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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.

Should we try doing this monthly? Or a sort of cruise around when it's sunny? Weekly seems a bit keen for the numbers we can get.

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?"

The rolls really aren't worth it, even in a shop environment (except for cargo bikes etc, so we use them for that).

They are a lot lighter at least. I don't think I've actually had to remove a bb-un300 yet, though I've fitted plenty. Could be wrong of course!

Looks like Google have also taken a dislike to the new site, they seem to have tumbled down the rankings

I'm aware this might not be hugely helpful but the Finnish brand Jopo uses 22" tyres and I think last time we needed some we got them from Finland. Also some Radwagons but silly fat width.

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

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!

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Where are we in there? I've just finished at the shop and will likely go on a rant about cyclists and bikes and people who make shit bikes

I'll try to be there too

Where is this? Can't find it...

All sorted, sorry for the radio silence. How did you pull them without the plug thing you put into where the crank bolt goes?

We had a couple to do and customers so didn't want to bodge things, also needed bearing puller extension to swap bearings

I'll deffo be there with a few cycle buddies, should all wear cycling caps or carry a copy of the Standard under our left arms or whatever.

https://butternutbikes.co.uk/bike-fitting-north-london/ £175. Niel is super nice.

It does seem low. My starting point (or Greg Lemonds) would say 77.7cm. Is saddle fore/aft changed at all? You might feel the need to have it lower to bring bars nearer and compensate for over stretching? This is probably my best guess. Try it out on different (smaller?) bikes and see if you need the same.

Any injuries, body changes, changes to exercise etc?

Have you changed anything? Some levers have adjustable switches in them to change the pull ratio from v brake to road caliper, you might have accidentally toggled it

I'd check that your chain checker isn't worn or not right in some way, meaning that you're changing your chain too early.

I'm keen. Carboys is having a closing down drinks on Thursday if anyone is keen for that https://www.instagram.com/p/CrQiB5-NrNn/?igshid=ZWIzMWE5ZmU3Zg==