[sevensor]

I live in a college town with several bike shops, all of them still tied to the traditional retail model. The one I suspect has the worst prospects is the most upscale one. They have a big clean showroom full of expensive sporty bikes, but their mechanics are second-rate. You can tell because their shop is in the basement and you're not allowed to come down and watch them work on your bike. And the one time I made the mistake of going there for service they sniffed at my decent, well maintained commuting bike because the paint was dinged up and it was covered with road dust, charged me twice what the repair was worth, and didn't fix the problem. The shop I'm rooting for has a tiny showroom and a big repair shop right behind the counter. There's grease on everything, and I'm pretty sure they've been under-charging me for labor because they know I commute by bike. They already order and assemble bikes for people, and they also rent by the day. They, I suspect, will be just fine.

[Steltek]

Spot on.

Every bike shop has a "flavor". There was the "carbon fiber" shop where I'd get funny looks if I dragged my commuter bike in. They closed up shop and moved even farther into the suburbs. It'd take me an hour to bike there now.

Then there's the "commuter shop". Where they charged $0 for labor when I walked in one cold, messy winter night with a shredded tire and a crazy story. That does simple fixes on the spot quickly and painlessly so my commute time is bumped by less than 30 minutes. They'll get my business every time. I haven't tried to do an online order with them yet though; we've just bought bikes off the showroom floor.

[davidw]

The best ones handle a range. I don't want a mechanic who's too good to touch my commuter bike, but I don't want a dude wrenching on the expensive Campagnolo bits on my road bike whose experience primarily consists of bashing stuff together on fixies, either.

I really miss my shop in Italy - that guy occasionally worked on pro's bikes. Like the guy who won a gold medal in the olympics. But he always had time for me, and whatever bike I brought in - whether it was the rusty commuter or the nice bike I'd bought from him.

I would never consider buying a bike on line. They're always going to need maintenance and having someone who knows what they're doing is worthwhile.

[muxator]

Your blog about Italy is really interesting, thanks!

[CydeWeys]

My go-to bike shop is a commuter shop right at the base of the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown. He's always getting all sorts of walk-ins from, e.g., banged-up people whose brakes failed them on the downward slope into the city. The entire space is the maintenance area, and he's always right in front of you working on bikes.

You can also order bikes online and have them shipped to him for assembly, and his rates are extremely reasonable (something like $45 for a single speed, $75 for a geared bicycle). He did a great job assembling my bicycle.

Poor guy also works something like 80 hours per week, because he's always there during opening hours (which include everyone else's commuting times), and he often works late on the backlog of bikes to repair that's been building up.

[jacobrobbins]

so glad to see that place mentioned! it was my morning coffee stop when i lived in new york. the owner/operator is great to chat to, lots of interesting stories about the neighborhood.

[CydeWeys]

Yeah, lots of interesting stories about the neighborhood and your typical "just rolled into the shop" horror stories from people's commutes. Lots of banged-up people coming through there. He also does a big business with bike messengers, and if you end up chatting with them you hear all sorts of interesting stories. Many stories involve running from the cops for traffic violations as if it's just a routine thing. It's true though ... bike messengers don't get tickets as they won't let themselves be caught, and the police aren't going to start a dangerous car chase over a ~$200 ticket.

It's also hilarious how often people waiting for the Chinatown buses try to use his bathroom (and how good he's gotten at rebuffing them). I think he should start charging for bathroom access.

[balabaster]

About the only work I don't do myself on my bikes is handlebar tape because I don't have the patience for that shit. But I'd rather have a bike repair shop at hand that I trust and will offer me the best advice, one that I know I can drop my bike off when I'm in a pinch, one that will tell me what I should order when I need it. I will order it from them every time. I don't want a shop with all the fanciest bikes and offer such cogent advice as:

"This one's got grippier grips than that one and it has a basket and it's pink."

"Can you tell me about this groupset? How does it handle mud? does it age well or is it going to be rusty as fuck 6 minutes after I walk out of here?"

"Did I mention it's pink?"

I wanna know that the XTR groupset functions in the opposite direction of the XT and that even though it's more intuitive for someone that doesn't ride that often, if you've ridden day in, day out for the past 10 years and you suddenly switch to gear shifters that go the opposite way, that fucks with your head - and your ride until you've reprogrammed yourself.

I wanna know that the ultra expensive plastic shielded brake cables aren't going to be any better 3 months down the road because all the shielding wears off and I paid 3 times over what I could've paid for cheaper ones at no real long term benefit. Meaningful advice. Not just technically accurate.

