Wheelbuilding / Wheel Building / Wheel build help

Every time I go to a bike shop, I get ripped off and tell myself I should not go back.
That's exactly why I started buying tools / building wheels.

I would be quicker for me to order the bespoke spoke+nipple+tool straight from Mavic then do it.

Some shops are just not business orientated then they cry in the winter that nobody visits them.

RANT OVER

What you think is a 20 minute job may not be. I have learnt the hard way never assume as it can screw up your day. Vince you have never tried running a shop have you if you did you know it not do easy. Condor mightjust have some spare capacity rather than being more business minded. Again you assume.

....

My campervan has a leak. The number of places able to sort that are fewer in number than tyre shops. I have to wait. The other place i called never answered there phone. I am too busy to have spent more time finding somewhere to do it that is too far away for me to drop it off.

Given what you suggest about partner shops. Why don't you organise it. It would be alot of work. It possible but it would require ideally a website were customers book in a job and it get allocated to shops with the capacity to do it. Or a website were a shop that has too much work can offer it up to other shop that can. That work sharing platform does not exist yet but is a decent idea. Develop it and do all the work signing shops up to it.

they outsource and get it done. And probably make higher margins than they would if they did it in house.

Seems unlikely. If the margin was higher on outsourced work, they wouldn't do anything in house :)

It's common in the machining world for jobs to get outsourced to people with more capacity, but it's rarely done to save money, it's done to keep an existing customer happy or to stop a new customer from looking elsewhere for himself. In either case, the outsourced job is done at little or no profit in order to benefit from the profits on future orders which are done in house. If the bike shop doesn't see you as a potential future profit stream, why would they want the trouble of doing your job for nothing?

Because Champagne! Right?

Was told that they are "fully booked" until June so no availability to do it

That might have been true. On the other hand, they might not have wanted the job, and the two ways to say that without telling the truth are to give a high price or a long wait. It's rare that people are so busy that they can't fit in a small job if the price is right, but in this case they chose "long wait" over telling you it would cost £100, which is the true cost of taking a mechanic off whatever they are doing, clearing the work bench, doing your job and then restarting the original job.

The greatest luxury any job shop can have is the ability to choose which jobs to take. It's a mark of success, not failure. It's also perfectly legitimate to be happy to grow slowly at low risk, rather than taking a punt that rapid growth will be sustainable. The corollary is Carillion :)

If the bike shop doesn't see you as a potential future profit stream, why would they want the trouble of doing your job for nothing?

I should have worn a suit a pretending to look at £10k bikes for 10 minutes then asked for my wheel to be sorted. That might have yielded better results. (this is a joke although I was wearing the forum jersey that day)

@Skülly In terms of Champagne, I always aim at offering next day delivery within the M25. Even when I have no availability, I get a courrier to deliver for me. I can't afford to miss a sale.

I apologise to @cycleclinic if I offended her/him/them - It was not my intention

Also consider the shop can't just buy s spoke of Mavic it's a spoke kit plus carriage for a small order makes this not very economical. Mist customer don't want to pay of a spoke pack and the shop does not want to keep the spares and that's why they may not have wanted the job. But then not wanting it is an assumption which maybe wrong.

I'm not offended. I am just playing devils advocate as the shop in question is not here to defend themselves. I do think the 1 star Google review is a bit harsh though.

Yeah, mavic spokes are a pain in the arse. 1 star is super harsh for the place being too busy. It's a bit of a shitty job that probably won't make them any money, if they had a spare half and hour that day and a spoke in stock I'm sure it would've been sorted, as it means tracking down an awkward part and then fitting the job in the actual calendar of work, their next spot might well be when they said. I'm not sure why them telling you this, and you booking in at another shop with time is a problem that needs a review. Happens round here a fair bit, if the waiting time is long then you get told that, you also get told there's a couple of shops not far away that might be less busy.

So we all agree that ordering a spoke pack (finding the reference itself can also be time-consuming) for a £15 job is not really worth it, especially for a high-end shop like Bespoke that would legitimately want to proritise their workshop hours for their existing, high-value customer base (i.e people who already spent 10K). It's not bad service, it's a business decision that does not favour everyone.
Condor has a good stock of Mavic spokes, which is rather unusual. As an aside during the short time I worked there I turned jobs down pretty much daily (as instructed).

Re all this Mavic shop talk,

I manage a very small scale bike shop (only service, no bike sales) in Norway. The Mavic distributor is local. I've chosen to sell crossride as wheel replacements to the commuters. This is shit, as spares are a pain in the dick and expensive.
Idea was to get the costumers who run their Shimano hubs to the ground before coming in, could get an actual wheel service rather than a new wheel with a (cheap) Shimano hub every time. I want cartridge bearings hubs for these fuckers. And j bend spokes.

What other low price of the peg options than Mavic do I have ?

Mind, Norway's bike distribution is silly (coming from the Danish bike industry)

Vince, I'm turning down good paying customers these days. I want their business, but I don't have physically room for them. And I have a lot of (Mavic, hihi) wheels in the cue for fixing.

Out of interest, what Mavic wheel do you need a spoke & nipple for? Small chance I can help.

build your self it the only way to ensure spares availability. Or strike a deal with a wheel builder who can deliver a bunch of resonably priced wheels.

Wish there were time in the day for this. Got hubs and rims in stock for this, but my hourly rate buttfucks the math. Maybe come winter I'll start a sweat shop ;)

Nothing is reasonably price here.

Some shops are just not business orientated then they cry in the winter that nobody visits them.

The busy shops will be the more ‘business orientated’ ones surely? The shops that are in demand. These are not the same shops that cry during the winter. Winter is when they make new bike/frame sales and build them up for their loyal customers ... rather than problem fixing for noobs.

tl:dr cry less.

Tears have dried, Condor fixed the wheel next day.

My one star review has been bumped up to a five stars. Bravo for being busy and refusing work.

Drama is over - I apologise to all for throwing the toys out of the pram.
I obviously don't know how to run a business or understand how businesses work.
Changing one spoke takes two weeks, that's just the way it is.

I obviously don't know how to run a business

Well, you don't know how to run one well enough that you get to choose your customers :)

thanks mdcc. how would i find out which one i need

is there a specific nipple for internal rims

Yes, in fact there are numerous designs.

DT Swiss track hubs.

Sealed bearing right? Can't find them on the DT Swiss site but the same bit of blurb that appears on a few retailer sites mentions riding in traffic so I'm guessing they'll be better sealed than Dura Ace 7600 anyway?

At almost 200lb butt nekkid would I be pushing it riding 20/24 spoke wheels on the road? Lowest spoke count wheel I've got just now is a 24 spoke front and it seems happy enough with my weight.

At almost 200lb butt nekkid would I be pushing it riding 20/24 spoke wheels on the road?

Depends on how you ride, which wheels and which road, but I've had no problems with Shimano RS30 (16/20 spokes) and I need to be holding a pretty big bunch of helium balloons to get the scales down to 200lb

I guess I might be alright then.

I like riding in the lanes so road surfaces can be kinda crap but I wouldn't say I thrash on my bike really.

Would probably run 28c or bigger tyres which'd help as well.