London bike shops closing

I feel that. For instance even Balfe's made a profit of £8k last year, whilst taking a £2m loan from Trek, they are just hoovering up business off other shops, and making money for Trek, getting ready to go bankrupt and become a chain of Trek stores.

With regards to the 60 minutes on wheelbuilding chat, that's not what I meant nor said in my initial post. It's, say, 20 mins chat, a good 20 mins finding and ordering things, and then another 2x10 chats handovers, asking if they are running tubeless, do they need the hub servicing, going back with options about what is in stock or good value etc etc. Basically 60 mins total work on top of the actual build, and it was in particular regard to rebuilds

whilst taking a £2m loan from Trek, they are just hoovering up business off other shops, and making money for Trek, getting ready to go bankrupt and become a chain of Trek stores.

Dont threaten me with good time

Symphony Cycling near Angel has closed. Only been open a couple of years, selling high-end stuff. Not surprised, I passed it most days and never saw anyone in there.

They had the same orange DeRosa in the window for a year at least.

Saw Cloud 9 chose not to renew their lease on Store Street and Cyclefit have now moved in

I feel that. For instance even Balfe's made a profit of £8k last year, whilst taking a £2m loan from Trek, they are just hoovering up business off other shops, and making money for Trek, getting ready to go bankrupt and become a chain of Trek stores.

They could buy the Evans name off sports direct.

I’ll tell you that much; no way they can afford this, best is to take over Evans’s old location (like Fulham, Waterloo etc.).

Swap/sell the non-Evans stores to fund it?

I’m also unsure that they’d want the brand. Do any ordinary punters genuinely see Evans as a quality bike brand? Or even cares? Not sure there’s value beyond the history.

You be surprised, it’s the name that sell no matter how many 1 stars review in TrustPilot, people know the name Evans for eons, but does not know/care what going on in the background

Evans thread >>>

Good that other's are noticing the massive ponzi scheme that has become medium to big retail in the cycle industry. 2023 is pap for all retail, cycle industry no different, at least we have workshops and other things we can do.

Getting cycle shop labour onto zero vat would be a massive help, its one of the reasons it pays to be a smaller shop, one man band style and fly below the threshold, however with the way rent is in any decent place and the small margins available on most items, a one man band will be turning over the £85k that I think the limit is (?) whilst barely actually making anything for themselves. For stock, buying and selling on the UK VAT scheme and EORI scheme is fine for what it is, its the labour thats an absolute drain. Any labour you charge your customers is subject to VAT @ 20%, so a '£36' job (i.e. an hour or so) looses £6 to the VAT man, then there's the inevitable 20 mins of dropping off, picking up, phone calls, employers contributions to PAYE/pension/sick day fund/holiday fund'. Leaves you with not much more than £10/hour for your mechanics. Could just about push £15 if they are good at what they do, maybe ten years ago £15/hour was reasonable for the industry but this year not so much, in 2023 doesn't buy you much.

Car industry does it differently, the charge out rate is massive, Audi this year are £135-150/hour + VAT. So they only have to book 2 chargeable hours per 8 hour mechanic shift for oil changes and other routine work, that pays for all the fixed overheads and for that mechanic to be there for the rest of the day (6 more hours to burn!), so when they spot you need a cam belt, gearbox oil change, suspension component change, they are able to do it whilst the car is already in. Won't fly in the cycle industry, however those exact customers who honestly don't flinch at getting their 70k new audi SUV a basic oil change done, or other service items which are inherently easy to do whilst vehicle is less than 3 years old as literally designed to be so (yes there are nightmare jobs too) paying that sort of hourly rate; those exact customers WILL have a very prickly opinion on why a part seized BB, mangled brakes and PITA no name hub rebuild job will be £50 of labour please

Long rant, but maybe worth flagging up to ACT or whatever the relevant trade body is that a zero vat scheme could be useful, or some other longer term employee incentive scheme. No other private retail type business has as large an impact on public health as the cycle industry that I can think of? UK is loosing retailers, distributors, manufacturers (planet x I guess counts as that?), valuable knowledgeable staff and mechanics at a crazy rate

I closed my shop late December as a net result of parts scarcity, rising rent and service charge. Being an owner/tech was fantastic and have no regrets spending the past 10 years building a great shop but earning a good living became problematic towards the end.
Now I am moving into off shore windfarm tech where the money is good and only work 6 months of the year the other 6 months will be ride, fix some bikes no doubt and drink beer.

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How did you get into wind farm tech?

Getting cycle shop labour onto zero vat would be a massive help.

This.

We increase our price to reflect the £60/hour labour and have been a big impact and finally charge a sensible labour for our skill and experience (a General Service is now £120 from
£90, which was £80 back in 2020).

This.

Whole industry is a dinosaur.

Selling incredibly complex and expensive products but still working the standard retail model.

Always believed we should operate more like the car industry across the board.

Good staff leaving because getting good discounts on bikes doesn't make up for poor wages anymore when the cost of living is so high

Gonna see a lot more companies going bust over the next year.

I don't mind charging more for services, but how do you avoid people booking in for "just the brakes" or "just the bottom bracket" as the price of a service goes up, we find that people want to book in for odd jobs, which invariably mean we have to assess the whole bike in order to work on it.
We no longer get caught out and beholden to people booking brake services when they mean "can you fit a new hose to my SRAM equipped integrated cabling £8k bike, and that's just a brake service at £20 like it says on your website, yeah?"

Starting from, customer taking a piss is a given, hence it's crucial to get the initial assessment right or if not, give the customer a call as soon as it has been assessed in the workshop.

Had instances when the work would cost more, rang and agreed to go ahead, yet disputed the amount when collecting.

Humans are the problem.

It's not so much the piss-taking, we are wise to that and don't stand for it. A bloke brought his Colnago in for "just the cables" but it needed a new shifter, chainring, chain and mech hanger. We told him before we started the work, he said it was akin to ordering food at a restaurant and the chef coming back and saying you can only have the steak if you also have starter and main.
I said it was more like a surgeon operating on you to remove a cyst, and finding a big cancer in there. Do you want him to sew you up and tell you about it, or just remove it?

I was thinking more from a kinda marketing perspective, we want people to book in for the service they need. TBH I'd rather do it fairly with timers on the labour time taken, but people like certainty more than value.

he said it was akin to ordering food at a restaurant and the chef coming back and saying you can only have the steak if you also have starter and main.

Bet he thought he was well clever.

you avoid people booking in for "just the brakes" or "just the bottom bracket"

Brake Service (with new parts, £60), that’s it.

It drastically reduce the number of customers declining a service when it been quoted that’s for sure.

BB the same, while some cases it take less time to simply plop a new square taper BB in, you are paying an exprienced mechanic to not only changes them over but also make sure the thread is cleaned, copper slip applied, torqued correctly, gear is shifting well etc.

Price is high but then again we as an industry should have risen it in increments in the last decades, rather than during the biggest government’s fuck up in history.

Gone.

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Oh, I thought it looked a bit dead when I passed the other day.

What was the shop?

The new Museum of London will have the LMNH shop sign from Old Street in its entrance lobby.
https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/new-sign-show-london-museum-smithfield-b1101523.html