17 fucking quid!?

i was doing 4 or so a day back in 2002 :P dunno how time would have changed anything.

shops will lend you a pump for free. buy a tube and some tyre levers from them for less than the cost of them doing it for you, borrow the pump and HTFU.

one of the blokes in Kingston Evans has a souped up Charge Plug, massively dodgy.

well actually a Charge Plug is fine to be honest, unless by soup up you mean adding more stuff to it than taking stuff off like the rear brake and it's freewheel instead of fixed.

my local bike shop, one of them have a charge plug, but done up properly, like proper tyres (as the current one is too slow), new front rim, thought still freewheel.

Out of interest, anyone in the business put a figure on average bike-shop tyre changes per day? Is it four or forty? I mean how much of the take does it really consitute?

usually free to be honest or says a fiver, but then £40 would make sense if you got a new tyres as well.

Hell when I don't have a tools, I just went to my local (chain) one, ask for a specific tools does some work on my bike and bingo.

thought i ask them to trimmed my handlebar once and they charge me £13, a bit much especially when in Farnham (in the mist of Surrey) they actually trimmed my handlebar for free.

PJS, yeah you have to be a complete cunt to stiff people that cant sort it out for themselves.
But most fall into the dumb/lazy catargory.

If i was to fix tyres all day long I wouldn't sell to many bikes. If my mechanic was to spend the day fixing punctures he wouldn't fix the bikes that have been booked in and the shop would go out of business.

If all is quiet on the shop floor n people are polite most days punctures get fixed for a packet of cocolate hob nobs or a few ice creams (depending on the weather).
If people don't want to pay the £10 labour n we're quiet they get one free lesson from then on they're on their own.

I'm a builder (yeah, don't all shoot me at once). If someone asks me to change a lightbulb (they don't) or install a cantilevered floating staircase - per hour (not that it will take me an hour to change the bulb, but you get my drift) my time costs the same. But I put an unqualified labourer onto the simple jobs and charge for their time accordingly and put more skilled/experienced/qualified people onto the more complex stuff and charge considerably more.

My guess is that bike shops charge the same amount for any repairs or servicing they do, irrespective of how simple, because the same people do the work and they've calculated an hourly rate based on wages, overheads, profit, etc. As others have said, if you can't fix it yourself, then this is what you're gonna pay....

bike shops are not charities SHOCKER!

What n you won't photograph my wedding for free Gary???

fuck wedding photography, the only "glass" i want to handle at a wedding is a champagne one

quite amusing...

PJS, yeah you have to be a complete cunt to stiff people that cant sort it out for themselves.
But most fall into the dumb/lazy catargory.

If i was to fix tyres all day long I wouldn't sell to many bikes. If my mechanic was to spend the day fixing punctures he wouldn't fix the bikes that have been booked in and the shop would go out of business.

If all is quiet on the shop floor n people are polite most days punctures get fixed for a packet of cocolate hob nobs or a few ice creams (depending on the weather).
If people don't want to pay the £10 labour n we're quiet they get one free lesson from then on they're on their own.

You're completely spot on on all your points of course furious tiles and yeah I know in a small outfit it's far more about the intrusion into (hopefully!) the backlog of work. I have so far never been refused a pump and levers at a bike shop when I had no stuff with me. Never got the free lesson though, that sounds particularly helpful.

Er... I take it from this you have a shop? I don't know which one it is.. already sounds quite reliable..

Got to say - you can't complain. Kid at my school had his tyre cut. Happily repaired the puncture but in the meantime he'd phoned his dad who had to drive 10 miles to pick him up. If he doesn't know how to repair a puncture then that's his problem. It's a good job I was prepared (like most of us on here) to help out. I think that for too long cyclists have relied on friendly shops to help them out, but with expensive rents and business tax it's little wonder they now have to charge a realistic sum for what seem to us minor repairs. But... it also shows that if you support your local shops against the major players, then they in turn will usually help you out. Must say I'd rather buy an inner tube for £4.99 in a local shop than pay £4.50 in Evans.

Nope, not my shop. Infact just part of an evil, money grabbing unreliably chain ;-)

quite amusing...

I spotted that on Saturday. It sounds familiar. Notice the illustrators featured brakeless fixed gear bikes too.

the red beard and cycle cap's got me worried...

Explanation I heard for the ridiculous innertube change prices was that the cycle shops are not interested in changing people's tubes- they'll happilly do it for the extortionate fee, but not for a "reasonable" one. Their mechanics' time is better spent elsewhere...

Made sort of sense to me.

well, if you have a load of bikes to work on, and someone comes in and wants a tube changing.. takes 10minutes when you could be doing something more useful.

but then it is a good customer service... tough one i guess.... as most people seem to accept paying it, there isnt really an argument! When we charged £11 for tire and change, i dont remember anyone complaining

learning how to change an inner tube is an important lesson to learn as a cyclist. It's totally ridiculous to charge that for it, but at least it'll act as an incentive for people to learn how to do it themselves. It'd save them money and bicycle mechanics time.

hillbilly look a like

"I rode it here, you prick!"

Not sure he got the best side of the workshop guys after this point...

it's made up, this "journalist" doesn't really write down conversations he overhears.

you see, they write something badly, get a cartoon underneath it, and there, that's another page filled.

then people* buy *it..
sad.

.

it's made up, this "journalist" doesn't really write down conversations he overhears.

you see, they write something badly, get a cartoon underneath it, and there, that's another page filled.

then people* buy *it..
sad.

alright grandad...no need to get upset.

have a sweet.

yeah i'd watch that one... dodgy!!!! ;)

The problem is that their mechanic is so damned fast that he always excapes any repercussions for his shoddy workmanship.

problem fast shoddy

couldnt have summed it up any better