downhillmaster

Me neither but I see nothing wrong with it assuming they have bicycles in stock.
What’s wrong with being able to know what you want and/or research something online and then have the option to go buy it local?
Sounds ok to me and I could care less if gels are 5 cents or $50 as I think they are kind of a joke either way.
I will also continue to use my small local shop for all maintenance and repairs and I am quite confident they will be around for a long time. Reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated for many years.

Sy Reene

I do like the notion of test rides through a shopping mall. Escalators would at least prove out the advantages of isospeed.

Sy Reene

I don't think this is the type of operation that was being referenced.
I read the ask to be a shop where you could shop frames, cockpits, saddles, groupsets from multiple brands, etc. Sounds simple, and maybe it's available in markets where real estate costs could afford the space required, but in an urban setting forget about it. I'll always remember the look I got 5yrs or so ago, walking into a shop and asking to their selection of road handlebars.

OTOH, for custom built bikes where you're not just shopping for parts to assemble yourself, savileroad could work, but it's a similar (though flashier) type of wrenchscience or adrenalinebikes. I imagine these operations have been shipping complete and fully built bikes for many years? Excel and Comp Cyclist likewise have been shipping completes as well (if they have stock) for quite a while of higher end brands such as Cervelo, Wilier, Pinarello, etc

Psimet2001 

One of my late night youtube rabbit holes is old watch repair. I live in Elgin and much of the history of this city is centered around the Elgin Watch Company. The Observatory with Planetarium they built is owned by our school district and my boys go through there on field trips. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_...ny_Observatory Our group rides go by where the old factory was. Only now it's all dealers and junkies and homeless members of the community. The company was killed off by the actions of the Swiss.

the sci guy 

My favorite shop here in Houston had an awesome small building location and while they couldn't fit a ton of new bikes on the racks because it was a small building, they also had a crap ton of parts from lots of different companies - tons of accessories and things like stems and bars and tools, etc. I went there for a lot of my DIY stuff. Then they moved to a new location - a building 3 times as big where they could display a ton more bikes but they all but got rid of their available accessories, parts, and tools. There's still some but it's much more limited. I still go there all the time for service and little things like brake cable/housing bundles & grips or tape, but I miss the random stuff.

My ideal shop would be what that shop used to be. Stock a decent amount of bikes - maybe a few different smaller brands - but then have tons of the little things people need/want - especially the enthusiast who wants to swap out bottle cages, change their bar tape, try new bars, etc etc. I want to support local shops as much as possible but if they don't stock what I need, I'm just going to order it from Jenson or Amazon. (especially if when they say "we can order it for you" but the cost is 2x as much and it takes 3x as long for the order to come in because "well we get deliveries on thursdays")

Right now my biggest gripe is the lack of components available online (in my case a new Shimano 105 groupset), and the fact that prices went from outrageous before the pandemic to galactic-scale insanity, currently.

Psimet2001 

The model for the industry has killed the idea of stocking anything. Has to do with how parts go to market and the inevitable grey market parts from OEs. In short the wholesale pricing for shops ends up being the same or slightly below what retail grey market and off shore mass online store pricing. When the shop then adds the regular margin (the one they need to keep the doors open) and charge the stated MSRP (the price it is supposed to be sold at per the manufacturer) they come across to the buyer as price gouging them as one can easily look online and find the item for 30-40% less. The shops look like bad guys and aren't even making money. Almost all of us just decided to stop stocking as the distribution side of the business had built to the point that you could get any item from anywhere within a day or two.

When the pandemic hit it simply cleared all that inventory from the system. The buffer was the distributor - and that buffer was gone. What happened is that all the larger places that had product started to finally realize this was it and they weren't getting more so they started to charge the actual retail price. No one is in a race to get back to where we were at that point. In fact some OEMs are looking to take this opportunity to eliminate all the sources of product and have tighter control on who is doing what. Prices aren't coming back down.

If prices stay up where the MSRP is set then there is an incentive for shops to stock inventory again.

