pole came out of the extension.
My di2 won’t shift to smallest chainring a day my default 000000 won’t work. Changed my number.
Bike was not race ready and was going to be a death trap.
I didn’t want to post this but I am sick to my stomach.
The lost time and now the added expense to bring to another shop to fix his mistakes.
Fitwerx is not franchise and allowed Joe the licensing rights. It’s a pure shame that fitwerx gets dragged into this because of his lack of professionalism.
I will never use Joe again and I honestly hope people looking for a fit will do their research and find someone else.
This has been the worst customer experience or interaction I have ever encountered.
I am in a similar situation. I purchased a bike in October, and the last contact I was able to make was in February. I understand that Fit Werx MA and VT has disassociated themselves from Joe. Based on your post, it sounds like the location was still open as of a week ago, which is a positive. I do not really know what to do next.
I am in a similar situation. I purchased a bike in October, and the last contact I was able to make was in February. I understand that Fit Werx MA and VT has disassociated themselves from Joe. Based on your post, it sounds like the location was still open as of a week ago, which is a positive. I do not really know what to do next.
I have a good memory of bikes on the wall at his shop. What did you order?
Call him non stop to get him on the phone.
Follow him on strava and leave comments on his activities “where is my bike” you’ll get his attention.
I would ask for an update ASAP. I hate to talk bad about a small business but I got the absolute run around and felt taken advantage of. I went for a fit and ordered a bike in November 2023, initial estimate was 3 weeks and I put ~70% down as a deposit. After several calls and emails with limited to no response, I sent an email in late Feb 2024 asking for an update and letting Joe know that If i didn’t hear back within a couple days I would be disputing the charges with my CC company. I waited even longer than I said I would and ultimately disputed the charges and got my money back.
To this day I still never received any explanation or response from Fit Werx. I recently ordered basically the same bike from my LBS and they said if FitWerx actually ordered the bike when I paid, theres no reason I shouldn’t have had it. Either way the experience, lack of communication etc. was incredibly frustrating
I ordered a Trek Speed Concept (the largest size as I am 6’5"). I also put 70% down, which is why I am worried. I will assume that he is just buried and keep trying to contact him for the time being, as you suggest. I would honestly be fine, just getting the bike and having someone else put it together at this point.
I ordered a Trek Speed Concept (the largest size as I am 6’5"). I also put 70% down, which is why I am worried. I will assume that he is just buried and keep trying to contact him for the time being, as you suggest. I would honestly be fine, just getting the bike and having someone else put it together at this point.
Sorry mate. No speed concepts especially in that size.
The VT Vitwerx team did advise filing police reports with Ridgfield Park NJ and possible NJ state police against Fitwerx Ridgefield Park NJ & Joe LoPorto.
Luckily it didn’t cross that point for me with my hostage Felt Ia.
If you want your bikes, equipment and wheels from him. Stay on top of him. Call him non stop.
Sorry to add to this list, but I too was a victim of Joe’s illegal activities. I had a fit with Joe several months ago, which went well. After the fit, I left my current bike with him, and placed a (sizable) deposit with him for a new bike.
He then stopped answering emails and phone calls, which prompted me to drive to the shop. He was there and told me his business was failing, but my new bike was on order and should be there in a week. He offered to refund my deposit, but I believed his tale of woe and let the order stand. I took my old bike back, and waited for his call.
That call never came, and I drove back to the shop to find it locked up. I called the manufacturer of the bike I ordered, and they confirmed the order was never placed.
I was willing to believe his hard luck tale, but since he lied to my face about placing the order, my opinion is that he is a criminal. I was able to recover my deposit by contesting the charges on my credit card.
add me to the list in recent times just before he shut down that received quite possibly the worst customer service and perhaps almost scammed: here is a copy / paste from my review of Fit Werx NJ
DO NOT USE; HORRIBLE customer service. Like the recent 1 star reviewers, I hate to do this, but I had basically the same terrible customer service experience as others in recent and would really like to steer anyone away from using this FitWerx NYC/NJ (or whatever they go by in the future, if at all, more on that that later). I went to this FitWerx because they were a highly sought after bike fitter we well as a Moots dealer, which suited me perfect; I wanted to order a Moots and to ensure it was properly sized. I can’t speak highly enough about Joe’s knowledge of bike fitting and how well that went (maybe even too much for the casual rider like myself), but outside of that, HORRIBLE customer service experience as it relates to the frameset I ordered from him. When I placed the order for the frameset he told me it would be about 6 weeks. Given the condition the world we’re in I honestly never expected 6 weeks to happen, but I carried on. At 3 weeks I emailed asking for an update to see if the order was on track for 6 weeks, but received no response. Followed up at weeks 4 and 5, again with no response. At around 7 weeks after the order, I called him (even that took a few times to actually get him on the phone) and I got what I now believe was just an excuse; at the time the Sea Otter Classic was going on and he said everyone he deals with is there and he hasn’t been able to get in touch with anyone. I sent him two (2) more follow up emails after that; both were ignored. I started to call him more frequently and every time it seems I got a other excuse. It was at that point I finally reached out to Moots directly and basically told me that the frameset was done but they were waiting to get paid before they would ship the bike out. I let some time go bye and reached out again to Joe and I was told that the bike would be delivered on the following Monday (I called on a Thursday). I called again on Tuesday (knowing they are closed on Monday) and asked for the status: more excuses, “oh, I don’t know what’s up with UPS lately, they’ve been late a lot, let me call you when I physically have the bike in my hand”. Thursday rolled around and still nothing. At this time I was furious. I ended up calling the other original FitWerx locations to see if I can get any info. I found out that each of the FitWerx locations (VT and MA) were ran separately and but also this location (NYC/NJ) is no longer associated with the FitWerx name (no shocker there as I wouldn’t want my name being used if I knew the customer service provided was basically zero). The same day I called Moots again and they explained that the bike did ship and provided me with with the tracking information. The real kicker is that that I found out that when Joe told me previously that the bike would be delivered on the Monday (reference above) that it didn’t even leave the manufacture yet; so he clearly just flat out lied to me, what a disgrace. Oddly enough once I confirmed the frameset was delivered through the tracking information I received, I emailed Joe to ask him when I can pick it up and he responded right away. Hopefully my review and experience will steer people away from this place.