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If I recall correctly, Specialized Bikes pulled all their products from Amazon a while ago, pointing to the failing local bike shops eventually hurting the bike

by scoofy 5y ago

If I recall correctly, Specialized Bikes pulled all their products from Amazon a while ago, pointing to the failing local bike shops eventually hurting the bike business for everyone. Bicycles are not toys. They are vehicles that need maintenance. You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd, but the vast majority of cyclists are dependent on local bike shops to sustain the cycling community. The bicycle/parts manufacturers need a large cycling community to sell products to. The large cycling community will have novice and intermediate cyclists that will abandon cycling if their bikes break down. The novice and intermediate cyclist need local bike shops to do maintenance on their bikes at affordable rates. The local bike shops need a revenue stream beyond labor for maintenance to be affordable. Thus, the major bicycle manufacturers need to give a oligopoly status to the local bike shops in order to keep their user base large. As a life long cyclist, I've seen the industry grow and wane, and throughout it all, I've seen the vast majority of people think bicycles are some type of sports-equipment. Decisions like this are one of only a few business models that I can see sustaining the community. I'm actually surprised and optimistic to see the major manufacturer Trek start building their own brick and mortar shops in certain major cities, though I'd prefer to see this happen through a major cooperative between the various brands. If you care about making cycling a serious, sustainable transit alternative, we need to maintain the entire ecosystem of ridership, which means the race to the bottom on amazon must be stopped.