I want the mechanics who know their shit inside and out. I want the sales guys to be riders, not just hardcore elite riders but every day commuters who are passionate about their bikes. I don't want to talk to someone who works here because "it was the only job I could find that fit my schedule."

These guys are the reason I got into biking in the first place. Because their passion inspired my passion.

[Dangeranger]

Yeah, usually the people with the best advice are the tougher older bikers who just want to ride. They've seen the hype cycle come and go a dozen times, and they just don't have time for that kind of BS anymore.

[balabaster]

Absolutely agree. And it's the gruff and grumpy older bikers that I always go in search of when I walk into a bike shop. This is the kind of relationship I want with the service department in my bike shop:

"Hey you, you look like you've been in here since 1963, what can you tell me about this component?"

"It's shit, get this one instead. It does exactly the same thing, looks the same, feels the same, fits your bike the same. It costs about 20% more but'll last 10 times longer. The older design sheds muck better meaning less wear and the compound it's made from has the same tensile strength as the newer one but it doesn't rust because it was made before they cheaped out and started making shit quality product. I don't even know why the fuck they released this one. The old one was better. We're gonna stop carrying their newer stuff until they get their shit together."

They don't tend to mince words. They tell you exactly how it is, rather than exactly what they think you want to hear to get you to part with your money. In my opinion, you cannot pay enough to have people like this on your team.

[Dangeranger]

This is quite accurate.

In my past I worked at a greasy bike shop and turned wrenches for several years. The smaller bike shops without the gloss and glamour of high end branded stores have a different mentality, and they are far more scrappy than their more "elite" cousins.

What you'll find is that when times get tough the elite shops will shut down because their overhead is higher, they carry more stock of higher priced merchandise, and they tend to have an attitude of exclusion toward their customers.

Meanwhile the scrappy grease shop will just cut back to carrying the best selling items, reduce some operating hours, and maybe drop a brand or two until the market picks back up.

There's a reason why the smaller shops usually have been around since the 70's or 80's and the larger elite shops always look shiny and new; The smaller shops live and the larger fancier shops die.

[criddell]

One model that wasn't mentioned explicitly in the article but I think might work is let customers have their bikes purchased online be shipped to the shop for assembly. I ordered my last bicycle from BikesDirect and it was tricky to get it set up just right. A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours.

Even if assembly doesn't directly make a lot of profit, it's a great time to sell accessories and service plans.

[ams6110]

> A bike shop could probably do it in an hour. It took me five or six hours.

Yes but then you miss out on an almost "bonding" experience with the machine and feeling of intimately understanding it. That's why I do most of my own car repair, even though it takes me longer than a shop would take.

Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about the "Romantic" vs. "Classical" approach to such things.

[criddell]

> Yes but then you miss out on an almost "bonding" experience with the machine and feeling of intimately understanding it.

That's true. Thirty years ago I had more time than money and working on my stuff was very satisfying. These days I would rather go to the movies with my wife, help my kids with their homework, walk my dog, or take a nap. I'm doing better financially, but my time is scarce.

I've read Zen. I loved the motorcycle travelogue part and but was bored by his treatise on quality.

[analog31]

For me, being self sufficient for maintenance dramatically alters my cycling experience. Taking my bike to a mechanic would involve loading it into a car and driving it somewhere, waiting, and repeating the process when the work is done.

Naturally, it can take time to get parts, so if something is actually broken, then the bike is out of commission for a while. But a minor benefit of poor urban planning is that I've got space for a spare bike or two, or three, plus a bucket of spares that I've collected over the years from trashed bikes. ;-)

Also, doing the work at home means that there's less of an impediment to keeping the bike in good adjustment more or less continually, so parts don't come loose and start to deteriorate. Major repairs become less frequent. More or less weekly, I go down into the garage and check all of the bikes in the family fleet. The effort is practically trivial. I also involve the kids in this work, whenever possible.

With an eye towards doing my own maintenance, I choose my battles when I get a new (or more likely, used) bike. I prefer parts that are likely to be reliable, and that are straightforward to adjust without a proliferation of special tools.

[jdietrich]

Basic maintenance is an essential cycling skill. Bikes are lightweight machines by necessity, so they can't be over-engineered for reliability. Bikes will inevitably break down on a fairly regular basis.

Fortunately, they're also boneheadedly simple machines to fix. You can learn to change an inner tube, align a derailleur, adjust a brake caliper and true a wheel in about an hour. If you have those skills, you can do 90% of your own repairs. You'll have an infinitely better cycling experience, because you won't end up stranded at the side of the road because of something that could be fixed in two minutes.

