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+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!!!!
BrickMan-
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.
edscoble
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