namdnay 5y ago
> The novice and intermediate cyclist need local bike shops to do maintenance on their bikes at affordable rates. The local bike shops need a revenue stream beyond labor for maintenance to be affordable. I don’t agree with this reasoning. Why wouldn’t maintenance be priced at the true rate? In what way is it better for consumers to overpay for their equipment in order to underpay for maintenance?
- ljf 5y ago
  I didn't read it to say that, just that it is very hard to be a mechanic only shop - they also need to sell something else to be a profitable business. In London there a few mechanics/coffee shops that stayed profitable that way. If more people cycled I'm sure you would see more 'just mechanics' but in most places they can't afford to be that.
  - mikepurvis 5y ago
    An acquaintance of mine tried to do the cafe/sales/repair thing [1]; he went more high end on all three, selling fancy drinks, pricey Dutch cargo bikes, etc. It didn't work out. I think they lasted ~3 years, though it was clear by the end that the writing was on the wall. [1]: https://twitter.com/berlinbikecafe https://twitter.com/berlinbikecafe
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      > he went more high end on all three Maybe that was the problem there?
      - JCharante 5y ago
        Yeah high-end cafe seems like a tough sell. A cheap cafe to go to during group rides sounds great for having people learn about your high end service shop.
        mikepurvis 5y ago
        I feel like high end bike service in general is a tough sell unless you have a huge local club-ride community of people whose time is extremely valuable. I know someone who operated a Velofix van for a few years, and I used it a few times, but the minimum cost was basically $100+. For that much coin, I would just walk my bike home or take it on the bus. Particularly if it was something like a flat tire where I know I can fix it myself at home for a few dollars.
      - mikepurvis 5y ago
        Possibly, but it was also not a large storefront, and it's been replaced by a boutique donut shop. It's down the street from a creperie, a wine bar, and some other bistro thing. There used to be a health food store on this block. Basically just saying that some combination of floor space, rent and other fixed costs, etc etc led to pursuing a higher-end business model and it didn't work out. There may be lots of reasons for that, but one of the principles here is that you need to be able to bike to your bike store— it's not fulfilling its purpose if it's in a power center plaza that you need to drive to.
- hinkley 5y ago
  The mechanics end up helping pay for the building and profit margin, same as everything else in the shop. There’s a price point where you can keep your mechanics running at 90% every day, and that may or may not pay for the building.
  - _carbyau_ 5y ago
    I see this as the major issue. Any business has to pay the commercial landlord. That rent seeking behaviour is a huge tax to place on a business. The only way I would operate a shopfront business of any kind is if I owned the building. But I'd need to build a business first that could pay for the building. If I can build such a business, then I likely wouldn't bother with the shopfront until you get "Apple" big.
    - hinkley 5y ago
      You lose about half of your customers when you move to a new building and the landlords know it. Big companies and churches play this right. They buy more land then they need, and when the market is down they buy more, and when they have too much they rent it out a few years at a time so they never have to wait long to expand.
- notriddle 5y ago
  It’s not that simple. If you own a brick-and-mortar store of any kind, there are a lot of costs other than labor and parts, like the building itself, marketing, security, and attending the desk or phone. A lot of these costs won’t go down if the store stops selling new bikes; they’re flat, or there’s some minimum amount that you can possibly buy.
- jandrese 5y ago
  I have a local bike shop that I would like to support, but they stock only the cheapest no-name parts and charge way more than the premium parts on Amazon. I went to get a replacement inner tube--nothing special, just a 26x1.95 with a Schrader valve--and all they had was some Chinese brand (Hilong or something like that?) for $35. I want to support local businesses, but come on. The only thing they offered over Amazon is that they would install it for you for a modest $50 in labor. They also basically don't stock anything under $800 if you are looking to buy a bike, and even those are Giant brand mountain bikes with trash tier hardware. I went looking for something I could commute to work on every day and they were trying to sell so much fragile carbon fiber stuff that was miles outside of my budget range. I don't need to shave 5/10ths off of my commute, I want low maintenance, comfort, and ruggedness. Apparently that's totally uncool and biking is all about ultralight and ultrahard--feel every crack in the pavement through the hard plastic saddle! I wasn't impressed with the line about "it's more comfortable because you use less energy to get there".
  - ShroudedNight 5y ago
    > it's more comfortable because you use less energy to get there I wonder if these people are internally consistent enough to eschew the use of ramps or pulleys.
  - JCharante 5y ago
    It sounds like a local bike shop isn't really what you're looking for. Under $800 a Decathlon/triban road bike is pretty decent. There are commuter bikes for $100 but it's just not worth servicing them because telling someone it'll be 40% of the original bike price in labor + parts to fix something not major is hard for them to accept. > low maintenance, comfort, and ruggedness. Apparently that's totally uncool and biking is all about ultralight and ultrahard--feel every crack in the pavement through the hard plastic saddle! Carbon is more comfortable by reducing the vibrations that you'll feel compared to aluminum. The reason why they stock shitty parts is because they appear to service really cheap bikes and for people who buy cheap bikes, that's what they want. I know many shops who wouldn't service cheap bikes and I know many shops where they would but I wouldn't trust them with my more expensive Trek road bike. So it's strange that they also stock carbon frames.
- scoofy 5y ago
  The reason is that the price elasticity of demand for bikes, outside of, say, the netherlands, is extremely elastic. Your counter-argument presumes that cycling can't just fail, that the prices are inelastic enough to support mechanic-only shops. I truly believe that cycling, as an activity, can just fail and cease to exist. It has ceased to exist in many areas in America. Many, many, many novice cyclists would rather abandon cycling than pay a large premium on bicycle maintenance. Perhaps there is a different business model that would work, but I see the large manufacturers as having in interest in creating an environment where maintenance service can be delivered at-cost.
- burnished 5y ago
  What is the "true rate"? You could say it's whatever you need to charge to keep the lights on and rent paid based on however many hours a week you expect to be performing maintenance. You could say it's what people feel is fair for skilled labor. You could say it's what people historically pay for the service. But we are talking about bike shops going from selling things and selling services to just selling services, so it's really what you need to charge per hour to keep the lights on. So if the "true" rate ends up being more than the market will bear, and you dont have alternate income, you close down. So it isn't really a situation where one thing had an artificially inflated price and the other an artificially deflated price, more like the way bike shops as we know them work is to have diverse income streams, and removing an important one means that the business model as we understand it ceases to function.
asdff 5y ago
The next thing the industry has to do is spend some of this unprecedented COVID profit on lobbying for more bike lanes. My word. What's the point of a bike if it feels too dangerous taking it out on the roads sharing lanes with these reckless/distracted/intoxicated drivers? The auto industry lobbied for highways. It's time for the bike industry to play ball and do the same.
- Swizec 5y ago
  > if it feels too dangerous taking it out on the roads sharing lanes with these reckless/distracted/intoxicated drivers As a motorcyclist and former electric skateboard rider, welcome! Everyone is trying to kill you and it's always your fault. Cemeteries are full of people who had right of way.
  - mikepurvis 5y ago
    Am a current cyclist and eskate rider, and I also bike on (not busy) roads with my young kids. Nothing I hate more than being honked- or yelled-at to "just go" when I have the right of way but am exercising an abundance of caution to make absolutely certain I'm not about to get ploughed by a car which may or may not come to a stop.
    - deathanatos 5y ago
      Yeah, an awful lot of drivers seem to forget that¹ I have the right to the entire lane, even as a cyclist. If you don't like it, you can use the other lane, if there is one, to go around me. If there isn't — tough! Am if I am occupying the entire lane, there is almost certainly a reason for it — like an upcoming left or because there isn't sufficient room for you to pass. Because if there weren't, fighting with a car is not high on my list of priorities: I'd much rather scootch over, give you room to get by so you can speed of into the sunset and I can have an empty road to myself. ¹IANAL; in the jurisdiction I'm in, but my understanding is that this is common