[analog31]

Indeed, and it's also a necessary skill if people are going to buy bikes online. I think it's pretty likely that a bike receives its initial adjustment and testing after it's assembled by the recipient. And I've read about quality lapses such as bearings with little or no lubrication, and insufficiently tensioned wheels.

[rlonstein]

I think you mis-spelled "bodging" ;)

I've spent months, maybe years, of time fixing and maintaining cars, motorcycles, and bicycles. It's useful when something breaks on the side of the road or when you get an estimate for repair. There is the satisfaction of being self-sufficient and able to do it yourself. There's also the screaming frustration when you break something-- which happens when you're learning like over-torquing a bolt (tighten until it spins then back off a quarter, anyone?). cracking a housing, snapping the head off a stuck bolt, watching a unique and critical part improbably pick up speed on a flat work area as it rolls away from you drawn to the siren song of a sewer grate or a gap in the deck. I want to spend time with family, friends, on hobbies, or, you know, actually use my vehicle instead of recreationally bust my knuckles on it. I'm happy to read all the manuals and squint at exploded diagrams then pay someone else to do it while I go play.

[jandrese]

Once you've done that work once it will be much easier the next time. Affordable bikes don't have any sort of self adjustment, everything has to be done manually, so if you don't know how to make the adjustments you will be in the shop every few months getting it tuned back up. In my experience shifters are the worst for getting slightly out of whack as the chain wears out, and are the most fiddly when tuning. Brakes are the second worst as you're trying to balance the spring tension on the two sides exactly so it doesn't rub.

[rhinoceraptor]

I'd say wheel truing is the worst. It's tedious and you really want a dedicated wheel truing stand, and you may need spare nipples in case you round one off. Second to that is setting up tubeless tires, it's messy and you might need an air compressor to seat the bead.

Derailleurs are easy once you know how to set the limit screws and adjust the cable tension. Disc brakes are tricky, but again if you know the trick then it's pretty easy as well.

[jessaustin]

Occasionally I imagine that I understand how to set derailleur limit screws. Inevitably, that illusion shatters within a month. b^(

[Dangeranger]

The easiest way to get a derailleur limit setup is to de-cable the derailleur, and back both screws all the way out.

Then the derailleur spring will bring the chain all the way to the highest gear (smallest cassette cog), and since you backed the limit screw out, the chain will want to rub against the frame stays.

Use your fingers to push the derailleur up into a lower gear and then turn the limit screw for the outside limit one full turn. Repeat this until without using your hand to guide the derailleur the chain rests in the highest gear without needing any force, but also doesn't rub against the frame stay.

Then use your hand to push the derailleur all the way to the lowest gear (largest cassette cog) and try to get the chain to fall between the cassette and the wheel spokes. If it can fall over the inside of the gear and into the spokes then turn the limit screw for the inside limit one full turn. Repeat until the chain can reach the lowest gear without using excessive force, but cannot fall off the cog toward the spokes.

Add some lock tight to both limit screws so that you don't have to adjust them again, and you are done!

Now just reattach the rear derailleur cable and adjust the tension if you need to.

[petre]

Quality brakes are usually easier to adjust. Like Avid V-brakes or Magura rim brakes for instance. Luckily I did not have to bleed them yet. Cantis are by far the worst, although I've never used Avid Shorties.

[adam]

I just experienced this with a bike I bought my wife on Amazon. Amazon offered free assembly at a bike shop about 5 miles from my house. The bike was shipped to the shop, I was notified it arrived, and 3 days later I got a notice it was ready for pickup. The shop was friendly about the exchange and we ended up buying several accessories while we were there.

[china]

This works when Amazon picks a bike shop to do the assembly but often times they use independent contractors that have absolutely no clue how to assemble bikes. I've seen forks put on backwards, handlebars upside-down, real nightmares.

[pro_zac]

This approach makes a lot of sense. Where people really need help is bike sizing and fitting. What size bike do I order? How do I adjust it to fit me? Bike manufacturers will list a height range for each frame size on their website. You will need to adjust things differently if you are on the upper or lower end of that range.

The other model I've seen work locally is demoing high end bikes. Specifically mountain bikes. The local shop has a weekly mountain bike ride where you can try out several bikes. This is probably worth the effort if they sell a couple extra bikes a week. The mountain bikes they demo range from $3-6k. This shop has bikes on the show floor, but could easily switch to demo only.