16 ms·

A bike shop should choose its customer wisely

111 points by hippich 6y ago

blakesterz 6y ago
"However, the problem as I see it, is many IBDs have as their customer base, competitive cyclists. Road and mountain bikers. By their very nature, their competitiveness isn’t just about their cycling stats, but buying from the cheapest source." I spent a few years working in a bike shop and I think that's about right. It's nice to be able to sell high end bikes, but if you're lucky you sell a few a year. Regular people look at a bike that's $3 or $4k and are scared off, "OMG this place is way too expensive" and as a bike snob, I see something that's $200 and think "yuck". The people that came back a few times a year for tune ups and flat repair and other small things were the ones that kept the shop open.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  The prices of mid range to high end bicycles and components are out of whack. Compare to what equivalent motorcycle parts cost and it's clear there is huge price gouging going on in the industry. Why are 105 level bikes $2000+? Why are tiny bicycle tires $50 when a middling motorcycle tire with more substantial construction is $100?
  - t3rabytes 6y ago
    $50 for a bicycle tire!? Try $100! Maxxis and Schwalbe have no trouble asking for $90+ RRP on their bike tires.
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      If you can get hold of them, I had to wait two months for a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Tour tyres.
      - StillBored 6y ago
        Right, there has always been something amiss about the LBS sales model. Besides franchise restrictions, nearly every bike I've purchased has needed to be ordered. And its not a week long turnaround, i've had to wait months for them. Frequently by midyear, its more like, hey all the bikes of that model are sold out, you have to wait until next year to order whatever they happen to produce. Its the manufactures which have really turned me off recently. I DO NOT WANT a 27.5" through axle bike for my middle school kid. Yet, outside of maybe a single XXS bike, not a single manufacture makes 26" bikes anymore. So you have the choice, of the sporting goods store bike, or some 27.5" where the geometry is wrong for someone who is 5.5' or so (besides now having to carry a 3rd tire size when we go on family outings, me with my 29" and my other kid with a 26" from a couple years back). So, having customers walking around with $$$ in their pockets and not having a product to sell is a problem. Particularly, when the answer is "come back in 4 months" so we can check inventory again. In four months, I've probably managed to find another source.
        ip26 6y ago
        Try finding a ten year old rockhopper comp, those were mostly still 26" with QR and seem like a great budget friendly choice for a middle schooler. Kids are not a very lucrative market for the manufacturers or for the bike shops. Hardly any parents are willing to shell out four figures for a bike the kid will outgrow in nine months.
        StillBored 6y ago
        Yah, I've been trying, the used bike market seems even crazier at the moment than the retail bike market. I've yet to find anything that is both the right size, and not either a complete POS, or multiple thousands of $.
        rdtwo 6y ago
        Try buying a 300-500 kids bike right now I dare you. Everything is sold out. Totally worth it btw with all playgrounds shutdown nothing for the kids to do of all ages 3-16
  - tobltobs 6y ago
    I recently bought a BMW GS310 motorbike for 5.5k (new, not used), that is just 500 Euros more than my Mountainbike did cost. Sure, the BW is an entry level model, and the MTB is upper class, but still. Mountainbike prices are a rip off, especially if you consider that after 3 years you will have problems getting spare parts for some stuff on the bike.
    - olyjohn 6y ago
      BMW will make parts for damn near ever. I can still get new parts for my '81 R100RS, which is damn incredible!
    - petre 6y ago
      > Mountainbike prices are a rip off You haven't seen road bikes. Look for S-Works.
  - throwaway9191a 6y ago
    In our local group rides there is a guy who rides in the fast group on a mountain bike. That is always my reminder that money is best spent on something like trainer road rather than upgrading your components to save grams.
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      He would still benefit from a road bike. Moving from 30 pounds to 20 pounds is significant without delving into weight weenie territory.
      - InitialLastName 6y ago
        I have to lose at least 30 pounds before my bike's weight is my biggest problem.
      - ska 6y ago
        Would he care though? A good 80% of the people I see riding 3k+ road bikes (in an area that likes to bike, there are lots of them) are carrying far more extra pounds on their bodies than they could ever shave off the bike. It's probably safe to say that the vast majority of people riding bikes have far better bang-for-buck performance improvements available to them than a new bike or components, but don't choose them....
        kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        If he's riding in a "fast group" then the weight savings will be worthwhile. You can do this with a used 20 year old aluminum frame. It doesn't take elite hardware to benefit from light weight.
        ska 6y ago
        If he's keeping up with the fast group already, he may not care (i.e. it's not worthwhile, to him) I'm not saying you have to spend a lot of money. I'm saying people mostly don't do the obvious performance changes anyway, and for most riders it doesn't really matter (as they aren't doing anything competitive enough to need it).
  - Noos 6y ago
    Not really, the whole point of "cycling" is conspicuous consumption and virtue signaling. The high price is what shows that you aren't some pleb riding a bicycle shaped object out of necessity. It's also health conscious, so extra status points. So the market charges this much as a differential, in the same way a "bespoke" suit is pricer than something off the rack. People who want a car-alternative for necessity either buy a wal-mart bike, a cheap electric/gas moped, maybe a motorcycle, or walk.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      How is it different to people who buy, or custom build, high-end PCs when chasing high FPS? What home user actually needs a 16-core Ryzen CPU?
      - mlrtime 6y ago
        Nobody can see your 16 core Ryzen
    - throwaway9191a 6y ago
      > People who want a car-alternative for necessity either buy a wal-mart bike, a cheap electric/gas moped, maybe a motorcycle, or walk. This isn't true across the board. There are absolutely folks who have a $12k INEOS Pinarello because of status, but there is real value in more expensive bikes (more expensive than walmart). Going from steel to aluminum is a very recognizable weight difference. Your commute just became more manageable. A 105 groupset is way more reliable (ime) than lower grades. Your gears will shift better, not click, not skip, and not drop your chain during your commute. A bike shop (which sells more expensive bikes than walmart) is going to fit you properly. You may get lucky with the walmart bike, but a proper fit removes knee pain, lower back pain, shoulder pain and neck pain. If you are commuting, shopping, using your bike for real world things, the extra money is well worth it. Note: I'm talking about a $500 -> ~$2k. Not a $5k bike for a commute. By ditching your car, you more than make up for the $1500 difference in insurance payments, car payments, gas payments, it really adds up quick.
      - 6y ago
  - ip26 6y ago
    Could be low market volume, or drive for low weight. I share your observation, but last I knew, many things on bikes are made by hand. Carbon fiber frames are laid by hand, nice wheels are built by hand, bicycles are assembled & adjusted by hand... and a nice bike might weight 20lbs while a nice moto might weight 400lbs. If there was anything on a bike that seems strangely expensive, my mind goes to shocks. Fox sells a small number of models across the entire mountain bike industry, and participates in multiple other large industries as well, so you'd think they would have plenty of volume for economies of scale & amortization of R&D.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    it's because cycling enthusiasts are generally wealthy. The high-end bike industry is a scam, standards change all the time for dubious reasons. Soon it'll be impossible to find a new 26" tire.
  - 7952 6y ago
    More substantial construction does not necessarily mean that the component was more expensive to make. Powerful engines make weight reduction far less valuable than on a bike.
  - munificent 6y ago
    This is true for every domain that has a sizeable number of passionate hobbyists. When you have a big enough group of people that make thing X part of their identity, statistically speaking a few of those people will be rich, and purveyors of thing X will eventually create products that cater that price point. Basically, if you've got someone who has $100,000 and wants to have the best X, someone will eventually make thing, claim it's the best X, and slap a $100,000 price tag on it. I mean, why wouldn't you do that? A fool and his money are soon parted, and rich fools are the best of all. Men seem particularly prone to this and you really see the effect in "masculine" pursuits. See also: Audio hi-fi gear, musical instruments (guitars in particular), watches, photography, cars, liquor (whiskey in particular (Scotch in particular)), cigars, woodworking, etc. If dudes got into knitting, two weeks later some company named YarnProMax would be selling the neodymium jacketed titanium-core YarnSLAYER6000 needles for $18,000 and there would be dudes who bought them just so they could show them off to other dudes at the BBQ. It's annoying, but it mostly affects the very high end and there is plenty of good affordable gear a tier down. Even better, a lot of this stuff trickles down into the used market for much better prices, so these people tend to act as a net win for the hobby's ecosystem by infusing it with extra money.
