jethin

dude, really?

scarlson 

I'm already doing exactly this for the campus cruisers that the bike shop doesn't have time for! But I run my business out of an old ammo can, takes up less space than a garage!

Lots of great '80s and '90s midlevel bikes come and go, I make a little beer money and meet new friends, everybody's happy.

I think the trouble here in boston is the same as the trouble in SF. You can't afford to live anywhere near the downtown bike shop on a wrench's salary. And, to amend this, and make this tenable, I think the salary needs to just about triple.

3alarmer 

...the place in question in this thread has been around, in San Francisco, doing a pretty good job of serving the higher end, classic bicycle community almost forever. I have a 60's Frejus that was originally sold out of American Cyclery. Unless it's changed ownership, or been sold to one of the Big Bicycle Overlords companies, I'm having trouble accepting that they don't have legit reasons for whatever their current policies may or may not be.

Like all fine bicycle establishments, I reserve the right to refuse service. I would certainly never, ever calculate the spoke lengths for someone else's wheel build. That's a high risk, low reward proposition. Anything that goes wrong with that build automatically becomes your fault.

unworthy1

AFAIK there has been no change of ownership (Bradley Wohl, sole proprietor I think) since maybe 1980-something. He has occasionally posted to the CR list, not sure if ever to this forum.
But there have been all sorts of changes to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood (I lived blocks away from that corner as a 2-year-old), the City (I capitalized this for Herb Caen), the business community and the bicycling public.
I know he nearly closed shop forever just prior to the Pandemic due to having to pony up for major seismic retrofitting to that building (which was a sort of epidemic in its own way), but he came back and resumed business.
The "sister" shop, just across the street on Stanyan, was part of his initial holdings but that one (an original Schwinn dealer) had to shutter about 30 years ago (IIRC).

It turned into some kind of "hot yoga" coffee bar with a hair salon that features "hair color of the week" specials for any walk-ins that show their SF-issued gender-divergent ID cards.

3alarmer 

...anyone visiting San Francisco, who wants to roll his eyes so far to the side they get stuck there, needs look no farther than the Rapha store, on Filbert. I laughed, I cried....it was better than "Cats".

venturi95

I now have two people on my ignore list.

El Chaba

Judging from the current state of affairs with the retail bike shops today, this type of transaction could be extrapolated to most of them in the shop…..

Kai Winters

I work in a small bike shop as a part time wrench. I'm retired and like working on bikes and have been for decades.
One big problem we are stuck with is a hole customers dropping off bikes for repair, we do the estimate and call them, they approve the service, we service the bike and never hear from them again. We have some bikes that we have been sitting on for over one year. We have parts and time invested that we do not see. I get paid but the owner is sitting on lots of money owed and taking up valuable floor space.
We do keep them after a time and resell them but that money takes a long time to get back.

We also service "other" ebikes...thank Odin I have no knowledge about how they work and no intent to...thank Odin we are lucky to have a wrench that is very skilled in working on them. They are crap bikes and generally the people who buy them are not bicycle riders but people that, for one reason or another, can't drive a vehicle. They treat them so roughly and perform no maintenance then expect us to repair them and they have to have them fixed immediately "because it is our only way to get around".
They get the same treatment as a regular customer, here's your ticket now get in line.

I don't know how a shop can stay in business only servicing bikes they sell but the owners of bike shops are generally odd ducks and certainly don't own a bike shop to get rich.

squirtdad

I have seen multiple comments about this, shops only working on ebikes they sell. with lack of standards, and large number of cheap on line ebikes maintenance could be a huge pain and time sink

I am guessing that many shops will restrict e-bike work to brands they sell or are certified to support and that they have parts support for

Chombi1 

The wheelbuilding transactions (And all my other transactions through the years with AC) I had back then, always ended happy on both sides ( Really love dealing with their very knowledgeable mechanics and sales people.) and I had certainly been a very courteous customer and not a PITA as on might have might have been suggested......
That is why I'm surprised about these new policies. It might not affect me that much in the end but its a sad thing when a well liked, old bike shop like AC will suddenly change it's relationships with its customers....

repechage

If the place is barely keeping up and maxed out, perhaps lack of mechanics, thinking of who could afford to live AND work in the City as a bike mechanic?
here is from the website recently-


the staff might be on the verge of burnout.
a technical sale for smaller profit - reasonable to let it go. Don't harp on it, find an alternate solution.

zandoval 

And at a closer look you will find they have convenient financing forms in hand for that new bike your going to order...

zandoval 

Where are the Shade Tree Mechanics?

miamijim

Back in my shop days we were so busy there was no other option. Bikes we sold first, everything else after that. During peak season we’d run about 2 weeks on our own bikes. Inconvenience repairs like flats and chains we’d do while the customer waited regardless of where the bike came from.