      - nicoburns 5y ago
williamtwild 5y ago
"Bicycles are not toys. " Yes and no. I think what most people think of when they think bicycle is the throw away kind that you buy at you local big box retailer or sporting goods store. These are toys in the sense the they were likely meant for casual recreation and at most might get a tire patched or some other simple repair.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  My kids all ride former-toy bicycles that I've had for a song from FB Marketplace and nursed back to health. But yeah, I think the GP is speaking aspirationally. We need to get to a place where bikes are considered infrastructure the way a vehicle is, that everyone has one, and has a selection of shops around them to service it, same as everyone currently has lots of garages, dealers, and gas stations around to meet the needs of their automobile.
  - Broken_Hippo 5y ago
    I very highly doubt we are going to get there until electric bikes (even if electric-assisted bikes) are the standard and affordable. Bikes might be great for most folks on flat land, but mountains are an uphill battle (pun intended) for anyone starting out as an adult and simply put, not everyone is going to do such a thing. Additionally, most places I've lived didn't have bike racks (small to medium sized towns in Indiana), nor did a lot of workplaces put much money into employee break rooms. You can change out of those wet clothes in the public restroom, but it would be unacceptable to show up wet with sweat. Cars just require parking spaces, and employers don't have to provide those.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If bikes get to that point, that means buying parts online to me. Making it hard to get parts is not generally supportive of cycling IMO. I buy almost all of my parts to service our cars online. Amazon, RockAuto, and brand-specific parts suppliers (PeachParts, HandA/Bernardi, Ricambi, etc.) I can recall going to a physical dealer 3 times in the last 20 years and each time it was for a “I need it exactly this afternoon and I’m willing to pay for it in dollars and inconvenience”.
hinkley 5y ago
Even if you can do routine maintenance - and I can’t recommend learning basic maintenance highly enough - sooner or later your bike will get damaged by a wreck, falling over, getting backed into, or ending up in way too much water for too long. You want a pro who can tell you fix or replace. And you don’t want to deal with counterfeit items either.
- Matthias247 5y ago
  > sooner or later your bike will get damaged by a wreck, falling over, getting backed into, or ending up in way too much water for too long. You want a pro who can tell you fix or replace. If you ask a store, the answer will always be replace. They don't want to deal with liability questions ("but that store told me it would be good to ride"), so they will pick the safe answer. This will be especially true for components like a carbon frame, where even the best equipped stores will lack the equipment to perform a proper check - like an x-ray device. However the store might help you getting a discount on the replacement or get it warrantied.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    Materials probably play a role in that. When I was in the biz we still had steel bikes, so the answer was sometimes just a new fork, if the bike was worth more than the parts and labor. When it’s in the cusp we recommended an upsell, because why spend all that money on an old bike you’ve already broken once? For some in particular we knew they would break them again, and there’s a happy medium of repairable and reasonable. One guy had a death wish and a dad who owned a bunch of businesses. He broke so much gear and that guy (or his dad rather) was keeping everyone else’s prices lower.
  - jounker 5y ago
    Not my experience at all. I’ve always had different recommendations based on the condition of the parts and the costs of repair vs. replace. There are plenty of other things that need work beyond frames.
_Wintermute 5y ago
Funny that Specialized are worried about local bike shops given their track record. Want to stock Specialized bikes? They'll try and strong-arm you to dedicate the majority of your floor-space to selling other Specialized components, removing options for the existing customers of the shop. Named your small bike shop after a famous bicycle race and French town (roubaix)? Specialized will try and sue you because they have a model of bike with the same name (and don't even own the trademark). https://capovelo.com/Specialized-Threatening-to-Sue-Bike-Shop-for-Using-34Roubaix34-Name-Backfires/ https://capovelo.com/Specialized-Threatening-to-Sue-Bike-Sho...
- klyrs 5y ago
  Try to steal a sandwich from a squirrel. It isn't going to bite you out of concern for how you'll treat the sandwich...
- scoofy 5y ago
  I mean, the idea that Specialized isn't moving toward the apple store-style model that Trek seems to be moving toward is honestly an act of good will. Dumb lawsuits aside, specialized is one of the best brands out there, and they absolutely have the power to ask for concessions. They're running a business selling absurdly high-end bikes. They're not bikesdirect selling baseline products.
  - _Wintermute 5y ago
    Specialized have had their own "concept stores" for years now, Trek are merely copying that idea. As someone who has worked in multiple bike shops, and also broken their own Specialized bike and had to deal with their warranty department, I'm never giving them any of my money again.
    - scoofy 5y ago
      Huh... so it seems. It appears that they only really exist in the UK, which is odd seeing as Specialized is based in the Bay Area. I see there are two locations in the Los Angeles area.
rapind 5y ago
> I'm actually surprised and optimistic to see the major manufacturer Trek start building their own brick and mortar shops in certain major cities I wouldn’t be too optimistic. We have one in Toronto. When I brought in my trek that I bought from them to fix it, it cost a fortune and they didn’t actually fix it properly. Similar to servicing your car at the dealer. It’s super expensive. Difference being the quality of work is questionable (no doubt varies quite a bit). Lesson: learn to fix your own bike or settle for crappy big box bikes instead.
- JCharante 5y ago
  Non-chain shops might be better. I'm learning to service my own bike because the cost of labor and overhead is really high in the US compared to where I got hooked on road cycling (Vietnam).
- scoofy 5y ago
  I would actually write to trek about that. The shop here in SF seems pretty solid, but I don't currently have a Trek bike, so I might be wrong. I agree with you on the analogy, but I'm pushing for the apple-store parallel. No serious computer nerd would use an apple-store as a serious place to maintenance their laptop, but novice to intermediate computer users would, even if they have to go back a few times.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  I have a lot of tools that I got so I could service my bike. Now, the industry has moved on with various sizing standards and these tools will be useless when I get a new bike.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Going to suggest high schools add a bike repair class/course. They can work on bikes students bring in, get the knowledge they need to fix their own bikes.
crispyambulance 5y ago
You are right that we need local bike shops but I don't think we need more major chain shops. Admittedly a chain shop is better than NO shop at all if that's what you're dealing with in your area. In Philly, the Performance bike shop went out of business while many of the smaller independent shops have survived. The good news is that bicycle fashion has tended towards more "city bikes" in the last decade or so. These have fewer frills and thus are simpler (== more durable) and also more maintainable by someone who is willing to learn the basics. The "basics" would be lube, fixing flats, brake maintenance and simple shifter adjustments. I think that's better than the earlier trends of "mountain bikes" with too many parts and stuff that's too hard to adjust for people without enough tools.
- ian-g 5y ago
  God, that maintenance thing is really a huge factor. I used to be a bike tech. Somebody ordering a $5000 mountain bike might take a full day to put together. But if you gave me $5000 in cruiser bikes, I could have them all put together well and get some maintenance done. I really loathe how cruisers look, but goddamn they're some of the sturdiest pieces of junk I've ever worked on
  - crispyambulance 5y ago
    Yeah, I am sure they are. I was actually thinking more of crappy $800 50lb "mountain bikes" with those cheap-ass all-plastic grip shifters and shitty "suspension" forks VERSUS an $800 basic city bike with low-end Shimano internal gear hub (or even single-speed). I think many folks have developed a taste for actual practicality in their cycling needs and this is a good thing.
    - ian-g 5y ago
      Oh definitely. Going back to that awful hideous cruiser. I hate it so much. But if you have a bad back, that's the bike for you no question. You sit upright and you can add a rack for pannier bags. Upright posture, no weight there. It's an excellent design ergonomically speaking
- 5y ago
dheera 5y ago