    - motogpjimbo 6y ago
      Gucci handbags and Jimmy Choo shoes aren't a thing then?
      - munificent 6y ago
        I'd like you to consider whether your response to my comment is a charitable interpretation of what I wrote, or unnecessarily combative.
  - brudgers 6y ago
    The bicycle building business is more of light manufacturing and motorcycle building business is more heavy manufacturing. The difference is at the component level economics. Bicycle manufacturers buy the same Shimano groupsets as the local bike shop. Motorcycle components are mostly bespoke and manufactured to a specific motorcycle manufacturer's specific specification. So motorcycle components don't have all the overhead costs of bicycle components. There's a lot of marketing costs in the price of a Shimano groupset whether it arrives at Trek's loading dock or via Fedex at a neighborhood bike shop. The chain and gears on a Honda CB650 didn't have a marketing budget to build brand awareness.
agustif 6y ago
502 bad gateway. Choose your hosting wisely (too) I guess? Maybe I've a bad mobile connection.
- philshem 6y ago
  oof. no wayback archive, either. here's the G-cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J9i6XlHD26EJ:https://cyclingindustry.news/why-a-bike-shop-should-choose-its-customer-wisely/&hl=en&gl=ch&strip=1&vwsrc=0 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J9i6XlH...
  - taylorcooney 6y ago
    Ah, thanks
throwaway9191a 6y ago
> their competitiveness isn't just about their cycling stats, but buying from the cheapest source. Well, yea. Competitive cyclists want to buy that $1000 power meter, or those $2500 ENVE wheels as cheap as possible. How many add-on products can you sell somebody who just needs a bike for commuting? Of course service is the biggest business there. Isn't it cheaper to work with existing customers than to find new customers? All the shops near me cater to their existing customers by selling beer. All the group rides end at the bike shop and 50 people buy a pint before going home (granted this was in the past.... I have no idea how these places are still in business this year). > I pump his tyre for him and ask if he'd like a replacement inner tube. "Not at your shop prices," he says. That guy sucks and it must be so frustrating to deal with. I always walk out with several GUs or drink mixes when I stop by a shop. I'm sure that doesn't keep the lights on, but I try.
- blakesterz 6y ago
  >> I have no idea how these places are still in business this year Around here the shops are all nearly sold out and have been since May. It's crazy busy and sales are BOOMING for all of them. The largest shop has racks for probably 200ish bikes, and there was maybe a dozen in the entire store last time I was in there a few weeks ago. Bicycle sales are awesome this year in my area. I assume next summer there will be more than a few of those bikes bought this year listed on craigslist "used 3 times last year" :-)
  - throwaway9191a 6y ago
    That is really good to hear. Hopefully I'm wrong about beer being a large portion of sales for my local shops. For me, the whole cycling thing is about community. I just hope they are still around next summer.
  - OldHand2018 6y ago
    I'm sure that there will be plenty for sale next year, but from my experience out on the trails people are actually using their bikes more than they used to - which is a great thing! If I ran a bike shop, I'd definitely add a consignment component to the business, and make it really fair to the bike owner.
hprotagonist 6y ago
Shops that do well are shops that earn their place as community hubs, and that's a pretty organic process. It takes time and care to build trust. I am very lucky, my LBS has all of sheldon's old bikes on the wall next to the mechanic's station. They are respected enough and established enough to sell everything from $15k S-Works to $6k rivendells to $250 giants. You'll find everyone from Cat-2 guys to the local daily commuters there and it's a chill scene because everyone feels welcome.
- bluejekyll 6y ago
  > I am very lucky, my LBS has all of sheldon's old bikes on the wall next to the mechanic's station. Do you mean Sheldon Brown? His website and all the information about bike maintenance is still one of my favorite things. Their shop built my first fixie hub and wheel for me years ago, with lots of advice. Sadly someone stole that wheel from me, but it was great for 16 years. I only ever got to experience Sheldon virtually, but he seemed like a really amazing person.
- scarecrowbob 6y ago
  That's a strange flex, but I like it. I had forgotten about Sheldon Brown. He was an excellent author and I learned a whole lot from readin his writing. His site is a great example of what the late 90s/early 00s web was good at doing: https://sheldonbrown.com/ https://sheldonbrown.com/
  - spanhandler 6y ago
    Clicking the "what's new" was a great lesson in the difference between old-web and only-somewhat-old web: it took forever to load and I was like "huh, I didn't expect that, given how fast the index loaded and how it looks", then when it did finally load it was obviously a Wordpress site (old web is very very fast, somewhat old web is slower and full of "too many SQL connections" errors, new web is all 5MB of Javascript to display 100K of text).
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Meanwhile, as a touring cyclist, I got a lot of cold, hostile service from the staff at my LBS. When I finally complained to the owner, he said "Look, you're a tourer. You know how to do most of your own maintenance and you buy low-margin gear. A bike shop needs to focus on the racer and clueless commuter crowd to stay in business, and serving you probably is probably a net-negative for us cost-wise". This really opened my eyes to the importance of margin on bikes and bike parts; it is no wonder that shops like to sell the latest carbon frames, because the margins are huge.
spodek 6y ago
> I target customers few other bike shops appear bothered about – the older cyclists who are often returning to cycling after many years’ absence . . . Crazy coincidence that less than 24 hours ago, I was the customer he caters to. I'm 49 now. The summer between high school and college, I road with a friend from Philadelphia to Maine and back -- 1,500 miles over one month -- with a tent and all we needed in the paniers. Through college and grad school I biked everywhere. Eventually the MTA offered the unlimited Metrocard and I shifted to public transportation and sold my bikes. Now I inherited a touring bike just after visiting Joe De Sena, founder of the Spartan Race, at his farm in Vermont (here's the episode on his podcast we recorded: https://youtu.be/hP5h9rpd6Jo https://youtu.be/hP5h9rpd6Jo), and I may go up there again, so it seems the perfect excuse to restart riding. The bike needed a tuneup, a new seat, and maybe more. I looked up local shops on Yelp and went to one with high service reviews. They gave me attention and service, even referring me to another nearby shop for some things. I felt confident going with their recommendations on pedals, shoes, and a few other things, not defensive about them profiting off me, so I spent more with them without first checking online. Solid business practices based on customer service got my business.
psim1 6y ago
Near me, there is a bike shop owner with this same attitude, which is respectable. However, along with high prices, the shop’s service is slow and poor, their brand selection is unpopular, and their knowledge of current bike technology is low. Yet there are always old-timer cyclists in there shooting the breeze at all hours and they have been in business 40 years. I don’t get it.
- ILikeBikes 6y ago
  Bikes isn't about being high techs, nor speed. (otherwise, you need a BMW or an Audi) If cyclists want something fixed fast (ie on a commuter bike), they buy the part on the internet, or on the way back from work, and mount it themselves in the evening. Also, there is still a load of retro design in bikes. I'm a student, and I don't have the hotest model from the most popular brand, for exemple. I have a 1990s road bike, and a 2014 trekking bike with stuff like threated bottom bracket, for exemple. Lastly, a shop that is able to tune a old headset with the 32mm wrenches, straighten a wheel perfectly, and know that your handlebar is probably 25 mm wide, and not 26.5mm like you ordered (or the vice versa), is greatly appreciated. I've seen franchises that were unable to do that. So shops with experimented people are the place to go.
  - ip26 6y ago
    Yeah, there's definitely an advanced skillset a shop can provide that is valuable. As a commuter I happily clean my chain, adjust my shifters & brakes, patch tubes, and so forth. But I generally don't assemble bikes, true wheels, inspect frames, flush hydraulics, pack bearings...
Simulacra 6y ago
Very strange, bicycle shops in the DC metro region are booming.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
UK bike shops had a tough time last year, I seem to remember sales fell by about 50%. Cycling had become very popular over the previous couple of years but I guess once you have a bike there isn't a great deal you need after that. Most of the growth had come from sports cyclists. I get the impression most of this years boom has come from ordinary people. It's nice to see more utility cyclists out on the roads.
walrus01 6y ago
