LBS vs Online stores

But the skilled amateur is not the one using the bike shops.

Unless you have Fox or Cannondale sus forks, in which case you pay your LBS to box it up and send it off to TF Tuned ;)

Yeah, you're going on about shops going out of business because you think the price too high, but that's you, and you can do it yourself, so do it yourself. Most people who jaunt around on their bikes barely know what a derailleur is and get confused by presta valves, £15 is more than reasonable for them, £20 is fine too for someone who has never heard the words bracket and bottom next to each other apart from those interesting xrays you get of "plumbing accidents".

people should be able to do it themselves. So they charge more

Bike shops are now adding punitive charges based on their opinion of what people should be able to do for themselves? That's not very Christian. Perhaps taxi drivers should add a £10 surcharge onto every journey of less than half a mile because people ought to walk.

.. But life's too short, right? and I trust my mechanic friends more than I trust myself. ***Especially before heading off to tackle +260km of the Ardennes next month.

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l ittle bit of humble-bragging there?

I refer the ladies and gents to Rule 58
There are lots of good bike shops here in London's famous London and I feel you should show your support. The online retailers might take over the world, but there is nothing better than walking into a bike shop. If I think I'm being overly romantic I may be but supporting a small or family business is the right thing to do.

Additionally the bigger bike shops (chains) keep some of those on the forum in employment.

Bike shops are now adding punitive charges based on their opinion of what people should be able to do for themselves? That's not very Christian. Perhaps taxi drivers should add a £10 surcharge onto every journey of less than half a mile because people ought to walk.

They should. So should buses. It'd prevent lazy wasters delaying everyone else's journey. Exceptions for rainy conditions. Job done.

l ittle bit of humble-bragging there?

I refer the ladies and gents to Rule 58
There are lots of good bike shops here in London's famous London and I feel you should show your support. The online retailers might take over the world, but there is nothing better than walking into a bike shop. If I think I'm being overly romantic I may be but supporting a small or family business is the right thing to do.

Additionally the bigger bike shops (chains) keep some of those on the forum in employment.

Arvy we carry no special tools on tour.. i don't know where the bike shops are where we are going.. its called being prepared.. i expect the squad to do likewise.. i am not spending a weekend sorting out someone elses crap because their bike is unfit..

Rule 58 is just boneheaded.

Although I agree bike shops can be awesome. But they should succeed precisely because they are awesome. Not because we are feeling charitable.

£15? It's difficult for shops to do anything for less that that. They might as well do it for free - at least that way they don't have to account for it.

What if you crappy bike snaps in the process of BB removal or it takes two blokes and a can of plus gas to get the job done? They are clearly busy so maybe they just don't need someone coming in with a small job like yours. It'll probably take them more than £5 worth of time to document your bike's arrival into the shop. Yes, if they are slotting you in in a week's time did you consider they had a booking system? Admin costs time and money too.

I'm sure they'll thank you so much for your charity.

You make it sound like its as easy as changing a light bulb. For most people it might as well be like flying a Jet so £15 to remove something they don't have the tools, skills and time for is money well spent.

As a business there is no point in wanking around removing stuck this that and whatever's for a fiver, it probably costs more to keep the mechanic in tea and biscuits.

Exactly. It's not cost effective for them. They need money to stay in business. In this case they have lots of other business. Why take on the risk?

Ok, much has been made of the cost of time here.

So lets have a look at it using removing a bottom bracket and replacing it with a new one as the basis of our example.

Lets say the shop charges £20 for this, and performs the task in 20 minutes.

We'll assume that they pay the mechanic £8 per hour.

So, in terms of human cost we have £16/hour to cover NI, tax, holiday etc.

That comes down to £5.33 for the 20 minutes of BB changing.

Then we have tools, which if we include a facing tool and BB tap in the service (which I am as this is a good bikeshop) works out to say £300 in tools.

We can use these tools over and over, so lets say we depreciate them over 12 months, which gives us a cost of around a quid a day (based on 260 working days in a year).

So far we are at £6.33 for the task, but we also need to figure in the rent.

Now I have no idea how much this part costs so I'm going to put that at £3.77 for the sake of convenience.

We are now at £10, leaving a mighty £10 profit- but hold on!

That has to include VAT, so the actual profit margin is £6.

We also need to pay tax on any profit, so lets say that is another £2.

So our total profit is ~£4.00, in which case if our mechanic has to spend closer to 40 minutes fighting our BB, or gets another mechanic to help him for the 20 minutes alloted then the bike shop has lost money on the job.

Please feel free to rip those figures apart, as this is not my area, be interested how far from reality my assumptions are.

Good example. I don't think the numbers really matter. the point is how many BB removals does one mechanic need to perform to make himself a fee earner for the LBS.

The answer is....... A lot.

Therefore as I am a business not a charity I would be getting said mechanic to only perform BB removals as either part of a bigger job or when has has some gaps to fill in his work schedule (little acorns and all that)

Ok, much has been made of the cost of time here.

So lets have a look at it using removing a bottom bracket and replacing it with a new one as the basis of our example.

Lets say the shop charges £20 for this, and performs the task in 20 minutes.

We'll assume that they pay the mechanic £8 per hour.

So, in terms of human cost we have £16/hour to cover NI, tax, holiday etc.

That comes down to £5.33 for the 20 minutes of BB changing.

Then we have tools, which if we include a facing tool and BB tap in the service (which I am as this is a good bikeshop) works out to say £300 in tools.

We can use these tools over and over, so lets say we depreciate them over 12 months, which gives us a cost of around a quid a day (based on 260 working days in a year).

So far we are at £6.33 for the task, but we also need to figure in the rent.

Now I have no idea how much this part costs so I'm going to put that at £3.77 for the sake of convenience.

