[blakesterz]

Spent years working in a bike shop, so this was a really interesting read for me. He may be right, but I can't help be think that most people just don't care enough about their bikes to have enough customers to sustain a good Service Shop. Most people have a bike, but would never bother taking it somewhere fancy like this to get it fixed or serviced. They paid $100 for it at Walmart.

He said something in there that caught my eye:

"Think back to the '80s when market experts were predicting that internet sales were going to doom UPS and FedEx ... Huh?! Crazy as that sounds, that's what experts said, which made absolutely no sense to me."

Is that true?

[yodon]

To answer your question, the quote about the internet supposedly lowering FedEx’s market value in the 1980’s is total nonsense.

The financial markets had zero awareness of the internet in the 1980’s (with good reason, as the Internet didn’t become commercially significant until Marc Andreesen wrote the first web browser called Mosaic in 1993 putting the internet in the hands of normal people for the first time). If we read the quote charitably and conclude they had a typo and meant to write the 1990’s it’s still nonsense as FedEx’s stock price was completely unaffected by the crash at the end of the internet boom in 2002, demonstrating the market saw no significance of the internet to FedEx’s market value, positive or negative. The market didn’t begin to think seriously about connecting the dots between FedEx and the Internet until well into the 2000’s, at which point it was clear online buying would be good for FedEx.

[cat199]

yep.

I can recall 90's / early 2000's stuff about email being a concern for mail service before ecommerce was as big, but thats completely different than the 80's and ecommerce, neither of which were a thing.

[garethsprice]

> Most people have a bike, but would never bother taking it somewhere fancy like this to get it fixed or serviced. They paid $100 for it at Walmart.

As with many other markets, the middle is being hollowed out - there's a large low-end ($100 Walmart bikes) and a niche of high-end pro-sumers who have disposable income and time to spend on expensive hobbies (I believe a "decent" mountain bike starts at $1,000-2,000, going up to $xx,000).

The old middle ground ($300-500 bikes bought by unknowledgeable consumers who need the help of local stores) is what is being gutted by the decline of the middle class' disposable incomes and the specialized knowledge high-end hobbyists can now attain thanks to the Internet.

Service businesses can do well targeting the high end. The low end products are disposable.

[dmschulman]

This is incorrect in my experience. I live in a city with a high percentage of bike commuters and they all ride bikes that fall squarely in the middle of your price range (anywhere from $400-$1000).

There is actually an entire segment of the cycling industry that has sprang up around catering to this demographic, urban commuters who want something functional and hip looking and are willing to pay the premium, but don't need a $1000 mountain bike for their trip to and from work. I have not taken a full survey of every bike commuter I see in my city, but I feel confident in assessing the cost of their ride falls under or just around $800 (assuming they bought brand new and not used, I think less people tend to buy new).

The amount of these hip cyclists grossly outnumbers the amount of "prosumer" cyclists (spending $2,000 on a carbon fiber bike) I see on the weekends riding trails. I would imagine these numbers are inverted in the suburbs, where you wouldn't find as many bike commuters, but the suburbs are also lower density than a city and therefore fewer potential bike riders to compare with.

EDIT: Also your point about middle class incomes and their effect on how much a consumer can afford to spend on a bike doesn't square with economics. I see your general concern regarding middle class wages not keeping pace with economic growth, but if a bike is essential to someone's lifestyle they will find a way to afford what they need.

And on a related note, many city dwellers are starting to give up on the concept of owning a car, favoring their bike or public transit or ride shares as a means to get around. Do you know how many bikes you could afford if you sold your car and no longer had to maintain its upkeep/insurance?

[walshemj]

Unlikely in London where serious multimode bike commuters will be riding Brompton's of which the entry levels are about a grand and nice light weight on is more like £1700-1800

[jdietrich]

A Brompton is a superb commuter bike, but it's only one option. Most commuters don't need multimodal capabilities, particularly if they live within Zone 6.