The entire premise of the article seems to be that the owner has written off the middle to high end of the market, and everybody who rides seriously or competitively. It's just fine, it's a totally suitable market niche to cater to the casual customer, if that's who makes up a large part of the local customer base. Serious cyclists will indeed laugh at bicycle shaped object sold by Walmart and similar stores. But, when somebody who rides 10000 km a year for regular base training is asked, by one of their friends or relatives to recommend a bike shop and a normal bike in the affordable price range, their opinion does carry some weight. The best bike shops that I know of are not ones that cater exclusively to the high end of the market, or to only the casual cyclist. but rather shops that carry a full range of everything from bicycles for a two-year-old child, to a $400 city bike, to $6500 road bikes. How many accessories and higher profit margin small items can a shop reasonably expect to sell to a person who has purchased a $600 bike to ride around town? Helmet, maybe a light? It does follow logically that they would rely on more revenue from repairs and services. Once you get into much more expensive bikes, which are more technically complex, the riders are also much more likely to be capable of doing a good amount of the work themselves. the sort of people who owns several $3,000 road bikes probably also own at least 400 to $500 of Park Tool hand tools. They're not going to be going into a shop to change a chain and cassette, they're doing it themselves. Similarly people with serious mountain bikes are likely to own their own hydraulic brake bleed kits and such.
simonbarker87 6y ago
I like the idea of supporting my local shop (I’m an early 30s MTBer, the target of much of this article’s justifiable complaints however I would have happily bought that inner tube if they’d just pumped my tyre up like that and probably gone back to me a larger purchase) but my shop doesn’t deserve my support. Slow, rude and one ran up a £250 repair bill when I asked them to do an investigation with an initial cap at £50. There is a guy running a repair shop locally though who I recently discovered, he charges slightly more than I would like but he does a good job, has gone above and beyond for me on one occasion and really knows his stuff. He I will happily give my money, the local shop not so. Now I think about it, there was a great shop where I lived up north who would regularly not charge me for small jobs. Nothing I did persuaded them to charge me. Their stock was really low end due to being in a poor town so I used to just buy a box of CO2 canisters and a couple of inner tubes, I’ve got dozens of the damn things kicking around still, they must have wondered how I got so many punctures!
ILikeBikes 6y ago
I don't get the mass closure thing they talk about in the article. Where are the journalists based ? In here, in France, merch in almost every bike shop is easily sold out, as people rushed to transition from car and public transportation to bike, to avoid crowded trains without generating hellish traffic jams and pollution. (and roads were even closed to cars, and became the most enjoyable bike routes,like Rue de Rivoli in Paris, that connects the Louvre, le marais, les Invalides... now without cars) So they don't suffer from anything, and I haven't seen a single shop out of business.
jsperson 6y ago
One of the most important things a shop can do is very basic - make people feel welcome. I’ve been riding and racing for 25 years. I’ve been in hundreds of shops. I still feel intimidated when walking into some of them. At other shops you immediately feel like an old friend.
- ILikeBikes 6y ago
  it doesn't work everywhere, tho. Check out how Walmart failed in Germany, for exemple. Among others, management forced the employees to be welcoming to customers, but the Germans found it creepy. Personaly, I'm more the German kind. I've avoided grocery stores and businesses where the manager is overly talkative and gives discounts for no reason. IMO, to have a great shop, just have the parts the poeple need, so that they don't come for nothing. Then, have a website to let customers check out your stock, the prices, and choose parts from home. Not only it's reassuring to them, but it's also quicker to you when they know what they want. And know how to fix bikes, as much as possible on the spot. It's hard to disappoint a customer in a shop. Actually, they'll often be happy and truely appreciate the place. Running this kind of business is mostly about getting them back. When they need something, they'll go to the place they consider the most appropriate. Even if they also like other shops.
  - johnmaguire2013 6y ago
    I don't want a pushy salesperson and discounts - I just want to be treated without hostility when I walk in the door. I don't want to work to get someone's attention to attempt to buy a $550 bike from them. I don't want a rude answer when I ask what's wrong with my bike, or how long it'll take to fix. There's a middleground here, and the problem is that at least where I am in the US, most bike shops are actively hostile to anyone who walks in the door - or maybe it's because I'm not wearing a full kit.
- Eric_WVGG 6y ago
  I’ve noticed a thing common to most retail shops that are not clothing-based. Bicycle shops attract employees who are really into bicycles. Computer stores pick up folks who are really into computers. Book stores, comic book stores, record stores… you get it. None of these types of shops select for "people skills." Insider knowledge is valued, the ability to have a conversation and not make a customer feel like shit is not. It's so bad that archetypes like Comic Book Guy from _The Simpsons_ and the bestselling novel & movie _High Fidelity_ got written and became cultural archetypes. All of which is a long-winded way to say: bicycle shop employees can be incredible, intolerable jerks. I'm not sure why clothes seem to be an exception… perhaps because the merchandise is curated by buyers, so rather than hiring experts, they can hire exclusively based on people skills? Or maybe clothes just attract people with more empathy, I'm not sure. Anyway, when you find a bicycle shop that isn't staffed by troglodytes: make friends. Be loyal. Spend.
TYPE_FASTER 6y ago
I never thought about bike shops as market selection business cases, but this is a really good write-up. I've had shop owners tell me flat out they were in a different market that was out of my budget, which I kind of appreciated because I had $1,500 to spend, not $4k, so let's not waste anybody's time. But I bet it worked really well for that owner. I feel super lucky atm because we have multiple shops within a 5-10 mile drive who have awesome service knowledge, and are pretty price competitive with shopping online to the point where I don't even look anymore except in the cases where they don't carry a specific brand I want, and can't order it. Also, check out your local bike non-profit group/chapter. Some work with local shops to provide discounts on demos and parts + accessories.
severine 6y ago
Site seems down. Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200814144723/https://cyclingindustry.news/why-a-bike-shop-should-choose-its-customer-wisely/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200814144723/https://cyclingin...
0xfaded 6y ago
When I lived in the US, every bikeshop I ever visited was awesome, and my home bikeshop knew me by name. If anything was wrong they could fix it on the spot, and.major work was usually ready next day. Now I live in the bike friendly country Denmark, and the bike shops clearly have unlimited customers with no need to stand out. On a recent ride I was 70 kilometers from home and had my second flat. I could see the back tire was done for, so figured I'd find the local bikeshop to replace the tire and tube at the same time. After over an hour walk, showing up in full cycling gear 70km from home, they offer to change my tire for pickup two days later. It's a 10 minute job with the right machine, but my hands can't stretch a fresh tire over the wheel. I wound up buying a tube and changing it myself out the front of their shop, which set a good expectation for the level of service one could expect. Not that it mattered ... again, unlimited customers. As a customer, I spend at least $2k a year on my bike in service and parts, and never complained or ordered online. Now I buy what I can online.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  Spending $2k per year maintaining a bicycle is absurd. Could you not just buy a new bike every year (keep the saddle)? That's obviously a waste, so buy some tools online and DIY. The hardest part about bicycle DIY is bleeding hydraulic disk brakes if you have them, but even then that only needs to be done max twice per year.
  - 0xfaded 6y ago
    I conciously decided that I didn't want to do my own bike maintenance, I do enough stuff as it is. Every three months I replace the tires, breaks and chain, and have the bike shop do a complete tune up and clean. My last service cost about $400. Then there's inner tubes, clothing, handle bar tape, other replacements, etc that also add up. My bike is my primary form of transport, and I average about 8000km per year. That's not far off what people put on a car.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      If you're happy doing that then fine. I will add though that replacing a chain every 3 months only makes sense if you're a pro. Make sure you also replace the cassette and chainrings at the same time or else you'll just wear your new chain down very quickly. They should all be replaced at the same time. If your cassette and chainrings aren't worn then your chain isn't either. A chain-splitting tool costs about $20. Entire brakes or just the pads? I hope it's just the pads.
burlesona 6y ago
The article and the discussion so far are all about bike shops specifically, however I would say this lesson generalizes well. No matter what your business is, one of your first and most important decisions is who will your customer be. Getting that wrong usually leads to a failed business, and even when “successful” can result in a business that is miserable to operate. Fortunately, if you got it wrong to start, you _can_ change who your customer is.
Jack000 6y ago
