London bike shops closing

I used to head out into Hertfordshire past their potters bar store and they always had a range of stunning Factors and Pinarellos in the window. Very helpful staff too whenever I’ve dropped in

Yep still hanging on though Darren is doing his best to run it into the ground as far as I can tell. Good service if you take your bike in for work

For what it’s worth . I made a rule of thumb never bought any cycle product on line I could buy from a shop. Even if it took me all day.
Most of these places are victims of the internet. It creates demand for cool stuff and then places unrealistic rrps against unrealistic online prices.
I still buy a paper every day too to support journalism . Even though news isn’t worth reading! 🤣🤣
And yes my local cycle shop Butterworths in Sheffield is still
Open and still charges double what I could buy the parts for on line. Long May I support this status quo . Use it or lose it .

Well done.

I just learned Clever Mike closed at the end of March. Sad times, they were great. http://www.clevermike.co.uk/

Good guys. A few others to have closed this year include Half-Pipe, LMNH, Shorter Rochford, Bexley Cycles (I think?), GB Cycles, Armourtex... Support your local shop. For us, this means giving us some jobs that aren't just the "rebuild my wheel" and "face my BB please". These tend to be jobs that aren't that profitable as solo jobs.

For us, this means giving us some jobs that aren't just the "rebuild my wheel"

Feel a bit bad for giving someone a 'rebuild my wheel' job now... They've done a good job though.

Yep.. bexley cycles have closed along with Welling cycles.

There needs to be a bike shop around Downham.

Honestly, we turn most of them down now unless you're a regular customer. It takes probably an hour of chatting about the wheel rebuild, measuring, ordering, sourcing parts that we almost certainly don't have in stock (ooh, purple nipples, nice (need to order 100 of them though), spokes for a 26 inch wheel (again, we probably need to order 100 of them) and a rim from somewhere we wouldn't be ordering from!) before you even touch a component. Ain't no one wanting to pay £60 for an hours labour plus the build and component costs. It is what it is, and we mainly do it to look like a proper bike shop, but it's far from profitable work.

Ain't no one wanting to pay £60 for an hours labour plus the build and component costs.

Except this is what we should be charging minimum.

The biggest issues is that the motoring industries et all have a much better standing than a bicycle shop.

It would be great if bike shop are exempt from VAT (in labour), as it’s a benefit to the environment and people’s health

(For what it’s worth, our workshop still getting the same level of customers after sticking to the £60/hour servicing).

Sorry @edscoble, I should've been clearer. No-one reasonably wants to pay the £60 to chat about their wheel rebuild and get the components together, then another £60 for us to build it (plus parts). Interested in your thoughts on this. Obviously for experienced wheelbuilders with their own spoke threading, loads of blanks and all the experience knowing which rim is going to be the go to for all circumstances this will take a bit less time, but it's fair that a customer might want to basically chat about things for an hour in total.

We are actually tossing up what to do about VAT thresholds etc as bumping up against the end of the flat rate scheme, so it might make more sense to actually be a bit quieter. Are there other examples of VAT exempt things? I've actually had a look at the rules and it seems that there is very little given a VAT exemption. Funnily enough ship repair and aircraft repair is exempt, so presumably if we put wings or a hull on bikes it would be 0% rated?

Our wheelbuild is £120, as nowadays it’s not that profitable with high quality ready-made wheeks already exist that cheaper than a standard 32 holes hybrid wheels build.

I’m curious. What should we be asking bike shops to do?

I'm pretty sure that I've never spent an hour chatting to a bike shop person about anything (in one go). And I've bought a lot of stuff from bike shops.

But then, i'm not very talkative.

I think my PB might have been about 20 mins in Hub Velo trying to explain that Charge had built a bike with uniquely inconvenient chainline and axle spacing for a ss or fg bike. Tbf, that was in the context of a wheel built request.

I bet the total chat about that wheel build added up, in combination with going back and forth about what spec you want, pick up, blah blah. All good.