In short - unfair pricing practices led to a situation where anyone stocking items in a store simply wasn't competitive or lost their shirt on every sale. From the customer standpoint it makes us all look like idiots - exhibit A your post. From the shop standpoint it was more debt and a steadily decreasing operating margin.

Sy Reene

I understand to a degree the stocking thing not being viable by the shops for a number of items. However, I think there are things that are stocked, because there's still a desire to see, feel, or try out the item in person before purchasing. Saddles and shoes are a couple examples. Some clothing (helmets and gloves and sunglasses) also are found at shops. I thought (incorrectly evidently) that handlebars would be something that buyers would want to handle before purchasing, but at shops around here at least, there's no rack of handlebars to look at.

Of course, nobody feels they need to see in person and look/touch/feel a cassette, front derailleur, stem, etc.

genejockey 

Elgins are actually what I collect!

the sci guy 

Yeah I totally understand this and it just sucks, plain and simple. I want to support shops and the people who love bikes that work there. But as usual the industry just wants money. For people like us who do most of our own wrenching and don't need coaching what parts or things to buy, we'll probably rarely patronize the very shops that need our help.

79pmooney

I have to ask. Did those watches have Elgin movements? ("She's got an Elgin movement from her head down to her toes." Robert Johnson, Walking Blues)

Russ Roth

Really depends on the shop. When I lived rural the "local" shop 20mi away carried nothing and wasn't worth stopping at. Living suburban/urban there are plenty of shops where I can shop around to and I have a few that I like to shop at. One just became a Trek store and their other location focuses on road/tri to the detriment of everything else including gravel and cross so I probably won't visit them much. But being able to call around and stop in does get me shopping there. I have one shop I skip, recently asked my wife to stop and buy a chain, she went there and paid 40.00 for a chain that's 30.00 at the other 3 shops I frequent. The need to supply 3 kids and 2 adults with decent bikes keeps me bargain hunting but still shopping local as well. I tried getting a cross bike from them and several other local shops and was told there was no chance before july. Bought a Milwaukee from Ben's Cycles but still dropped 800.00 on parts from one shop, didn't know I wanted sram rival AXS till I could fondle it and they had it. Had to bargain shop Merlin's cycles for the cockpit, and still scrounging around for wheel parts, but tires, tubes, cassette, and chain are also coming from another lbs.

Only things that upset me are; blatantly overcharging, wanting something paid for in full to order and still demanding msrp, and being pissy that I didn't order everything from your shop. Otherwise I'm more than happy to give shops whatever business they can fulfill in a reasonable manner.

phrantic09

Savile Road as in the Delmar, NY shop? They do some pretty awesome builds.

phrantic09

One thing I don’t really see much around here are shops/stores that cater to a broader spectrum of endurance sports.

Knowing nothing about the industry, I’d assume a specialty running, swim and bike shop would do well. Maybe I’m nuts.

Ogsarg

Not sure about prices never coming back down. The big 3 are going DTC or buying up retail shops as a way to increase margin without raising prices (at the expense of LBS's), but once they have made that transition, they still have to compete with each other and if inventory swells and the choice is to either interrupt manufacturing (very costly) or reduce prices (via special sales most likely) I think you'll start to see the same end of year deals, etc.

it will suck for the independents for sure. I suspect they will just have to rely on service to stay in business. My LBS is a spec dealer but sells very few new bikes so I don't think it's going to impact them much.

Same thing is happening with all kinds of things. I still like to test ride a bike or try on a helmet before I buy it. It'll be a shame if there are no places to do that.

msu2001la

There have been a few of these in my area (Chicago). I think all have closed.

There was a big one (Running Away Multisport) that organized and/or sponsored a bunch of local triathlons & running races and had at least two shops. I don't know the details of what happened, but in terms of their shop - they were mostly selling running shoes/clothing, swim gear, and triathlon specific accessories. They sold a few bikes and had a service department, but I don't think it was their main thing. They did do a lot of of bike fitting and I recall them being one of the first in the area doing computerized bike fits. They also had some computerized/video running analysis stuff.