Here's the other side of the story. For a long time I was a student (yes, I did a PhD). I didn't have the cash for local bike shops. Buying and supporting local is a luxury for the rich. I could not afford the $600 bikes they were selling. I bought $150 used bikes on Craigslist and repaired them myself. And no, not with parts from the bike shop. I could get the same parts at half price online, including from Amazon. Usually I could tune up a $150 bike for another $25 in parts and that's a lot cheaper than $600. If local bike shops want my business, and pretty much the business of students in general, they need to get with the beat and be cheaper than Amazon. Oh btw -- last week I changed my bike pedals for one that I got on Amazon for $20. I have never seen a bike shop sell such good pedals at this price point. I have never even seen a bike shop sell this brand ("ROCKBROS"). They usually sell some super expensive brand like Shimano only. They also seem to have politics against selling competing brands sometimes, and Amazon has none of that bullcrap, you see all the brands and you buy the best.
- JCharante 5y ago
  The problem is that there's two types of people who ride bikes. Commuters who want to spend less than $200 on just something to get them moving, parents riding with their kids are also here. Cyclists who spent 10-20-40 hours per week on a bike. For a hobby that you spend 60hr/mo on it's reasonable to spend $1300 on an entry level road bike and much more as you progress. Especially because it's good for your health. Obviously there's money to be made with cyclists, but commuters would be so cheap and budget concerned that there's no money to be made from it. Amazon is perfect because you're not looking for quality. I use a rockbros sweat catcher for my indoor training bike setup and it's great because it's just fabric. You want LBS to stock $20 pedals? Who is going to buy them? What would the margins on that be? I wouldn't trust $20 clipless pedals (because if they fail you will get hurt/injured) and if they're flat pedals then bmx people would buy flat, but they're going to be so heavy that it'll be bad performance wise. There's only broke students who would buy it, and at that point just get it from Amazon.
  - walshemj 5y ago
    I am looking at a bike for commuting and as this will be multimodal - that means a Brompton which is well over £1200. Oh and trying to find one in stock is a nightmare in the UK most be even worse else where.
cactus2093 5y ago
I think you're reading too much into this. Specialized stopped selling bikes on Amazon for the same reason Apple (as well as other high profile brands mentioned in the article like Nike, etc.) doesn't use Amazon as the primary retailer of their products - because it's an unnecessary middleman. Specialized is enough of a big, premium brand name that they can drive people to their own online shop directly. Online/DTC sales is inevitable in the bicycle industry, just like it has been for most other consumer products in the past decade, and prior to the pandemic Specialized had made a huge push into online sales to compete with the likes of Canyon (which was a bike company founded to take advantage of exactly this market gap which for whatever reasons the traditional brands were slow to get into). The online model is also amazing for consumers as well (not to mention small indie bike manufacturers). Instead of choosing between maybe 2-5 bikes that might match my basic preferences and be in stock at my local bike shop, I have dozens if not hundreds of models to choose from made by any manufacturer around the world. Sure, shops that do bike maintenance are important, but none of what you're saying here explains why any special interventions are needed for them. Won't the demand of more people using bicycles, and needing them fixed, be enough to keep these maintenance businesses healthy? I think bicycle advocates are much better off focusing on getting bikes to more people, and then improving cycling infrastructure to make it safer and more accessible to average people in everyday situations. The number of bike mechanics available is certainly not a major bottleneck that is keeping anybody from taking up cycling today.
- scoofy 5y ago
  I'm not reading into it. I literally remember reading articles about this (i'm a reddit bicycling mod so i see a lot) in like... i dunno, like 2010-ish? The best i could do to verify is this article about fake knockoffs from 2015: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/a20045553/to-catch-a-counterfeiter-the-sketchy-world-of-fake-bike-gear/ https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/a20045553/to-catch-a-co... I'm shocked that i can't find an old article about when they announced the change. Maybe my memory is wrong, and it could be, but I remember the local bike shop as being one of the main reasons for the change, even if that was just marketing.
sonthonax 5y ago
> You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd I’m finding this to less true these days. As bikes become more ‘integrated’ with components specific to the model they’re becoming harder to fix. It’s particularly bad with aero bikes that have aero handlebars, weird stems and internal routing. Even if you’re a bike nerd, what you know won’t really apply on another bike anymore.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  I agree. Buy used, buy old-school.
- jamil7 5y ago
  They cop a lot of ridicule for being impractical but a fixed gear track bike with a single front brake has been my daily commuter / beater for years with minimal maintenance. You can ride them through anything and they keep going, replace brake pads occasionally, a chain or a sprocket very occasionally and that’s basically it. I think they’re perfect from a maintenance perspective but it does depend on where you live. Sheldon Brown had some good articles about their versatility.
mgraczyk 5y ago
Pre-covid, I used a bicycle as my main commute method for ~8 years in three different major cities. In my opinion, local bike shops are among the most corrupt and unethical business, and I eagerly await their demise. I do most of my own maintenance, but for basic things and low cost parts (chains, tires, wheels) my experience is that bike shops lie about the necessity of replacements and bill 2-3x markup for parts, in addition to billing for labor.
II2II 5y ago
> They are vehicles that need maintenance. You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd, but the vast majority of cyclists are dependent on local bike shops to sustain the cycling community. I do my own maintenance and choose to use local bike shops to source parts. I'm not really a bike nerd. I service my own bike since it's more convenient to pull out my spare bike to buy some easily transportable parts than it is to transport a bike to the shop. I can also fix my bike in an evening and have it ready for the next day, while it may take a shop a couple of days to get around to it.
fukmbas 5y ago
Bike repair is pretty much the easiest thing ever....
Foomf 5y ago
I'm happy to see you mention Trek. I've started shopping for a bike and there happens to be a Trek bike store in my city. I've never even heard of them until I looked up bike shops on google maps and Trek showed up. The fact that you mention them gives me more confidence that they're someone worth buying from.
t0rt01se 5y ago
The same can be said of numerous products/industries 'disrupted' by YC/HN types. Kettle/pot? Specialized are no angels themselves. There are no sacred cows anymore - sorry but screw your small/local/artisanal shite - this from someone who would've ordinarily supported your sentiment. But these aren't ordinary times - the quest for economies of scale will bring scorched earth to everybody one way or another.
inferense 5y ago
> Bicycles are not toys. They are vehicles that need maintenance. You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd, but the vast majority of cyclists are dependent on local bike shops to sustain the cycling community. This is true. Although, I'm afraid the business model of a local bike shop is not sustainable at the moment, at least in Europe where the markups on components and service are just outrageous. It almost seems like the industry is following the footsteps of car industry which is based on franchised D2C sales points and incredibly high margins on servicing. Unfortunately, for folks who want to save money the only option is to learn how to maintain and fix your own bike using components sourced from online stores.
amscanne 5y ago
> I'm actually surprised and optimistic to see the major manufacturer Trek start building their own brick and mortar shops in certain major cities, Wait, wasn’t this always the case? I recall multiple Trek stores in the Toronto area at least a decade ago. I always though this was part of their model (vertically integrated retail), although other stores did sell their bikes also (exactly like Apple). I just bought a Trek bike at a local Trek store a couple months ago and it definitely wasn’t a new store. Looking now, there are six (!) Trek stores all over the San Diego area. That’s actually more than the number of Apple stores IFAICT. Maybe they are just expanding this model to some other part of the world?
lodonnell9213 5y ago
Not a cyclist but I agree with your post, we need to better support small businesses, even if it costs a tad more. That is the issue with Amazon, it’s easy to get things from and cheaper, which also increases our want to buy more crap we don’t need, and fuelling a business capable of potentially doing serious harm to the competitive landscape. My partner recently purchased some specialist cake toppers, from a one woman shop, they where super expensive but they looked really high quality, and she was so happy we was happy with the product, and I think that should be part of the purchase experience, that we can get a sense of satisfaction that we have helped a small business stay open. I think Jeremy Clarkson said it best (surprisingly), and it was something alone the lines of the following. Stop haggling, a dollar is a lot of money to these people, it’s nothing to you, just pay them the price asked.