Excellent question, and one I will answer aimed at what I assume the audience here at LFGSS is, and not just people in general.
I would imagine (again, i'm making assumptions) that post posters on here are the 'bike person' at their place of work or friendship group, so the best thing you could probably do, is recommend that when people come to you for advice, that they go to a shop. Quite often we see someone come in with some half worn out gatorskins, an old cassette of no providence and some bashed around but new 7 years ago bar tape that their friend/colleague has given them to fit, and then also told them to buy a brakeset off W*ggle. In this case, you're actively harming our business, as well as often good-intentioned advice not being that useful to the bewildered friend/flatmate etc.
The average LFGSS person will visit their bike shop for things like buying some brake outer, a general nosey and a chat, a high-complexity/low value job like tapping a BB or facing a crown race, and usually something like an obscure part or something they've forgotten like a barb and olive for the build they're doing. They'll proudly announce (or demonstrate) that they do all their own work on their bike (thereby basically saying to us staff that they're never going to spend much here), and buy things that basically say "I've bought everything else off Wiggle/Pinkbike/LFGSS/Bike24" but I forgot this tiny part, and then wonder why we don't roll out the red carpet. If you've been in a few times, we are more likely to be helpful, but we also can sense the person who is basically 'testing' us "Hey, do you do Campag? I've got some shifters I was thinking need a rebuild..."
What would we like you to buy? How about a t-shirt, the odd inner tube, tyres (we will almost always cut a deal on them if it's a quick transaction tbh) and the odd consumable that is selling at near RRP online anyway. Mid-pandemic I was selling 11-34 11 speed cassettes (we never ran out, even when Sigma, Wiggle etc etc all did), cheaper than anywhere, and even now if a regular customer comes in, we sell consumables like that for about 10% off RRP so basically the same as online, but with super fast magic in your hand delivery.
There is definitely an obsession with doing your own work on your bike and getting things the cheapest possible. I can cook eggs but neither I, nor the chef in my local cafe, see it as a failure of my character if I get them to cook me brunch. Nor do I feel the need to tell them that I usually cook my own eggs.
We are pretty busy in my shop, and profitable, but unfortunately it does come about as a bit of a result of being fairly mercenary in what jobs we can take on and what doesn't make short or long term commercial sense. In the case of the hypothetical wheel rebuild above, if you're just bringing that in, having worn out a rim, your bike will have been knackered too, but you're obviously not bringing that in. We do rebuilds more often as part of a full service.
tl;dr- basically, I don't actually expect people from here to buy much, but it would be nice if you referred people sometimes. Also understand if/why we don't roll out golden customer service to people we would happily share a beer or three with.

PARKLIFE!

BTW, I make sure not to spend an hour talking to a customer, as that’s an hour worth of work disappearing down the drain.

I'm not even sure there's enough variables involved in a wheelbuild to take up an hour of discussion, are there? The last chat I had about a wheelset took maybe 15 seconds. Spoke colour, nipple colour. 3 cross? Yes. Plain gauge or butted? Not bothered, whatevers gonna last longer. Done.

Am I right in thinking bike shops would like us to bring complete bikes in for a service including fitting some new parts maybe once a year?

I did that. Spent about a third of the cost of the bike on various things including a new wheel and some mud guards. The brakes haven't felt right ever since (someone has suggested there might be air in them?), need to go back.

They also put my old inner tube on the new wheel inside the new tyre. Which already had a path on and then failed shortly after. Kind of annoyed about that.

In my shop, sure, but if it didn't need a full service, it would get a quick check over and out the door for the time (and price) it took to do what was needed and wanted. Having said that, the second or third service you do on a bike is a dream, because you've sorted the issues out. Really we should charge more for the first time we see a bike, but that's not a great way to attract new customers!

For every you, there are several "they replaced and charged me for a new inner tube even though the old one was fine", so it's a tough gig. The only reason they haven't put a new tube in is to try and save you money, it's easier for us to put a new one in!

The longer I work in the bike industry, the more it starts to feel like a pyramid scheme.