It's interesting to contrast western bike culture with China. I've always found it weird how seriously people take it here - gotta dress up in a little speed suit, $5k bike, constant animosity with drivers. I guess that's the difference between a hobby-based subculture and commodity transportation. The bike shop I'm familiar with is the one-man operation on the side of the road, with a dish of water and some tools on a tarp.
- andor 6y ago
  People do this for exercise and because riding fast is fun. Having proper equipment, which can be much cheaper than you might think, makes it more enjoyable. Do you think exercise is weird?
  - brudgers 6y ago
    To me, it is a bit weird for exercise to be the public face of bicycling and for riding fast to be the presumed goal and all the bicycle marketing to be aspirational and never practical. Weird because bicycles are such great tools.
    - porknubbins 6y ago
      There are negative externalities to this too. In crowded big city parks or Multi use trails where safe speed is like 12-13mph you get groups easily going 25mph+ on high end carbon fiber.
exabrial 6y ago
I feel like I'm missing a lot of context to why, where, and when this is being written. USA Bike Shops are flat out of inventory, both high end (Rocky Mountain Bikes, Santa Cruz, etc), mid-range (Specialized, etc), and even Walmart/Academy Sports/etc are flat out of low-end inventory.
- socalnate1 6y ago
  Agreed, it feels like this was in response to something that I never read.
- pashky 6y ago
  It's a UK thing. Local shopping is pretty much extinct here (not just bikes, anything). If you want stuff, you get it online, full stop. Even, more increasingly, food. So local hobby shops that still exist try to carve some weird niche catering for old-fashioned people who value a good banter and "service" over inventory, low price, or competent mechanics. I can pump my own tyres, thank you, but I find it very sad that there's like 2-3 places in the whole country where you can get your suspension serviced. You need to book a couple of weeks ahead, post it, and total price is like 2/3 of new item.
zzzeek 6y ago
This year you can hardly get a bike in New York at least due to insanely high demand because everyone was home from their jobs. We bought two bikes from a shop here sight unseen as they were still in their boxes, because bikes were flying out of the store so fast that they had no time to build new bikes and put them on display before they were sold.
zippedydo 6y ago
I agree with the author. With local bike shops, it’s about guiding you in the right direction. When I was getting back in to casual biking, I was thinking about buying a black helmet and the owner said, “something to think about here, let’s say you’re wearing what you’re wearing right now (black sweatshirt and jeans), if you got into an accident in low light conditions, which might prevent your head getting run over by another passing car?” He was completely correct and I bought the reflective white helmet with light mounts and a light to mount when dark. I probably paid $20 in markup but the advice was worth much more.
tantalor 6y ago
> There’s a lot to be said for working smart in a business where turnover has shown to vanity and profit sanity. This isn't grammatical! What does it mean? Is it machine translated?
- burkaman 6y ago
  I think it should be "turnover has shown to be vanity and profit sanity." This is apparently based on a phrase I've never heard: https://www.quora.com/Who-coined-the-phrase-turnover-is-vanity-profit-is-sanity-cash-is-a-reality?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Who-coined-the-phrase-turnover-is-vani... I realize this doesn't really help, I don't understand the phrase either.
  - tantalor 6y ago
    Interesting! I had never heard that phrase before. Also found this good source: https://www.otmbookkeeping.com.au/turnover-is-vanity-profit-is-sanity/ https://www.otmbookkeeping.com.au/turnover-is-vanity-profit-...
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Presumably it should have a ‘be’ in there before ‘vanity’ and thus mean something like, “in the bike shop business, turnover (number of bikes sold) isn’t as important as profit.” I imagine that profit margins are not exceptionally high when selling bikes.
  - quercusa 6y ago
    That makes sense of it. Thank you!
- function_seven 6y ago
  I re-read this sentence a dozen times trying to figure it out. Here's my correction, based on sibling comments: > There's a lot to be said for working smart in a business where turnover is vanity, and profit is sanity.
- 6y ago
brudgers 6y ago
The owner of my local bike shop describes his work as "we're a utility." When I moved here last year, I planned to buy a bike because it's bikeable and it was the first place I went on the first Monday morning I was here. While I was waiting around for them to open, a man rolled down the hill in the parking lot with the chain hanging off his old and originally cheap bike. The owner said "Let me fix that" and did and the man peddled off to wherever he was going without having to pay in about the time it took you to read this. The shop is run on a sliding scale and weight weenies can buy weight weenie gear at weight weenie prices and homeless vets can get a bike at homeless vet prices and I get what I get at something in between and feel good about paying because I trust that the money is going toward sustaining something that helps people who need help. But I'm worried that he'll go out of business because the pandemic is killing his parts supply and the new bike distributors are dealing with empty warehouses. What I see in the article is a bike shop I probably wouldn't patronize because it rationalizes treating some people badly. It's not any more difficult to be nice to non-customers instead of angry at them. I just don't want to deal with angry small business people. Ultimately they are not trustworthy. YMMV.
- pwillia7 6y ago
  To be fair, he did fix the guy's bike and only harbored resentment afterwards, but I understand your point.
- notatoad 6y ago
  >What I see in the article is a bike shop I probably wouldn't patronize because it rationalizes treating some people badly. 100% agree. bike shops need to stop trying to pick their customers, and just sell stuff to people who want to buy it. it's nice that some bike shops can function as community hubs, but there's way too many run by people like the author of this piece, who have the "i didn't get in this business to get rich" attitude and use that as a justification for treating "their crowd" well and being rude or dismissive of the others. I eagerly await the future where 90% of local bike shops have been killed off by online sales, because then i won't have to deal with the jerks who run bike shops. i actually get nervous going into a bike shop in a new town, because i never know if they're going to accept me as part of their crowd. when i just want to buy a bottle of chain lube, that's not something i should have to think about.
smokey_the_bear 6y ago
I've biked a lot, and been into different styles of bikes over the years. Hands down, the best and friendliest service I ever received was buying my first road bike from Sports Basement (in Sunnyvale). Buying my xtracycle from a hip Berkeley independent bike store was probably the worst service.
- fortran77 6y ago
  And all the bike snobs (that make normal people like me hate bicyclists) can't click the downvote button fast enough on your accurate observation.
- acwan93 6y ago
  Don't know why you're being downvoted, but I share the same sentiment with you. My first road bike was also from a Sports Basement and got nothing but top-notch service. They certainly got my repeat business. Bike snobs are probably like coffee snobs, where the bigger the store, the more it's vilified.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jancsika 6y ago
Essentially-- don't choose what the industry calls "gearheads" as your target customer base. It would be like a startup hiring a couple dozen "premature optimizers" to stand around the office all day giving their advice on using threads and SIMD instructions for every line of code.
terwey 6y ago
Interesting article, I grew up in Amsterdam and have been biking most of my life. As I moved to Berlin I didn't for the first few years as the roads just weren't up for it. At some point I ordered a MTB online, got me back into biking for enjoyment (as opposed to commuting), however quickly noticed a gravel bike would make more sense. I bought a gravel bike from a LBS and sold my MTB, however the service was absolute garbage. Everyone who worked there had no clue and were purely box movers. I would love to find a local bike shop that cares, but seeing everyone and their dog in Berlin bikes to commute nowadays the LBS have their customers for the choosing. A friend actually dropped off his bike 4 (!!!) weeks ago at a LBS because he had a crash with a car and needed to know what was actually broken, they called today to let him know it was ready for pickup, just to be called that they couldn't order the part they needed to repair it. Sadly, a lot of shops are like this, so the author of the article is correct in choosing his audience. I know a lot of guys I ride with who refuse to spend 15% markup more to get it local and installed directly but will whine endlessly because they can't do it themselves. I took it on myself to be able to maintain my entire bike myself, which works well too. Sure it was a pain to figure it out but the gratification is worth it too and now I feel confident that on a longer ride (I prefer multi-day) I can repair the bike on the side of the road without stressing out. The market also shifted, many tech from MTB transferred to road/gravel like thru-axles and disc-brakes. Parts are dropping in price, but if you have an "older" bike it's more of a pain. I opted to go for an "entry" bike with thru-axle, 105 and disc-brakes. I replaced almost every "cheap" component and sold it used for nearly the same price as the sale component cost. However if a LBS would be as good as my local car shop I'd be there more often then I'd have to be... he did say he considered getting into repairing bikes as cars are less popular, and I figure if you can service a V12 how hard can a RD be?

