dedhed

https://www.benscycle.com/shop-labor.aspx

Miele Man

I remember assembling Gitane bicycles. They came laid out on a large carboard sheet and then shrink-wrapped with heavy plastic. What a pain it was unwrapping all those components and frame without scratching anything.

Cheers

Andrew R Stewart 

We sold Peugeots in the late 1970s and some too came poly bagged. The cardboard made Asian stuff look like plywood but the bikes were usually pretty clean. Then there was the crape paper craze. Frames wrapped with brown crinkle paper. Andy

Miele Man

Ah the good old days. I remember that crepe paper stuff too.

Cheers

oldbobcat

Take the shop's price for a basic tune-up (everything adjusted, aligned, trued, and wiped down) and add about $20 for unpacking and some extra assembly.

cpach

This is definitely what the market will bear kind of thing, and it depends also on how thorough the assembly is.

If you do this, as a pro mechanic, PLEASE KEEP IT IN THE ORIGINAL BOX. Your preassembly does NOT help--it just means more to check. Mechanics have a routine on new builds and will be faster and more consistant if they can just keep to it, rather than checking to make sure nothing was done wrong.

I personally try to match actual build time to cost, since some bikes really do come together faster than others. Canyons, for example, really are more attaching a wheel, straightening the bars, and then checking over what is usually a good assembly. Bikesdirect is pretty similar to how a major brand ships its bikes to shops--needing rather significant assembly and adjustment, even if everything is mostly where it belongs in the box.

Something like an hour at the shop's labor rate is probably around average.

oldbobcat

We had a guy come in with a partially built cyclocross bike from Bikes Direct, the cables cut and attached and dragging the works on the floor like a daisy chain. Needless to say, it cost more to disassemble his work and add new cable and housing.

cpach

But for seriously, pre-assembly by customers on mail order bikes is high-ish on my list of pet peeves. Another reason: boxes are very easy to store! Your bike is both more convenient and safer if there is any wait in the service schedule as a box, rather than a potentially half-assembled mess.

The time it takes me to remove packaging is laughably trivial. The amount of time I spend attaching parts? Also pretty low. Believe it or not most of my time on a new bike assembly is on skilled adjustment--I am not saved any work when a bike is slapped together. It, again, reduces my efficiency because I have a consistent build procedure with new boxed bikes.

Learn to build it yourself (which is totally possible!) or leave it to a pro. I'm also totally chill with customers who make an honest attempt at self assembly and want me to check their work--this probably makes relatively little sense from a purely economic sense if your only goal is to have a functional bike for the smallest amount of money and time, but totally makes sense for customers who have the longterm goal of being better home mechanics. I'm only moaning about slapped together bikes. Also, all I'd ever directly say to a customer is a request to please just give me the boxed bike next time, because by the time it gets to you, what're else can you do?