by scoofy 5y ago

namdnay 5y ago

> The novice and intermediate cyclist need local bike shops to do maintenance on their bikes at affordable rates. The local bike shops need a revenue stream beyond labor for maintenance to be affordable. I don’t agree with this reasoning. Why wouldn’t maintenance be priced at the true rate? In what way is it better for consumers to overpay for their equipment in order to underpay for maintenance?

ljf 5y ago
I didn't read it to say that, just that it is very hard to be a mechanic only shop - they also need to sell something else to be a profitable business. In London there a few mechanics/coffee shops that stayed profitable that way. If more people cycled I'm sure you would see more 'just mechanics' but in most places they can't afford to be that.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  An acquaintance of mine tried to do the cafe/sales/repair thing [1]; he went more high end on all three, selling fancy drinks, pricey Dutch cargo bikes, etc. It didn't work out. I think they lasted ~3 years, though it was clear by the end that the writing was on the wall. [1]: https://twitter.com/berlinbikecafe https://twitter.com/berlinbikecafe
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    > he went more high end on all three Maybe that was the problem there?
    - JCharante 5y ago
      Yeah high-end cafe seems like a tough sell. A cheap cafe to go to during group rides sounds great for having people learn about your high end service shop.
      - mikepurvis 5y ago
        I feel like high end bike service in general is a tough sell unless you have a huge local club-ride community of people whose time is extremely valuable. I know someone who operated a Velofix van for a few years, and I used it a few times, but the minimum cost was basically $100+. For that much coin, I would just walk my bike home or take it on the bus. Particularly if it was something like a flat tire where I know I can fix it myself at home for a few dollars.
    - mikepurvis 5y ago
      Possibly, but it was also not a large storefront, and it's been replaced by a boutique donut shop. It's down the street from a creperie, a wine bar, and some other bistro thing. There used to be a health food store on this block. Basically just saying that some combination of floor space, rent and other fixed costs, etc etc led to pursuing a higher-end business model and it didn't work out. There may be lots of reasons for that, but one of the principles here is that you need to be able to bike to your bike store— it's not fulfilling its purpose if it's in a power center plaza that you need to drive to.
hinkley 5y ago
The mechanics end up helping pay for the building and profit margin, same as everything else in the shop. There’s a price point where you can keep your mechanics running at 90% every day, and that may or may not pay for the building.
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  I see this as the major issue. Any business has to pay the commercial landlord. That rent seeking behaviour is a huge tax to place on a business. The only way I would operate a shopfront business of any kind is if I owned the building. But I'd need to build a business first that could pay for the building. If I can build such a business, then I likely wouldn't bother with the shopfront until you get "Apple" big.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    You lose about half of your customers when you move to a new building and the landlords know it. Big companies and churches play this right. They buy more land then they need, and when the market is down they buy more, and when they have too much they rent it out a few years at a time so they never have to wait long to expand.
notriddle 5y ago
It’s not that simple. If you own a brick-and-mortar store of any kind, there are a lot of costs other than labor and parts, like the building itself, marketing, security, and attending the desk or phone. A lot of these costs won’t go down if the store stops selling new bikes; they’re flat, or there’s some minimum amount that you can possibly buy.
jandrese 5y ago
I have a local bike shop that I would like to support, but they stock only the cheapest no-name parts and charge way more than the premium parts on Amazon. I went to get a replacement inner tube--nothing special, just a 26x1.95 with a Schrader valve--and all they had was some Chinese brand (Hilong or something like that?) for $35. I want to support local businesses, but come on. The only thing they offered over Amazon is that they would install it for you for a modest $50 in labor. They also basically don't stock anything under $800 if you are looking to buy a bike, and even those are Giant brand mountain bikes with trash tier hardware. I went looking for something I could commute to work on every day and they were trying to sell so much fragile carbon fiber stuff that was miles outside of my budget range. I don't need to shave 5/10ths off of my commute, I want low maintenance, comfort, and ruggedness. Apparently that's totally uncool and biking is all about ultralight and ultrahard--feel every crack in the pavement through the hard plastic saddle! I wasn't impressed with the line about "it's more comfortable because you use less energy to get there".
- ShroudedNight 5y ago
  > it's more comfortable because you use less energy to get there I wonder if these people are internally consistent enough to eschew the use of ramps or pulleys.
- JCharante 5y ago
  It sounds like a local bike shop isn't really what you're looking for. Under $800 a Decathlon/triban road bike is pretty decent. There are commuter bikes for $100 but it's just not worth servicing them because telling someone it'll be 40% of the original bike price in labor + parts to fix something not major is hard for them to accept. > low maintenance, comfort, and ruggedness. Apparently that's totally uncool and biking is all about ultralight and ultrahard--feel every crack in the pavement through the hard plastic saddle! Carbon is more comfortable by reducing the vibrations that you'll feel compared to aluminum. The reason why they stock shitty parts is because they appear to service really cheap bikes and for people who buy cheap bikes, that's what they want. I know many shops who wouldn't service cheap bikes and I know many shops where they would but I wouldn't trust them with my more expensive Trek road bike. So it's strange that they also stock carbon frames.
scoofy 5y ago
The reason is that the price elasticity of demand for bikes, outside of, say, the netherlands, is extremely elastic. Your counter-argument presumes that cycling can't just fail, that the prices are inelastic enough to support mechanic-only shops. I truly believe that cycling, as an activity, can just fail and cease to exist. It has ceased to exist in many areas in America. Many, many, many novice cyclists would rather abandon cycling than pay a large premium on bicycle maintenance. Perhaps there is a different business model that would work, but I see the large manufacturers as having in interest in creating an environment where maintenance service can be delivered at-cost.
burnished 5y ago
What is the "true rate"? You could say it's whatever you need to charge to keep the lights on and rent paid based on however many hours a week you expect to be performing maintenance. You could say it's what people feel is fair for skilled labor. You could say it's what people historically pay for the service. But we are talking about bike shops going from selling things and selling services to just selling services, so it's really what you need to charge per hour to keep the lights on. So if the "true" rate ends up being more than the market will bear, and you dont have alternate income, you close down. So it isn't really a situation where one thing had an artificially inflated price and the other an artificially deflated price, more like the way bike shops as we know them work is to have diverse income streams, and removing an important one means that the business model as we understand it ceases to function.