111 points by hippich 6y ago

"However, the problem as I see it, is many IBDs have as their customer base, competitive cyclists. Road and mountain bikers. By their very nature, their competitiveness isn’t just about their cycling stats, but buying from the cheapest source." I spent a few years working in a bike shop and I think that's about right. It's nice to be able to sell high end bikes, but if you're lucky you sell a few a year. Regular people look at a bike that's $3 or $4k and are scared off, "OMG this place is way too expensive" and as a bike snob, I see something that's $200 and think "yuck". The people that came back a few times a year for tune ups and flat repair and other small things were the ones that kept the shop open.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
The prices of mid range to high end bicycles and components are out of whack. Compare to what equivalent motorcycle parts cost and it's clear there is huge price gouging going on in the industry. Why are 105 level bikes $2000+? Why are tiny bicycle tires $50 when a middling motorcycle tire with more substantial construction is $100?
- t3rabytes 6y ago
  $50 for a bicycle tire!? Try $100! Maxxis and Schwalbe have no trouble asking for $90+ RRP on their bike tires.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    If you can get hold of them, I had to wait two months for a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Tour tyres.
    - StillBored 6y ago
      Right, there has always been something amiss about the LBS sales model. Besides franchise restrictions, nearly every bike I've purchased has needed to be ordered. And its not a week long turnaround, i've had to wait months for them. Frequently by midyear, its more like, hey all the bikes of that model are sold out, you have to wait until next year to order whatever they happen to produce. Its the manufactures which have really turned me off recently. I DO NOT WANT a 27.5" through axle bike for my middle school kid. Yet, outside of maybe a single XXS bike, not a single manufacture makes 26" bikes anymore. So you have the choice, of the sporting goods store bike, or some 27.5" where the geometry is wrong for someone who is 5.5' or so (besides now having to carry a 3rd tire size when we go on family outings, me with my 29" and my other kid with a 26" from a couple years back). So, having customers walking around with $$$ in their pockets and not having a product to sell is a problem. Particularly, when the answer is "come back in 4 months" so we can check inventory again. In four months, I've probably managed to find another source.
      - ip26 6y ago
        Try finding a ten year old rockhopper comp, those were mostly still 26" with QR and seem like a great budget friendly choice for a middle schooler. Kids are not a very lucrative market for the manufacturers or for the bike shops. Hardly any parents are willing to shell out four figures for a bike the kid will outgrow in nine months.
        StillBored 6y ago
        Yah, I've been trying, the used bike market seems even crazier at the moment than the retail bike market. I've yet to find anything that is both the right size, and not either a complete POS, or multiple thousands of $.
        rdtwo 6y ago
        Try buying a 300-500 kids bike right now I dare you. Everything is sold out. Totally worth it btw with all playgrounds shutdown nothing for the kids to do of all ages 3-16
- tobltobs 6y ago
  I recently bought a BMW GS310 motorbike for 5.5k (new, not used), that is just 500 Euros more than my Mountainbike did cost. Sure, the BW is an entry level model, and the MTB is upper class, but still. Mountainbike prices are a rip off, especially if you consider that after 3 years you will have problems getting spare parts for some stuff on the bike.
  - olyjohn 6y ago
    BMW will make parts for damn near ever. I can still get new parts for my '81 R100RS, which is damn incredible!
  - petre 6y ago
    > Mountainbike prices are a rip off You haven't seen road bikes. Look for S-Works.
- throwaway9191a 6y ago
  In our local group rides there is a guy who rides in the fast group on a mountain bike. That is always my reminder that money is best spent on something like trainer road rather than upgrading your components to save grams.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    He would still benefit from a road bike. Moving from 30 pounds to 20 pounds is significant without delving into weight weenie territory.
    - InitialLastName 6y ago
      I have to lose at least 30 pounds before my bike's weight is my biggest problem.
    - ska 6y ago
      Would he care though? A good 80% of the people I see riding 3k+ road bikes (in an area that likes to bike, there are lots of them) are carrying far more extra pounds on their bodies than they could ever shave off the bike. It's probably safe to say that the vast majority of people riding bikes have far better bang-for-buck performance improvements available to them than a new bike or components, but don't choose them....
      - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        If he's riding in a "fast group" then the weight savings will be worthwhile. You can do this with a used 20 year old aluminum frame. It doesn't take elite hardware to benefit from light weight.
        ska 6y ago
        If he's keeping up with the fast group already, he may not care (i.e. it's not worthwhile, to him) I'm not saying you have to spend a lot of money. I'm saying people mostly don't do the obvious performance changes anyway, and for most riders it doesn't really matter (as they aren't doing anything competitive enough to need it).
- Noos 6y ago
  Not really, the whole point of "cycling" is conspicuous consumption and virtue signaling. The high price is what shows that you aren't some pleb riding a bicycle shaped object out of necessity. It's also health conscious, so extra status points. So the market charges this much as a differential, in the same way a "bespoke" suit is pricer than something off the rack. People who want a car-alternative for necessity either buy a wal-mart bike, a cheap electric/gas moped, maybe a motorcycle, or walk.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    How is it different to people who buy, or custom build, high-end PCs when chasing high FPS? What home user actually needs a 16-core Ryzen CPU?
    - mlrtime 6y ago
      Nobody can see your 16 core Ryzen
  - throwaway9191a 6y ago
    > People who want a car-alternative for necessity either buy a wal-mart bike, a cheap electric/gas moped, maybe a motorcycle, or walk. This isn't true across the board. There are absolutely folks who have a $12k INEOS Pinarello because of status, but there is real value in more expensive bikes (more expensive than walmart). Going from steel to aluminum is a very recognizable weight difference. Your commute just became more manageable. A 105 groupset is way more reliable (ime) than lower grades. Your gears will shift better, not click, not skip, and not drop your chain during your commute. A bike shop (which sells more expensive bikes than walmart) is going to fit you properly. You may get lucky with the walmart bike, but a proper fit removes knee pain, lower back pain, shoulder pain and neck pain. If you are commuting, shopping, using your bike for real world things, the extra money is well worth it. Note: I'm talking about a $500 -> ~$2k. Not a $5k bike for a commute. By ditching your car, you more than make up for the $1500 difference in insurance payments, car payments, gas payments, it really adds up quick.
    - 6y ago
- ip26 6y ago
  Could be low market volume, or drive for low weight. I share your observation, but last I knew, many things on bikes are made by hand. Carbon fiber frames are laid by hand, nice wheels are built by hand, bicycles are assembled & adjusted by hand... and a nice bike might weight 20lbs while a nice moto might weight 400lbs. If there was anything on a bike that seems strangely expensive, my mind goes to shocks. Fox sells a small number of models across the entire mountain bike industry, and participates in multiple other large industries as well, so you'd think they would have plenty of volume for economies of scale & amortization of R&D.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  it's because cycling enthusiasts are generally wealthy. The high-end bike industry is a scam, standards change all the time for dubious reasons. Soon it'll be impossible to find a new 26" tire.
- 7952 6y ago
  More substantial construction does not necessarily mean that the component was more expensive to make. Powerful engines make weight reduction far less valuable than on a bike.
- munificent 6y ago
  This is true for every domain that has a sizeable number of passionate hobbyists. When you have a big enough group of people that make thing X part of their identity, statistically speaking a few of those people will be rich, and purveyors of thing X will eventually create products that cater that price point. Basically, if you've got someone who has $100,000 and wants to have the best X, someone will eventually make thing, claim it's the best X, and slap a $100,000 price tag on it. I mean, why wouldn't you do that? A fool and his money are soon parted, and rich fools are the best of all. Men seem particularly prone to this and you really see the effect in "masculine" pursuits. See also: Audio hi-fi gear, musical instruments (guitars in particular), watches, photography, cars, liquor (whiskey in particular (Scotch in particular)), cigars, woodworking, etc. If dudes got into knitting, two weeks later some company named YarnProMax would be selling the neodymium jacketed titanium-core YarnSLAYER6000 needles for $18,000 and there would be dudes who bought them just so they could show them off to other dudes at the BBQ. It's annoying, but it mostly affects the very high end and there is plenty of good affordable gear a tier down. Even better, a lot of this stuff trickles down into the used market for much better prices, so these people tend to act as a net win for the hobby's ecosystem by infusing it with extra money.
  - motogpjimbo 6y ago
    Gucci handbags and Jimmy Choo shoes aren't a thing then?
    - munificent 6y ago
      I'd like you to consider whether your response to my comment is a charitable interpretation of what I wrote, or unnecessarily combative.
- brudgers 6y ago
  The bicycle building business is more of light manufacturing and motorcycle building business is more heavy manufacturing. The difference is at the component level economics. Bicycle manufacturers buy the same Shimano groupsets as the local bike shop. Motorcycle components are mostly bespoke and manufactured to a specific motorcycle manufacturer's specific specification. So motorcycle components don't have all the overhead costs of bicycle components. There's a lot of marketing costs in the price of a Shimano groupset whether it arrives at Trek's loading dock or via Fedex at a neighborhood bike shop. The chain and gears on a Honda CB650 didn't have a marketing budget to build brand awareness.