On Saturdays we did no repairs. We did no full rebuilds in the summer, there was a 2 month wait for those in the winter. (Upstate NY)

unterhausen

My lbs is sending new repair customers to a friend that runs a mobile repair service because they are too busy for anyone but existing customers. I think the mobile person will also fix bikes that the shop will not. It's a good policy for a lot of people.

miamijim

LOL. Bike owners are notoriously cheap. That won’t work….

TugaDude

The business world is in constant flux and some is due to issues with employees, some due to market conditions and some due to rising costs of doing business. I needed to borrow my company's one-ton pickup this week and was told they sold it because the insurance on it was prohibitive. That is, liability insurance, because it was a rusting hulk, but it was a helpful rusting hulk that still could haul very heavy materials.

I'm surprised any shop is able to find (presumably) skilled persons to maintain bicycles these days. And the days of free tune-ups have long passed. I wonder if we'll ever reach a point where there are no brick-and-mortar bike stores and people have to take their bike to a mechanic shop for service. Who knows?

It wouldn't surprise me to find more and more shops telling their customers they will only work on bikes they sell. That would be one way to reduce lead time. Who really wants to wait weeks for repairs or maintenance anyway?

P.S. I do wish people would keep their personal comments out of posts like these. I couldn't care less where anyone stands politically. I come here to read about bikes, nothing more, nothing less. I get enough divisiveness elsewhere. I enjoy a respite from that when I visit here.

Peace!

gugie 

If your workload requires you to send business away, then the supply/demand intersection isn't being met.

repechage

Pricing component in that demand curve?

Having talked to a local bike shop owner very recently, finding a new mechanic is hard, Wary of paying big and then if demand collapses, letting them go and if prices are raised to balance the demand/supply curves, now having ticked off customers who think you are now only thinking "big Bucks"

In California there are workmans comp covid claims...not going to win there.

WC insurance Rates are rising. what was once 10% is now 16%, add in state unemployment insurance, Cal SDI, mandated OSHA training... sexual harassment training... (employees get paid for while taking that)

Any new hire is a potential whistleblower risk. (small shops are notorious for ignoring break rules, lunch rules, none of the shops I worked for did it by the book, a new hire can upset the status quo)

I see a sole proprietor business to be the way to mitigate that but of course limits total revenue.


There is a big evolution brewing. May indeed make things better for employees eventually.

repechage

All and none could be true in the same day.
I have worked at a bike shop on a Saturday where the wait to get the bike written up for service was over 20 minutes. In general, if the customers see you working hard and effectively, they will wait.
If someone had got to the front of the line and asked me to calc spoke lengths for him... I would not have turned down the sale but would have asked the pertinent info for me to figure out later, hub brand relevant data, rim make and model, number of spokes, lacing wanted...
if they did not have definitive info or a hub to drop off and let me reference, hopefully a rim also... I would have politely asked to return with all that and I would still need time to get to it. If they had wanted something goofy like twisted spoke lacing or crow's feet, I would state we are not the shop for you. And I am thinking regular J bend spoked wheels, straight pull? drop it off and we will see what we can find, will need a few days. Polite and gets the stump the expert types who are not spending much anyway, gone but not ticked.

gugie 

Wondering what your reply has to do why my comment. Got more customers than you can service? Maybe raise your prices, that's all I'm saying. You're commenting on the cost side of things, and that's a separate issue, which, btw, raising your prices can help out with.

Thinking of another way, there is the concept of surge pricing. Many of the freeways of the Bay Area (where American Cyclery is located) do this. If I had an LBS and my costs were fairly constant (have to keep my mechanics employed), I'd consider adding a high season surcharge. Hotels do this all the time - high season pricing. One could spin it the other way - higher base prices, but a "low season" discount.

I often ask engineers where I work what our mission statement is. The right answer (IMO) is that we're here to make money. Those that argue with me, I just tell them I'll reduce their salary if it's not important to them. No one's taken me up on that one.

gugie 

Wondering what your reply has to do why my comment. Got more customers than you can service? Maybe raise your prices, that's all I'm saying. You're commenting on the cost side of things, and that's a separate issue, which, btw, raising your prices can help out with.

Thinking of another way, there is the concept of surge pricing. Many of the freeways of the Bay Area (where American Cyclery is located) do this. If I had an LBS and my costs were fairly constant (have to keep my mechanics employed), I'd consider adding a high season surcharge. Hotels do this all the time - high season pricing. One could spin it the other way - higher base prices, but a "low season" discount.

I often ask engineers where I work what our mission statement is. The right answer (IMO) is that we're here to make money. Those that argue with me, I just tell them I'll reduce their salary if it's not important to them. No one's taken me up on that one.

repechage

the takeaway I thought was interesting was the reluctance to raise prices to reduce demand for fear of offending the customer base.
taking the longer view that the surge in demand will drop off. He also stated it already has declined some.
the wedge is the problem of not finding capable mechanics. The most capable or interested now cannot get past e- verify, have little or no English.

xiaoman1 

Due to global warming, leaves on trees will be suspended until further notice.

Shade tree mechanics need not apply.
Best, Ben

gugie 

Dunno, seems like @Chombi1 is a nice enough guy...