asdff 5y ago

The next thing the industry has to do is spend some of this unprecedented COVID profit on lobbying for more bike lanes. My word. What's the point of a bike if it feels too dangerous taking it out on the roads sharing lanes with these reckless/distracted/intoxicated drivers? The auto industry lobbied for highways. It's time for the bike industry to play ball and do the same.

Swizec 5y ago
> if it feels too dangerous taking it out on the roads sharing lanes with these reckless/distracted/intoxicated drivers As a motorcyclist and former electric skateboard rider, welcome! Everyone is trying to kill you and it's always your fault. Cemeteries are full of people who had right of way.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  Am a current cyclist and eskate rider, and I also bike on (not busy) roads with my young kids. Nothing I hate more than being honked- or yelled-at to "just go" when I have the right of way but am exercising an abundance of caution to make absolutely certain I'm not about to get ploughed by a car which may or may not come to a stop.
  - deathanatos 5y ago
    Yeah, an awful lot of drivers seem to forget that¹ I have the right to the entire lane, even as a cyclist. If you don't like it, you can use the other lane, if there is one, to go around me. If there isn't — tough! Am if I am occupying the entire lane, there is almost certainly a reason for it — like an upcoming left or because there isn't sufficient room for you to pass. Because if there weren't, fighting with a car is not high on my list of priorities: I'd much rather scootch over, give you room to get by so you can speed of into the sunset and I can have an empty road to myself. ¹IANAL; in the jurisdiction I'm in, but my understanding is that this is common
    - nicoburns 5y ago

williamtwild 5y ago

"Bicycles are not toys. " Yes and no. I think what most people think of when they think bicycle is the throw away kind that you buy at you local big box retailer or sporting goods store. These are toys in the sense the they were likely meant for casual recreation and at most might get a tire patched or some other simple repair.

mikepurvis 5y ago
My kids all ride former-toy bicycles that I've had for a song from FB Marketplace and nursed back to health. But yeah, I think the GP is speaking aspirationally. We need to get to a place where bikes are considered infrastructure the way a vehicle is, that everyone has one, and has a selection of shops around them to service it, same as everyone currently has lots of garages, dealers, and gas stations around to meet the needs of their automobile.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  I very highly doubt we are going to get there until electric bikes (even if electric-assisted bikes) are the standard and affordable. Bikes might be great for most folks on flat land, but mountains are an uphill battle (pun intended) for anyone starting out as an adult and simply put, not everyone is going to do such a thing. Additionally, most places I've lived didn't have bike racks (small to medium sized towns in Indiana), nor did a lot of workplaces put much money into employee break rooms. You can change out of those wet clothes in the public restroom, but it would be unacceptable to show up wet with sweat. Cars just require parking spaces, and employers don't have to provide those.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  If bikes get to that point, that means buying parts online to me. Making it hard to get parts is not generally supportive of cycling IMO. I buy almost all of my parts to service our cars online. Amazon, RockAuto, and brand-specific parts suppliers (PeachParts, HandA/Bernardi, Ricambi, etc.) I can recall going to a physical dealer 3 times in the last 20 years and each time it was for a “I need it exactly this afternoon and I’m willing to pay for it in dollars and inconvenience”.

hinkley 5y ago

Even if you can do routine maintenance - and I can’t recommend learning basic maintenance highly enough - sooner or later your bike will get damaged by a wreck, falling over, getting backed into, or ending up in way too much water for too long. You want a pro who can tell you fix or replace. And you don’t want to deal with counterfeit items either.

Matthias247 5y ago
> sooner or later your bike will get damaged by a wreck, falling over, getting backed into, or ending up in way too much water for too long. You want a pro who can tell you fix or replace. If you ask a store, the answer will always be replace. They don't want to deal with liability questions ("but that store told me it would be good to ride"), so they will pick the safe answer. This will be especially true for components like a carbon frame, where even the best equipped stores will lack the equipment to perform a proper check - like an x-ray device. However the store might help you getting a discount on the replacement or get it warrantied.
- hinkley 5y ago
  Materials probably play a role in that. When I was in the biz we still had steel bikes, so the answer was sometimes just a new fork, if the bike was worth more than the parts and labor. When it’s in the cusp we recommended an upsell, because why spend all that money on an old bike you’ve already broken once? For some in particular we knew they would break them again, and there’s a happy medium of repairable and reasonable. One guy had a death wish and a dad who owned a bunch of businesses. He broke so much gear and that guy (or his dad rather) was keeping everyone else’s prices lower.
- jounker 5y ago
  Not my experience at all. I’ve always had different recommendations based on the condition of the parts and the costs of repair vs. replace. There are plenty of other things that need work beyond frames.