We are now at £10, leaving a mighty £10 profit- but hold on!

That has to include VAT, so the actual profit margin is £6.

We also need to pay tax on any profit, so lets say that is another £2.

So our total profit is ~£4.00, in which case if our mechanic has to spend closer to 40 minutes fighting our BB, or gets another mechanic to help him for the 20 minutes alloted then the bike shop has lost money on the job.

Please feel free to rip those figures apart, as this is not my area, be interested how far from reality my assumptions are.

Spot on! finally some sense

I presume that they have insurance (I accept that this costs money).

If they are skilled like people keep saying surely they know when to stop leveraging before bending or snapping the frame?

I have no problem with them saying 'if its easy then we'll charge £5 if it is stuck then it might be £20 or £30. And we can't guarantee we can get it out, if we fail we'll have to charge you a tenner as an abortive fee for the work done'.

And as I have just said, if they're so busy that their idea of quoting for jobs is 'we don't need the work so lets just quote high' then that is their right, but it does not encourage me to use them.

My personal opinion is that I need to use my LBSs occasionally, and I try to use them more often than I need even if I have to go out of my way and pay more to do so. But I often find that the prices and service is a massive kick in the teeth. LBSs can listen to this feedback or tell me to get fucked, their choice.

Yes, insurance costs money.

You can never tell what state something is in before working on it. Stuck seatpost removals are a classic example.

Do you actually think they would have charged you if they failed to remove it?

They gave you their next available slot, they gave you the price. You chose against it. It's not like they said, "no, we won't do that".

A bicycle shop that open late at 8pm?

While the rest of Europe have a normal opening time, we go insane with our.

What like those shops in France which tend to open around 10am, shut for a decent lunch midday and then stay open till 7pm/7.30pm?

Seems an entirely sane model to me.

Jeez - all is not lost.

Funnily enough Bicycle Workshop in Notting Hill operate in a similar way to that you describe - but only on a Saturday. You rock up at 7.30am - any later and you are in a queue - give a quick description of what you want done, and you get a reasonably accurate estimate on when it will be done by and a rough estimate of cost which can actually be as little as £10. They will only take on minor repairs, so they can serve as many customers as they can.

They can only operate this way though as they are a) small enough to be agile and b) they are very good, meaning they make very few mistakes and c) make their bread and butter from servicing mamil bikes during the week. I have a feeling they do the Sat am jobs grudgingly / charitably as near loss-leaders.

A great little place, I like them, and recommend them.

What like those shops in France which tend to open around 10am, shut for a decent lunch midday and then stay open till 7pm/7.30pm?

Seems an entirely sane model to me.

That's "the quirky French". Over here... fascist shop-owning dictator bastards, etc.

Jeez - all is not lost.

Funnily enough Bicycle Workshop in Notting Hill operate in a similar way to that you describe - but only on a Saturday. You rock up at 7.30am - any later and you are in a queue - give a quick description of what you want done, and you get a reasonably accurate estimate on when it will be done by and a rough estimate of cost which can actually be as little as £10.

They can only operate this way though as they are a) small enough to be agile and b) they are very good, meaning they make very few mistakes and c) make their bread and butter from servicing mamil bikes during the week. I have a feeling they do the Sat am jobs grudgingly / charitably as near loss-leaders.

A great little place, I like them, and recommend them.

The boys over at Clapham (London Bike Workshop) do something similar, also recommended.

My last two BB operations (one install, one removal) cost me $10 each in two different shops. Install took four minutes maximum, removal was well under ten minutes. In both cases I tipped the mechanic $2.

I know London's expensive, but £15 ($25) is a piss-take. Next time you're watching your favourite espresso being expertly cajoled through an eight-grand machine in the heart of the city before your very eyes for a bill of about four quid, ask yourself if you'd really pay somebody fifteen to twirl a £30 tool for roughly the same amount of time.
I don't care for the mathematical breakdown above, if we lived like that employees would be paying to go for a shit, RyanAir-style.

My last two BB operations (one install, one removal) cost me $10 each in two different shops. Install took four minutes maximum, removal was well under ten minutes. In both cases I tipped the mechanic $2.

I know London's expensive, but £15 ($25) is a piss-take. Next time you're watching your favourite espresso being expertly cajoled through an eight-grand machine in the heart of the city before your very eyes for a bill of about four quid, ask yourself if you'd really pay somebody fifteen to twirl a £30 tool for roughly the same amount of time.
I don't care for the mathematical breakdown above, if we lived like that employees would be paying to go for a shit, RyanAir-style.

But I am probably standing in a queue of about 20 people waiting for my coffee with another 20 people behind me.

A totally different business model.

I suspect any LBS having half the PAYING footfall of any decent Coffee shop in London would be laughing all the way to the bank.

We are going from the sublime to the ridiculous here.

1. We want our LBS to open longer and stock more stuff

2. But fuck off if you think I am going to pay market rate for service and repairs (possibly the lifeblood of most an LBS)

As someone posted, this is not the 60's if you want someone to perform a certain skill that you do not possess or have the tools for or have the time for then you are going to have to pay for it, simple.

£15 to £20 per hour for skilled labour is nothing.

So true. That's a bargain for a mechanic's time really.

Do you seriously think that £15 is reasonable for a very small job that takes virtually no skill and only a few minutes? The crank was already off.

What the fuck is in your vagina? are you actually serious implying it's doesn't required skill?

Seriously removed it from your vagina, you might feel better, and probably have something to cook with.

i like dammit's cost breakdown.. its important to understand value and service.. i had a BB removed and refacing etc at Condor many years ago.. this was all part of a respray and buying new parts.. the nett costs for the BB work was around £20.. I went on to spend the pricely sum of £120 complete back on the road..

i think Jeez misunderstands what LBS are for..