[walshemj]

Ah rich people who can actual y live that near :-) I was thinking of those that use the train

[SmirkingRevenge]

Good sales people at a bike shop can often convince a person that the cost of ownership over time for their new bike is less than that cheap wal-mart bike, and that it will be more enjoyable to use during that time. And often that's entirely accurate.

The hard part is getting the customer to go to the bike shop first, rather than the big box store.

[analog31]

>>>> Most people have a bike, but would never bother taking it somewhere fancy like this to get it fixed or serviced. They paid $100 for it at Walmart.

That's probably true to a certain extent, but so called "department store bikes" have been a constant baseline of the bike industry for decades. So I think that the ups and downs of bike shops are largely independent of that baseline.

People still do buy slightly nicer bikes, and are still willing to get them serviced. At the very least, they buy those consumables. Most people need help figuring out which part will fit on their bike, and how to install it.

[UncleEntity]

> Most people have a bike, but would never bother taking it somewhere fancy like this to get it fixed or serviced.

They be pricy...

A while back some girl hit me so we threw my mangled bike in her trunk and went up the street to a bike shop. Would've cost more to fix it (just in parts, who knows about labor) than I paid for the thing so we just went to their sister shop that sold used bikes and she replaced it out of something in inventory.

I could fix it myself for probably 1/3 of what the shop was asking but most likely won't bother unless my current bike gets stolen or hit by a car.

[icebraining]

Yeah, that's the typical result nowadays when manufacturing is so cheap. I can see that changing somewhat here in Europe as more new products get an ecotax slapped on top, but it will take a while to surpass the cost of a knowledgeable worker in a developed country.

[jdietrich]

It's more that the price benchmark has been set so low by Bike Shaped Objects.

A good back wheel will cost more than a bargain-basement department store bike. The good wheel will easily last for 10,000 miles if properly cared for. The department store bike will be good for nothing but scrap after a thousand miles.

The value equation depends entirely on whether you use your bicycle as a mode of transport or a piece of leisure equipment. For people who potter about in a local park once in a blue moon, a Bike Shaped Object is perfectly satisfactory. Their bike is probably going to rust away in their garage before they actually wear anything out. These cheap bikes are built as disposable items for infrequent and undiscerning users.

For a regular commuter, quality matters. It's worth paying $50 for a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, because they're damned near impossible to puncture and they'll outlast four sets of off-brand tires. It's worth paying $60 to get your bike properly serviced, because a breakdown will make you late for work and preventative maintenance works out cheaper in the long run than neglect. It's worth paying $90 for a Brooks B17 saddle, because it'll survive until the heat death of the universe and it's as comfortable as an old pair of sneakers.

[walshemj]

Might be hard to fix an out of alignment frame

[qaq]

They might be proven right with Amazon shifting toward using their own delivery services if top N retailers follow and switch to delivery options other than UPS and Fedex the prediction might come true

[twothamendment]

The world is a big place, even the USA. So many of Amazon's dreams and current services apply only to cities of a decent size. It can't be worth it to them to have their own delivery to the middle of nowhere. Even UPS struggles with overnight in my area. I'm sure Amazon will succeed in their goals, but there will be some pie left for the others.

[qaq]

As you outlined yourself Amazon will be using it's delivery services in high density, high margin areas leaving low margin low density areas to USPS, UPS etc. This will def. hurt UPS and Fedex.

[gebeeson]

TLDR: Losing volume from Amazon isn't so bad. As I worked support in a UPS hub in Jacksonville, FL, I can confirm that actually, losing some volume from Amazon will help. The facility I worked at was at volume capacity per hour over five years ago. Updating the belt system in the building is problematic due to space available and time lost during the shutdown. Year over year the volume has only grown as more people order more online. The capacity in that hub remains the same which means they have to run more sorts/shifts and the operations start to collide together and so on. A little less volume could be seen as a good thing. As long as revenue holds.

[ghaff]

Maybe. You’d have to explain to me though why there isn’t a major delivery service today that has a strategy to skim the delivery cream in dense urban areas. Not an expert in this market but I expect there are costs associated with urban delivery that offset the advantages of density to some degree.