_Wintermute 5y ago

Funny that Specialized are worried about local bike shops given their track record. Want to stock Specialized bikes? They'll try and strong-arm you to dedicate the majority of your floor-space to selling other Specialized components, removing options for the existing customers of the shop. Named your small bike shop after a famous bicycle race and French town (roubaix)? Specialized will try and sue you because they have a model of bike with the same name (and don't even own the trademark). https://capovelo.com/Specialized-Threatening-to-Sue-Bike-Shop-for-Using-34Roubaix34-Name-Backfires/ https://capovelo.com/Specialized-Threatening-to-Sue-Bike-Sho...

klyrs 5y ago
Try to steal a sandwich from a squirrel. It isn't going to bite you out of concern for how you'll treat the sandwich...
scoofy 5y ago
I mean, the idea that Specialized isn't moving toward the apple store-style model that Trek seems to be moving toward is honestly an act of good will. Dumb lawsuits aside, specialized is one of the best brands out there, and they absolutely have the power to ask for concessions. They're running a business selling absurdly high-end bikes. They're not bikesdirect selling baseline products.
- _Wintermute 5y ago
  Specialized have had their own "concept stores" for years now, Trek are merely copying that idea. As someone who has worked in multiple bike shops, and also broken their own Specialized bike and had to deal with their warranty department, I'm never giving them any of my money again.
  - scoofy 5y ago
    Huh... so it seems. It appears that they only really exist in the UK, which is odd seeing as Specialized is based in the Bay Area. I see there are two locations in the Los Angeles area.

rapind 5y ago

> I'm actually surprised and optimistic to see the major manufacturer Trek start building their own brick and mortar shops in certain major cities I wouldn’t be too optimistic. We have one in Toronto. When I brought in my trek that I bought from them to fix it, it cost a fortune and they didn’t actually fix it properly. Similar to servicing your car at the dealer. It’s super expensive. Difference being the quality of work is questionable (no doubt varies quite a bit). Lesson: learn to fix your own bike or settle for crappy big box bikes instead.

JCharante 5y ago
Non-chain shops might be better. I'm learning to service my own bike because the cost of labor and overhead is really high in the US compared to where I got hooked on road cycling (Vietnam).
scoofy 5y ago
I would actually write to trek about that. The shop here in SF seems pretty solid, but I don't currently have a Trek bike, so I might be wrong. I agree with you on the analogy, but I'm pushing for the apple-store parallel. No serious computer nerd would use an apple-store as a serious place to maintenance their laptop, but novice to intermediate computer users would, even if they have to go back a few times.
secondcoming 5y ago
I have a lot of tools that I got so I could service my bike. Now, the industry has moved on with various sizing standards and these tools will be useless when I get a new bike.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
Going to suggest high schools add a bike repair class/course. They can work on bikes students bring in, get the knowledge they need to fix their own bikes.

crispyambulance 5y ago

You are right that we need local bike shops but I don't think we need more major chain shops. Admittedly a chain shop is better than NO shop at all if that's what you're dealing with in your area. In Philly, the Performance bike shop went out of business while many of the smaller independent shops have survived. The good news is that bicycle fashion has tended towards more "city bikes" in the last decade or so. These have fewer frills and thus are simpler (== more durable) and also more maintainable by someone who is willing to learn the basics. The "basics" would be lube, fixing flats, brake maintenance and simple shifter adjustments. I think that's better than the earlier trends of "mountain bikes" with too many parts and stuff that's too hard to adjust for people without enough tools.

ian-g 5y ago
God, that maintenance thing is really a huge factor. I used to be a bike tech. Somebody ordering a $5000 mountain bike might take a full day to put together. But if you gave me $5000 in cruiser bikes, I could have them all put together well and get some maintenance done. I really loathe how cruisers look, but goddamn they're some of the sturdiest pieces of junk I've ever worked on
- crispyambulance 5y ago
  Yeah, I am sure they are. I was actually thinking more of crappy $800 50lb "mountain bikes" with those cheap-ass all-plastic grip shifters and shitty "suspension" forks VERSUS an $800 basic city bike with low-end Shimano internal gear hub (or even single-speed). I think many folks have developed a taste for actual practicality in their cycling needs and this is a good thing.
  - ian-g 5y ago
    Oh definitely. Going back to that awful hideous cruiser. I hate it so much. But if you have a bad back, that's the bike for you no question. You sit upright and you can add a rack for pannier bags. Upright posture, no weight there. It's an excellent design ergonomically speaking
5y ago

dheera 5y ago

Here's the other side of the story. For a long time I was a student (yes, I did a PhD). I didn't have the cash for local bike shops. Buying and supporting local is a luxury for the rich. I could not afford the $600 bikes they were selling. I bought $150 used bikes on Craigslist and repaired them myself. And no, not with parts from the bike shop. I could get the same parts at half price online, including from Amazon. Usually I could tune up a $150 bike for another $25 in parts and that's a lot cheaper than $600. If local bike shops want my business, and pretty much the business of students in general, they need to get with the beat and be cheaper than Amazon. Oh btw -- last week I changed my bike pedals for one that I got on Amazon for $20. I have never seen a bike shop sell such good pedals at this price point. I have never even seen a bike shop sell this brand ("ROCKBROS"). They usually sell some super expensive brand like Shimano only. They also seem to have politics against selling competing brands sometimes, and Amazon has none of that bullcrap, you see all the brands and you buy the best.

JCharante 5y ago
The problem is that there's two types of people who ride bikes. Commuters who want to spend less than $200 on just something to get them moving, parents riding with their kids are also here. Cyclists who spent 10-20-40 hours per week on a bike. For a hobby that you spend 60hr/mo on it's reasonable to spend $1300 on an entry level road bike and much more as you progress. Especially because it's good for your health. Obviously there's money to be made with cyclists, but commuters would be so cheap and budget concerned that there's no money to be made from it. Amazon is perfect because you're not looking for quality. I use a rockbros sweat catcher for my indoor training bike setup and it's great because it's just fabric. You want LBS to stock $20 pedals? Who is going to buy them? What would the margins on that be? I wouldn't trust $20 clipless pedals (because if they fail you will get hurt/injured) and if they're flat pedals then bmx people would buy flat, but they're going to be so heavy that it'll be bad performance wise. There's only broke students who would buy it, and at that point just get it from Amazon.
- walshemj 5y ago
  I am looking at a bike for commuting and as this will be multimodal - that means a Brompton which is well over £1200. Oh and trying to find one in stock is a nightmare in the UK most be even worse else where.