agustif 6y ago

502 bad gateway. Choose your hosting wisely (too) I guess? Maybe I've a bad mobile connection.

philshem 6y ago
oof. no wayback archive, either. here's the G-cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J9i6XlHD26EJ:https://cyclingindustry.news/why-a-bike-shop-should-choose-its-customer-wisely/&hl=en&gl=ch&strip=1&vwsrc=0 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J9i6XlH...
- taylorcooney 6y ago
  Ah, thanks

throwaway9191a 6y ago

> their competitiveness isn't just about their cycling stats, but buying from the cheapest source. Well, yea. Competitive cyclists want to buy that $1000 power meter, or those $2500 ENVE wheels as cheap as possible. How many add-on products can you sell somebody who just needs a bike for commuting? Of course service is the biggest business there. Isn't it cheaper to work with existing customers than to find new customers? All the shops near me cater to their existing customers by selling beer. All the group rides end at the bike shop and 50 people buy a pint before going home (granted this was in the past.... I have no idea how these places are still in business this year). > I pump his tyre for him and ask if he'd like a replacement inner tube. "Not at your shop prices," he says. That guy sucks and it must be so frustrating to deal with. I always walk out with several GUs or drink mixes when I stop by a shop. I'm sure that doesn't keep the lights on, but I try.

blakesterz 6y ago
>> I have no idea how these places are still in business this year Around here the shops are all nearly sold out and have been since May. It's crazy busy and sales are BOOMING for all of them. The largest shop has racks for probably 200ish bikes, and there was maybe a dozen in the entire store last time I was in there a few weeks ago. Bicycle sales are awesome this year in my area. I assume next summer there will be more than a few of those bikes bought this year listed on craigslist "used 3 times last year" :-)
- throwaway9191a 6y ago
  That is really good to hear. Hopefully I'm wrong about beer being a large portion of sales for my local shops. For me, the whole cycling thing is about community. I just hope they are still around next summer.
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  I'm sure that there will be plenty for sale next year, but from my experience out on the trails people are actually using their bikes more than they used to - which is a great thing! If I ran a bike shop, I'd definitely add a consignment component to the business, and make it really fair to the bike owner.

hprotagonist 6y ago

Shops that do well are shops that earn their place as community hubs, and that's a pretty organic process. It takes time and care to build trust. I am very lucky, my LBS has all of sheldon's old bikes on the wall next to the mechanic's station. They are respected enough and established enough to sell everything from $15k S-Works to $6k rivendells to $250 giants. You'll find everyone from Cat-2 guys to the local daily commuters there and it's a chill scene because everyone feels welcome.

bluejekyll 6y ago
> I am very lucky, my LBS has all of sheldon's old bikes on the wall next to the mechanic's station. Do you mean Sheldon Brown? His website and all the information about bike maintenance is still one of my favorite things. Their shop built my first fixie hub and wheel for me years ago, with lots of advice. Sadly someone stole that wheel from me, but it was great for 16 years. I only ever got to experience Sheldon virtually, but he seemed like a really amazing person.
scarecrowbob 6y ago
That's a strange flex, but I like it. I had forgotten about Sheldon Brown. He was an excellent author and I learned a whole lot from readin his writing. His site is a great example of what the late 90s/early 00s web was good at doing: https://sheldonbrown.com/ https://sheldonbrown.com/
- spanhandler 6y ago
  Clicking the "what's new" was a great lesson in the difference between old-web and only-somewhat-old web: it took forever to load and I was like "huh, I didn't expect that, given how fast the index loaded and how it looks", then when it did finally load it was obviously a Wordpress site (old web is very very fast, somewhat old web is slower and full of "too many SQL connections" errors, new web is all 5MB of Javascript to display 100K of text).
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Meanwhile, as a touring cyclist, I got a lot of cold, hostile service from the staff at my LBS. When I finally complained to the owner, he said "Look, you're a tourer. You know how to do most of your own maintenance and you buy low-margin gear. A bike shop needs to focus on the racer and clueless commuter crowd to stay in business, and serving you probably is probably a net-negative for us cost-wise". This really opened my eyes to the importance of margin on bikes and bike parts; it is no wonder that shops like to sell the latest carbon frames, because the margins are huge.

spodek 6y ago

> I target customers few other bike shops appear bothered about – the older cyclists who are often returning to cycling after many years’ absence . . . Crazy coincidence that less than 24 hours ago, I was the customer he caters to. I'm 49 now. The summer between high school and college, I road with a friend from Philadelphia to Maine and back -- 1,500 miles over one month -- with a tent and all we needed in the paniers. Through college and grad school I biked everywhere. Eventually the MTA offered the unlimited Metrocard and I shifted to public transportation and sold my bikes. Now I inherited a touring bike just after visiting Joe De Sena, founder of the Spartan Race, at his farm in Vermont (here's the episode on his podcast we recorded: https://youtu.be/hP5h9rpd6Jo https://youtu.be/hP5h9rpd6Jo), and I may go up there again, so it seems the perfect excuse to restart riding. The bike needed a tuneup, a new seat, and maybe more. I looked up local shops on Yelp and went to one with high service reviews. They gave me attention and service, even referring me to another nearby shop for some things. I felt confident going with their recommendations on pedals, shoes, and a few other things, not defensive about them profiting off me, so I spent more with them without first checking online. Solid business practices based on customer service got my business.

psim1 6y ago

Near me, there is a bike shop owner with this same attitude, which is respectable. However, along with high prices, the shop’s service is slow and poor, their brand selection is unpopular, and their knowledge of current bike technology is low. Yet there are always old-timer cyclists in there shooting the breeze at all hours and they have been in business 40 years. I don’t get it.

ILikeBikes 6y ago
Bikes isn't about being high techs, nor speed. (otherwise, you need a BMW or an Audi) If cyclists want something fixed fast (ie on a commuter bike), they buy the part on the internet, or on the way back from work, and mount it themselves in the evening. Also, there is still a load of retro design in bikes. I'm a student, and I don't have the hotest model from the most popular brand, for exemple. I have a 1990s road bike, and a 2014 trekking bike with stuff like threated bottom bracket, for exemple. Lastly, a shop that is able to tune a old headset with the 32mm wrenches, straighten a wheel perfectly, and know that your handlebar is probably 25 mm wide, and not 26.5mm like you ordered (or the vice versa), is greatly appreciated. I've seen franchises that were unable to do that. So shops with experimented people are the place to go.
- ip26 6y ago
  Yeah, there's definitely an advanced skillset a shop can provide that is valuable. As a commuter I happily clean my chain, adjust my shifters & brakes, patch tubes, and so forth. But I generally don't assemble bikes, true wheels, inspect frames, flush hydraulics, pack bearings...

