Evans Cycles

I thought big cities had inner tube dispensers nowadays.

Only in London's famous east London.

These days if kids get a puncture they just throw the bike away and buy a new one from Halfords. Then post about it on tiktok.

Rep, crucially they always throw it in a canal.

What M_V said, Rema is tip-top

Meanwhile on the continent

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8,50 though

Cheaper than a taxi
Maybe one isle for latex top up bottles

I appreciate I am older than most people, but is a puncture repair kit that esoteric?

Was told last year in a shop near Clapham they didn't sell brake cables to customers.
Also been told that crank bolts were on order only (fair enough if I'd asked for cotter pins, but crank bolts!)
Bike shops definitely no longer suit my cycling needs, I reluctantly buy everything I need online.
In full agreement with @M_V Tip Top Rema is best IMO, and better suited for my grand father's old tin box

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Surely it will more likely be something cynical like getting someone to buy an inner tube has better margin, or if you cant buy stuff to repair they can charge 15 quid to fix it for most clueless punters.

For balance, I should point out that I had a pleasant time the other day in Condor Cycles stocking up on bits - cable ends (brake and gear), bottom bracket cable guides, downtube barrel adjusters, that sort of thing.

If you are in London, I urge you to support Condor and shops like them rather than going online. They make the world a (slightly) better place.

Also, if you go to Condor, you can nip round the corner to Terroni & Sons and pretend for a moment you’re in Milan.

Really? We do a few a week.

Who has cash?

That sound more abnormal as my shop do sell what you need, even give away old crank bolts.

Really? We do a few a week.

We’re talking about those glue type one, not the instant patch?

It's Germany!

Yep. Glue. Lezyne ones.

Oh Lezyne! Yeah we just sell those Park Tools type.

+1 for rema tip top £6 now for a kit with 6 patchs in it, but they are very good patchs.

Think you guys probably have a tilted view of the UK LBS due to being London/SE, down there even for a tiny hovel of a place you could be near £1k a week in rent, don't make that kind of money selling puncture kits and giving out good advice, hard selling on high margin bike to work schemes only seems to really work. Seen plenty of smaller decent repair only places that haven't survived due to one reason or another, but usually cost of being there is too high for the realistic yield a bike shops drags in.

Most shops carry puncture kits with glue, without glue (park patchs I get on with OK, plenty of good ones and plenty of terrible ones out there!) or any size tube you need. Crank bolts? Got all of them. Maybe not for a 2001 FSA road self extractor with the weird bevel washer thing under it, but the rest of them, yes, cotter pins in common sizes, yes, random bolts yes etc.

Puncture repair, as a shop to be honest you don't make money on fiing punctures, £12 I charge for new tube (Nutrak are OK, Impac if I can't get Nutrac) and labour. There is always something to fiddle with, limits, gears, brake pad rubbing the tyre, oil the chain, and hopefully not a 'yup your axle is snapped, all your bearings belong to the floor now'.
Branded tubes, Conti/Schwalbe etc are all in the £7-8 tube range now, more if you want extra light, latex, mega long valves etc.
As a shop repairing an old tube, its a little extra labour, its extra risk that it could not work (cust probably brought in an argo's bike that has fake rubber/plastic inner tubes that won't take a patch anyway), and then they'll be back in 20 minutes and they'll be annoyed.

I have started to see shops put up notices 'we don't do punctures', which is a bit!!!!

I have started to see shops put up notices 'we don't do punctures', which is a bit!!!!

We can make close to £350 on punctures alone a week (£10 labour, about 5 a days) excluding Brompton and Dutch/Tern GSD type, it seemed a small task but does add to our labour target.

It sound like they either not getting enough punctures, not charging enough, not having shop floor staff to do it or simply poor management.

Make or turnover? Used to workshop manage a large independent (3 FT mechs + 2 FT new bike assemblers + 2 PT wastes of spaces that I would have preferred didn't bother coming into work but wasn't aloud to fire them as they were their families mates neighbours kids or something) and yeah, would see healthy turnover from doing a lot of punctures, but even when the folk had a strict 'no faff, no chat, no btw can you tune my entire bike' kind of a deal, it covered costs obviously, but the time of the good FT mechanics was much better served dealing with workshop work. Kept them happier to that they knew what their day looked like at the beginning of the day so could effectively plan stuff out.

Had days when you'd see 20-35 punctures in a day, and the amount of swearing coming from the workshop went from 'maybe don't let kids down there' to 'i'm not going in there'. So moved to keeping the PT + bike assemblers on call for punctures and not use the FT guys for them unless absolutely needed. Worked fairly well that way, until the inevitable broken axle, wrong size wheel in frame, you name it but honestly not a money making centre, just a service and it gets folk in the door, might pick up a bell, might notice some stuff on their bike thats worth booking in for etc.

Have found the only folk that tend to baulk at the £12 for labour + new tube cost likely to have a costa/starbucks £5+ flavoured latte in their hands, and have arrived in a new £50k+ leased merc/audi SUV. Everyone else is just happy it can be done while they wait around 10 minutes.

GSD mk2 with any extra bits on the back (wide footplates) is a joke of a job. Have to remove some accessory bolts and loosen bolts on the kickstand to get it out, crazy! Mk1 was much easier.

I charge between £35 to £45 for a hub gear GSD puncture repair.

Bike shops definitely no longer suit my cycling needs

I just think you are going to the wrong shops. Find a proper bike shop and they will have what you need. We do...

Well I'm sure some still exist, I was talking generally... [edit: and describing a tendency, pointed out by others above. I understand businesses need to survive, but if it means some no longer sell basic stuff for -mostly- self sufficient cyclists who are not in the market for a Taiwanese made bike, then I have to, and had to, buy what I need online; the shops I have access to geographically without making an expedition out of it have not given me much of a choice]
To be fair one of my local sorted me out for basic stuff a few times, but they are quite limited. I bought a sealed bottom bracket and the only choice was Sunrace and Oxford depending on axle length... Why not stock basic Shimano UN55 or whatever the reference is? I'm happy to pay more than online if I can cycle down the road and get it right away.

Where's your shop so I know for the future... :)

I jointly run Paradise Cycles in Bethnal Green. If we are not in your neck of the woods I would maybe recommend going to shops that are more workshops than bike retail spaces, they tend to be more understanding of the needs of a cyclist/home mechanic as I think someone said above.

It is tricky stocking everything within a rented London premise, you just need to find a shop where the employees think about bikes like you, and therefore value using their space for the things that you want, rather than retailing as many Pinnacles as possible!

I've just been on the Pro Bike Kit website.

They actually have a section for puncture repairs. It doesn't contain any puncture repair kits!

@Jingle_Jangle give money to the french/decathlon

Seems like you want to have your cake and eat it a bit.
I want specific stuff, but I choose not to recognise that there’s difficulties in running a shop.

Choice to run Oxford and Sunrace is probably because the margins are better and supply for Shimano is thin on the ground.

Last I checked for UN300 in 122.5mm (UN55 has been phased out) was somewhere in 2023.

Remember, you, the self sufficient cyclist, is the one that brings the least amount of money to a bike shop. Your needs are super specific, and you’re likely to build your own bikes.