cactus2093 5y ago

I think you're reading too much into this. Specialized stopped selling bikes on Amazon for the same reason Apple (as well as other high profile brands mentioned in the article like Nike, etc.) doesn't use Amazon as the primary retailer of their products - because it's an unnecessary middleman. Specialized is enough of a big, premium brand name that they can drive people to their own online shop directly. Online/DTC sales is inevitable in the bicycle industry, just like it has been for most other consumer products in the past decade, and prior to the pandemic Specialized had made a huge push into online sales to compete with the likes of Canyon (which was a bike company founded to take advantage of exactly this market gap which for whatever reasons the traditional brands were slow to get into). The online model is also amazing for consumers as well (not to mention small indie bike manufacturers). Instead of choosing between maybe 2-5 bikes that might match my basic preferences and be in stock at my local bike shop, I have dozens if not hundreds of models to choose from made by any manufacturer around the world. Sure, shops that do bike maintenance are important, but none of what you're saying here explains why any special interventions are needed for them. Won't the demand of more people using bicycles, and needing them fixed, be enough to keep these maintenance businesses healthy? I think bicycle advocates are much better off focusing on getting bikes to more people, and then improving cycling infrastructure to make it safer and more accessible to average people in everyday situations. The number of bike mechanics available is certainly not a major bottleneck that is keeping anybody from taking up cycling today.

scoofy 5y ago
I'm not reading into it. I literally remember reading articles about this (i'm a reddit bicycling mod so i see a lot) in like... i dunno, like 2010-ish? The best i could do to verify is this article about fake knockoffs from 2015: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/a20045553/to-catch-a-counterfeiter-the-sketchy-world-of-fake-bike-gear/ https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/a20045553/to-catch-a-co... I'm shocked that i can't find an old article about when they announced the change. Maybe my memory is wrong, and it could be, but I remember the local bike shop as being one of the main reasons for the change, even if that was just marketing.

sonthonax 5y ago

> You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd I’m finding this to less true these days. As bikes become more ‘integrated’ with components specific to the model they’re becoming harder to fix. It’s particularly bad with aero bikes that have aero handlebars, weird stems and internal routing. Even if you’re a bike nerd, what you know won’t really apply on another bike anymore.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
I agree. Buy used, buy old-school.
jamil7 5y ago
They cop a lot of ridicule for being impractical but a fixed gear track bike with a single front brake has been my daily commuter / beater for years with minimal maintenance. You can ride them through anything and they keep going, replace brake pads occasionally, a chain or a sprocket very occasionally and that’s basically it. I think they’re perfect from a maintenance perspective but it does depend on where you live. Sheldon Brown had some good articles about their versatility.

mgraczyk 5y ago

Pre-covid, I used a bicycle as my main commute method for ~8 years in three different major cities. In my opinion, local bike shops are among the most corrupt and unethical business, and I eagerly await their demise. I do most of my own maintenance, but for basic things and low cost parts (chains, tires, wheels) my experience is that bike shops lie about the necessity of replacements and bill 2-3x markup for parts, in addition to billing for labor.

II2II 5y ago

> They are vehicles that need maintenance. You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd, but the vast majority of cyclists are dependent on local bike shops to sustain the cycling community. I do my own maintenance and choose to use local bike shops to source parts. I'm not really a bike nerd. I service my own bike since it's more convenient to pull out my spare bike to buy some easily transportable parts than it is to transport a bike to the shop. I can also fix my bike in an evening and have it ready for the next day, while it may take a shop a couple of days to get around to it.

fukmbas 5y ago

Bike repair is pretty much the easiest thing ever....

Foomf 5y ago

I'm happy to see you mention Trek. I've started shopping for a bike and there happens to be a Trek bike store in my city. I've never even heard of them until I looked up bike shops on google maps and Trek showed up. The fact that you mention them gives me more confidence that they're someone worth buying from.

t0rt01se 5y ago

The same can be said of numerous products/industries 'disrupted' by YC/HN types. Kettle/pot? Specialized are no angels themselves. There are no sacred cows anymore - sorry but screw your small/local/artisanal shite - this from someone who would've ordinarily supported your sentiment. But these aren't ordinary times - the quest for economies of scale will bring scorched earth to everybody one way or another.

inferense 5y ago

> Bicycles are not toys. They are vehicles that need maintenance. You can do much of that maintenance yourself if you're a nerd, but the vast majority of cyclists are dependent on local bike shops to sustain the cycling community. This is true. Although, I'm afraid the business model of a local bike shop is not sustainable at the moment, at least in Europe where the markups on components and service are just outrageous. It almost seems like the industry is following the footsteps of car industry which is based on franchised D2C sales points and incredibly high margins on servicing. Unfortunately, for folks who want to save money the only option is to learn how to maintain and fix your own bike using components sourced from online stores.

amscanne 5y ago

> I'm actually surprised and optimistic to see the major manufacturer Trek start building their own brick and mortar shops in certain major cities, Wait, wasn’t this always the case? I recall multiple Trek stores in the Toronto area at least a decade ago. I always though this was part of their model (vertically integrated retail), although other stores did sell their bikes also (exactly like Apple). I just bought a Trek bike at a local Trek store a couple months ago and it definitely wasn’t a new store. Looking now, there are six (!) Trek stores all over the San Diego area. That’s actually more than the number of Apple stores IFAICT. Maybe they are just expanding this model to some other part of the world?

lodonnell9213 5y ago

Not a cyclist but I agree with your post, we need to better support small businesses, even if it costs a tad more. That is the issue with Amazon, it’s easy to get things from and cheaper, which also increases our want to buy more crap we don’t need, and fuelling a business capable of potentially doing serious harm to the competitive landscape. My partner recently purchased some specialist cake toppers, from a one woman shop, they where super expensive but they looked really high quality, and she was so happy we was happy with the product, and I think that should be part of the purchase experience, that we can get a sense of satisfaction that we have helped a small business stay open. I think Jeremy Clarkson said it best (surprisingly), and it was something alone the lines of the following. Stop haggling, a dollar is a lot of money to these people, it’s nothing to you, just pay them the price asked.