Simulacra 6y ago

Very strange, bicycle shops in the DC metro region are booming.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

UK bike shops had a tough time last year, I seem to remember sales fell by about 50%. Cycling had become very popular over the previous couple of years but I guess once you have a bike there isn't a great deal you need after that. Most of the growth had come from sports cyclists. I get the impression most of this years boom has come from ordinary people. It's nice to see more utility cyclists out on the roads.

walrus01 6y ago

The entire premise of the article seems to be that the owner has written off the middle to high end of the market, and everybody who rides seriously or competitively. It's just fine, it's a totally suitable market niche to cater to the casual customer, if that's who makes up a large part of the local customer base. Serious cyclists will indeed laugh at bicycle shaped object sold by Walmart and similar stores. But, when somebody who rides 10000 km a year for regular base training is asked, by one of their friends or relatives to recommend a bike shop and a normal bike in the affordable price range, their opinion does carry some weight. The best bike shops that I know of are not ones that cater exclusively to the high end of the market, or to only the casual cyclist. but rather shops that carry a full range of everything from bicycles for a two-year-old child, to a $400 city bike, to $6500 road bikes. How many accessories and higher profit margin small items can a shop reasonably expect to sell to a person who has purchased a $600 bike to ride around town? Helmet, maybe a light? It does follow logically that they would rely on more revenue from repairs and services. Once you get into much more expensive bikes, which are more technically complex, the riders are also much more likely to be capable of doing a good amount of the work themselves. the sort of people who owns several $3,000 road bikes probably also own at least 400 to $500 of Park Tool hand tools. They're not going to be going into a shop to change a chain and cassette, they're doing it themselves. Similarly people with serious mountain bikes are likely to own their own hydraulic brake bleed kits and such.

simonbarker87 6y ago

I like the idea of supporting my local shop (I’m an early 30s MTBer, the target of much of this article’s justifiable complaints however I would have happily bought that inner tube if they’d just pumped my tyre up like that and probably gone back to me a larger purchase) but my shop doesn’t deserve my support. Slow, rude and one ran up a £250 repair bill when I asked them to do an investigation with an initial cap at £50. There is a guy running a repair shop locally though who I recently discovered, he charges slightly more than I would like but he does a good job, has gone above and beyond for me on one occasion and really knows his stuff. He I will happily give my money, the local shop not so. Now I think about it, there was a great shop where I lived up north who would regularly not charge me for small jobs. Nothing I did persuaded them to charge me. Their stock was really low end due to being in a poor town so I used to just buy a box of CO2 canisters and a couple of inner tubes, I’ve got dozens of the damn things kicking around still, they must have wondered how I got so many punctures!

ILikeBikes 6y ago

I don't get the mass closure thing they talk about in the article. Where are the journalists based ? In here, in France, merch in almost every bike shop is easily sold out, as people rushed to transition from car and public transportation to bike, to avoid crowded trains without generating hellish traffic jams and pollution. (and roads were even closed to cars, and became the most enjoyable bike routes,like Rue de Rivoli in Paris, that connects the Louvre, le marais, les Invalides... now without cars) So they don't suffer from anything, and I haven't seen a single shop out of business.

jsperson 6y ago

One of the most important things a shop can do is very basic - make people feel welcome. I’ve been riding and racing for 25 years. I’ve been in hundreds of shops. I still feel intimidated when walking into some of them. At other shops you immediately feel like an old friend.

ILikeBikes 6y ago
it doesn't work everywhere, tho. Check out how Walmart failed in Germany, for exemple. Among others, management forced the employees to be welcoming to customers, but the Germans found it creepy. Personaly, I'm more the German kind. I've avoided grocery stores and businesses where the manager is overly talkative and gives discounts for no reason. IMO, to have a great shop, just have the parts the poeple need, so that they don't come for nothing. Then, have a website to let customers check out your stock, the prices, and choose parts from home. Not only it's reassuring to them, but it's also quicker to you when they know what they want. And know how to fix bikes, as much as possible on the spot. It's hard to disappoint a customer in a shop. Actually, they'll often be happy and truely appreciate the place. Running this kind of business is mostly about getting them back. When they need something, they'll go to the place they consider the most appropriate. Even if they also like other shops.
- johnmaguire2013 6y ago
  I don't want a pushy salesperson and discounts - I just want to be treated without hostility when I walk in the door. I don't want to work to get someone's attention to attempt to buy a $550 bike from them. I don't want a rude answer when I ask what's wrong with my bike, or how long it'll take to fix. There's a middleground here, and the problem is that at least where I am in the US, most bike shops are actively hostile to anyone who walks in the door - or maybe it's because I'm not wearing a full kit.
Eric_WVGG 6y ago
I’ve noticed a thing common to most retail shops that are not clothing-based. Bicycle shops attract employees who are really into bicycles. Computer stores pick up folks who are really into computers. Book stores, comic book stores, record stores… you get it. None of these types of shops select for "people skills." Insider knowledge is valued, the ability to have a conversation and not make a customer feel like shit is not. It's so bad that archetypes like Comic Book Guy from _The Simpsons_ and the bestselling novel & movie _High Fidelity_ got written and became cultural archetypes. All of which is a long-winded way to say: bicycle shop employees can be incredible, intolerable jerks. I'm not sure why clothes seem to be an exception… perhaps because the merchandise is curated by buyers, so rather than hiring experts, they can hire exclusively based on people skills? Or maybe clothes just attract people with more empathy, I'm not sure. Anyway, when you find a bicycle shop that isn't staffed by troglodytes: make friends. Be loyal. Spend.

TYPE_FASTER 6y ago

I never thought about bike shops as market selection business cases, but this is a really good write-up. I've had shop owners tell me flat out they were in a different market that was out of my budget, which I kind of appreciated because I had $1,500 to spend, not $4k, so let's not waste anybody's time. But I bet it worked really well for that owner. I feel super lucky atm because we have multiple shops within a 5-10 mile drive who have awesome service knowledge, and are pretty price competitive with shopping online to the point where I don't even look anymore except in the cases where they don't carry a specific brand I want, and can't order it. Also, check out your local bike non-profit group/chapter. Some work with local shops to provide discounts on demos and parts + accessories.

severine 6y ago

Site seems down. Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200814144723/https://cyclingindustry.news/why-a-bike-shop-should-choose-its-customer-wisely/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200814144723/https://cyclingin...

0xfaded 6y ago

When I lived in the US, every bikeshop I ever visited was awesome, and my home bikeshop knew me by name. If anything was wrong they could fix it on the spot, and.major work was usually ready next day. Now I live in the bike friendly country Denmark, and the bike shops clearly have unlimited customers with no need to stand out. On a recent ride I was 70 kilometers from home and had my second flat. I could see the back tire was done for, so figured I'd find the local bikeshop to replace the tire and tube at the same time. After over an hour walk, showing up in full cycling gear 70km from home, they offer to change my tire for pickup two days later. It's a 10 minute job with the right machine, but my hands can't stretch a fresh tire over the wheel. I wound up buying a tube and changing it myself out the front of their shop, which set a good expectation for the level of service one could expect. Not that it mattered ... again, unlimited customers. As a customer, I spend at least $2k a year on my bike in service and parts, and never complained or ordered online. Now I buy what I can online.

secondcoming 6y ago
Spending $2k per year maintaining a bicycle is absurd. Could you not just buy a new bike every year (keep the saddle)? That's obviously a waste, so buy some tools online and DIY. The hardest part about bicycle DIY is bleeding hydraulic disk brakes if you have them, but even then that only needs to be done max twice per year.
- 0xfaded 6y ago
  I conciously decided that I didn't want to do my own bike maintenance, I do enough stuff as it is. Every three months I replace the tires, breaks and chain, and have the bike shop do a complete tune up and clean. My last service cost about $400. Then there's inner tubes, clothing, handle bar tape, other replacements, etc that also add up. My bike is my primary form of transport, and I average about 8000km per year. That's not far off what people put on a car.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    If you're happy doing that then fine. I will add though that replacing a chain every 3 months only makes sense if you're a pro. Make sure you also replace the cassette and chainrings at the same time or else you'll just wear your new chain down very quickly. They should all be replaced at the same time. If your cassette and chainrings aren't worn then your chain isn't either. A chain-splitting tool costs about $20. Entire brakes or just the pads? I hope it's just the pads.

burlesona 6y ago

The article and the discussion so far are all about bike shops specifically, however I would say this lesson generalizes well. No matter what your business is, one of your first and most important decisions is who will your customer be. Getting that wrong usually leads to a failed business, and even when “successful” can result in a business that is miserable to operate. Fortunately, if you got it wrong to start, you _can_ change who your customer is.