The other shops I recall were more bike and service focused. I think branding a shop as a "triathlon store" is definitely going to narrow your customer base to those who are serious hardcore triathletes. There's definitely a market out there... just look at the popularity of IM races. That said, I think roadies will always want a serious bike-focused shop (and the roadie cycling snob culture makes fun of triathlon in general). On the flip side, casual/recreational cyclists, even those dipping their toe into the triathlon waters, are usually not starting with a triathlon specific bike. Anyone looking to buy a kids/commuter or MTB bike isn't going to just look for a bike shop.

msu2001la

Just my impression - but Specialized doesn't seem too concerned with being cost-competitive with other brands, at least not on the top end of things. If anything, they seem to want to position themselves as a more premium brand in a tier above Trek, Cannondale, Giant, etc.

Looking at the top end of the road offerings, Trek, Giant and Cannondale have a few select top-level road bikes at $12,200-$13,000. Specialized has a few select bikes that are $15,000 and has another 5-6 bikes priced between $13,000-$14,500. They've easily got a dozen models over $10k.

This is true for MTB offerings as well. Excluding e-bikes, Specialized has 2 MTB's on their website that are $15k, and another 8 that are north of $10k. Most other manufacturers have 2-3 bikes in that $12-$13k range and then everything else is less than $10k.

At the top end, Specialized seems priced several thousand dollars above others.

Psimet2001 

Nice. I have thought of getting a couple just to have them.

Indeed. Elgin Watch Company or Elgin National Watch Company was one of the world's largest from like 1850-WWII. Then the Swiss killed it like they did to just about every other watch company.

genejockey 

There are a lot of nice ones, and they have the advantage over Hamiltons of being less sought-after. Personally, I'm a big fan of the smaller, rectangular watches from the 1940s and 50s.

At one time, THE largest producer of jeweled watches in the world. That's one reason Elgins don't get much respect from collectors - they were too mundane, BITD. People don't collect what everybody HAD. People collect what everybody WANTED. Nobody collects Ford Fairlanes. They collect Mustangs.

It wasn't JUST the Swiss. One big problem was WWII. They produced very few watches for consumers for about 4 years, then it took a while to get back up and making consumer goods. Also, essentially, between 1940 and 1947, Elgin produced the same watches, because their entire R&D department was dedicated to the war effort. Meanwhile the Swiss were able to develop self-winding watches and shock proofing. Elgin tried, in 1950 with the Bumper Automatics, but by the time they hit the market they were already obsolete.

Psimet2001 

The way they address that is they cut IBD margins. IBD's don't drop pricing off MSRP very far if at all if they can't get any margin out of it.

Inventory won't really swell. Few, if any of these guys added capacity during this. They simply sold out the product and production spots sooner. They didn't add more. Everyone knew this wasn't lasting. This is why everyone is waiting 1-2-3 years for a bike.

Shimano did add capacity but they had been working on that for a long time as capacity isn't added overnight especially during a pandemic.

I don't know if I mentioned it here but the new CEO at SRAM has a primary mission of returning shareholder profit. He is attacking it by eliminating all the price shrinkage. Killing to killed the bro deals, pro deals, etc. I watched "big names" in their org that were always flush in parts, etc tell people they couldn't even get anything anymore.

I don't know how many ways to put it in here but prices aren't going down. Not intentionally.

Psimet2001 

Yeah Specialized doesn't care about price competing with anyone really. Specialized has usually beat Trek in mtb sales but last year or the year before was the first time they had overtaken Trek in road bike sales as well. This is part of why Trek has doubled down with going to war. This is also why they are so concerned with going consumer direct so they can control the premium message to the customer without it getting lost at the dealer.

eduskator

+1 on that. However, I have noted that even Giant had increased its prices by a lot since summer 2020. I can't remember the last time I've seen so many price increases in a row. Just last week, the prices of their Revolts (gravel bike) increased by 10% overnight. I know it because I bought one and it was 200$ more expensive the next day when I checked my order. Same thing happened for their TCRs and Defys. Giant said last year that it was ''adjusting'' its prices to the market. We know that Giant has always been cheaper than most of the other bike brands, and this is why I own and ride their bikes, but they're much closer to the ''average'' industry price now with all of these increases.