Jack000 6y ago

It's interesting to contrast western bike culture with China. I've always found it weird how seriously people take it here - gotta dress up in a little speed suit, $5k bike, constant animosity with drivers. I guess that's the difference between a hobby-based subculture and commodity transportation. The bike shop I'm familiar with is the one-man operation on the side of the road, with a dish of water and some tools on a tarp.

andor 6y ago
People do this for exercise and because riding fast is fun. Having proper equipment, which can be much cheaper than you might think, makes it more enjoyable. Do you think exercise is weird?
- brudgers 6y ago
  To me, it is a bit weird for exercise to be the public face of bicycling and for riding fast to be the presumed goal and all the bicycle marketing to be aspirational and never practical. Weird because bicycles are such great tools.
  - porknubbins 6y ago
    There are negative externalities to this too. In crowded big city parks or Multi use trails where safe speed is like 12-13mph you get groups easily going 25mph+ on high end carbon fiber.

exabrial 6y ago

I feel like I'm missing a lot of context to why, where, and when this is being written. USA Bike Shops are flat out of inventory, both high end (Rocky Mountain Bikes, Santa Cruz, etc), mid-range (Specialized, etc), and even Walmart/Academy Sports/etc are flat out of low-end inventory.

socalnate1 6y ago
Agreed, it feels like this was in response to something that I never read.
pashky 6y ago
It's a UK thing. Local shopping is pretty much extinct here (not just bikes, anything). If you want stuff, you get it online, full stop. Even, more increasingly, food. So local hobby shops that still exist try to carve some weird niche catering for old-fashioned people who value a good banter and "service" over inventory, low price, or competent mechanics. I can pump my own tyres, thank you, but I find it very sad that there's like 2-3 places in the whole country where you can get your suspension serviced. You need to book a couple of weeks ahead, post it, and total price is like 2/3 of new item.

zzzeek 6y ago

This year you can hardly get a bike in New York at least due to insanely high demand because everyone was home from their jobs. We bought two bikes from a shop here sight unseen as they were still in their boxes, because bikes were flying out of the store so fast that they had no time to build new bikes and put them on display before they were sold.

zippedydo 6y ago

I agree with the author. With local bike shops, it’s about guiding you in the right direction. When I was getting back in to casual biking, I was thinking about buying a black helmet and the owner said, “something to think about here, let’s say you’re wearing what you’re wearing right now (black sweatshirt and jeans), if you got into an accident in low light conditions, which might prevent your head getting run over by another passing car?” He was completely correct and I bought the reflective white helmet with light mounts and a light to mount when dark. I probably paid $20 in markup but the advice was worth much more.

tantalor 6y ago

> There’s a lot to be said for working smart in a business where turnover has shown to vanity and profit sanity. This isn't grammatical! What does it mean? Is it machine translated?

burkaman 6y ago
I think it should be "turnover has shown to be vanity and profit sanity." This is apparently based on a phrase I've never heard: https://www.quora.com/Who-coined-the-phrase-turnover-is-vanity-profit-is-sanity-cash-is-a-reality?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Who-coined-the-phrase-turnover-is-vani... I realize this doesn't really help, I don't understand the phrase either.
- tantalor 6y ago
  Interesting! I had never heard that phrase before. Also found this good source: https://www.otmbookkeeping.com.au/turnover-is-vanity-profit-is-sanity/ https://www.otmbookkeeping.com.au/turnover-is-vanity-profit-...
ceilingcorner 6y ago
Presumably it should have a ‘be’ in there before ‘vanity’ and thus mean something like, “in the bike shop business, turnover (number of bikes sold) isn’t as important as profit.” I imagine that profit margins are not exceptionally high when selling bikes.
- quercusa 6y ago
  That makes sense of it. Thank you!
function_seven 6y ago
I re-read this sentence a dozen times trying to figure it out. Here's my correction, based on sibling comments: > There's a lot to be said for working smart in a business where turnover is vanity, and profit is sanity.
6y ago

brudgers 6y ago

The owner of my local bike shop describes his work as "we're a utility." When I moved here last year, I planned to buy a bike because it's bikeable and it was the first place I went on the first Monday morning I was here. While I was waiting around for them to open, a man rolled down the hill in the parking lot with the chain hanging off his old and originally cheap bike. The owner said "Let me fix that" and did and the man peddled off to wherever he was going without having to pay in about the time it took you to read this. The shop is run on a sliding scale and weight weenies can buy weight weenie gear at weight weenie prices and homeless vets can get a bike at homeless vet prices and I get what I get at something in between and feel good about paying because I trust that the money is going toward sustaining something that helps people who need help. But I'm worried that he'll go out of business because the pandemic is killing his parts supply and the new bike distributors are dealing with empty warehouses. What I see in the article is a bike shop I probably wouldn't patronize because it rationalizes treating some people badly. It's not any more difficult to be nice to non-customers instead of angry at them. I just don't want to deal with angry small business people. Ultimately they are not trustworthy. YMMV.

pwillia7 6y ago
To be fair, he did fix the guy's bike and only harbored resentment afterwards, but I understand your point.
notatoad 6y ago
>What I see in the article is a bike shop I probably wouldn't patronize because it rationalizes treating some people badly. 100% agree. bike shops need to stop trying to pick their customers, and just sell stuff to people who want to buy it. it's nice that some bike shops can function as community hubs, but there's way too many run by people like the author of this piece, who have the "i didn't get in this business to get rich" attitude and use that as a justification for treating "their crowd" well and being rude or dismissive of the others. I eagerly await the future where 90% of local bike shops have been killed off by online sales, because then i won't have to deal with the jerks who run bike shops. i actually get nervous going into a bike shop in a new town, because i never know if they're going to accept me as part of their crowd. when i just want to buy a bottle of chain lube, that's not something i should have to think about.

smokey_the_bear 6y ago

I've biked a lot, and been into different styles of bikes over the years. Hands down, the best and friendliest service I ever received was buying my first road bike from Sports Basement (in Sunnyvale). Buying my xtracycle from a hip Berkeley independent bike store was probably the worst service.

fortran77 6y ago
And all the bike snobs (that make normal people like me hate bicyclists) can't click the downvote button fast enough on your accurate observation.
acwan93 6y ago
Don't know why you're being downvoted, but I share the same sentiment with you. My first road bike was also from a Sports Basement and got nothing but top-notch service. They certainly got my repeat business. Bike snobs are probably like coffee snobs, where the bigger the store, the more it's vilified.

deleted 6y ago

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jancsika 6y ago

Essentially-- don't choose what the industry calls "gearheads" as your target customer base. It would be like a startup hiring a couple dozen "premature optimizers" to stand around the office all day giving their advice on using threads and SIMD instructions for every line of code.

terwey 6y ago

Interesting article, I grew up in Amsterdam and have been biking most of my life. As I moved to Berlin I didn't for the first few years as the roads just weren't up for it. At some point I ordered a MTB online, got me back into biking for enjoyment (as opposed to commuting), however quickly noticed a gravel bike would make more sense. I bought a gravel bike from a LBS and sold my MTB, however the service was absolute garbage. Everyone who worked there had no clue and were purely box movers. I would love to find a local bike shop that cares, but seeing everyone and their dog in Berlin bikes to commute nowadays the LBS have their customers for the choosing. A friend actually dropped off his bike 4 (!!!) weeks ago at a LBS because he had a crash with a car and needed to know what was actually broken, they called today to let him know it was ready for pickup, just to be called that they couldn't order the part they needed to repair it. Sadly, a lot of shops are like this, so the author of the article is correct in choosing his audience. I know a lot of guys I ride with who refuse to spend 15% markup more to get it local and installed directly but will whine endlessly because they can't do it themselves. I took it on myself to be able to maintain my entire bike myself, which works well too. Sure it was a pain to figure it out but the gratification is worth it too and now I feel confident that on a longer ride (I prefer multi-day) I can repair the bike on the side of the road without stressing out. The market also shifted, many tech from MTB transferred to road/gravel like thru-axles and disc-brakes. Parts are dropping in price, but if you have an "older" bike it's more of a pain. I opted to go for an "entry" bike with thru-axle, 105 and disc-brakes. I replaced almost every "cheap" component and sold it used for nearly the same price as the sale component cost. However if a LBS would be as good as my local car shop I'd be there more often then I'd have to be... he did say he considered getting into repairing bikes as cars are less popular, and I figure if you can service a V12 how hard can a RD be?