I have a local bike shop that I would like to support, but they stock only the cheapest no-name parts and charge way more than the premium parts on Amazon.

I went to get a replacement inner tube--nothing special, just a 26x1.95 with a Schrader valve--and all they had was some Chinese brand (Hilong or something like that?) for $35. I want to support local businesses, but come on. The only thing they offered over Amazon is that they would install it for you for a modest $50 in labor.

They also basically don't stock anything under $800 if you are looking to buy a bike, and even those are Giant brand mountain bikes with trash tier hardware. I went looking for something I could commute to work on every day and they were trying to sell so much fragile carbon fiber stuff that was miles outside of my budget range. I don't need to shave 5/10ths off of my commute, I want low maintenance, comfort, and ruggedness. Apparently that's totally uncool and biking is all about ultralight and ultrahard--feel every crack in the pavement through the hard plastic saddle! I wasn't impressed with the line about "it's more comfortable because you use less energy to get there".

It sounds like a local bike shop isn't really what you're looking for. Under $800 a Decathlon/triban road bike is pretty decent.

There are commuter bikes for $100 but it's just not worth servicing them because telling someone it'll be 40% of the original bike price in labor + parts to fix something not major is hard for them to accept.

> low maintenance, comfort, and ruggedness. Apparently that's totally uncool and biking is all about ultralight and ultrahard--feel every crack in the pavement through the hard plastic saddle!

Carbon is more comfortable by reducing the vibrations that you'll feel compared to aluminum.

The reason why they stock shitty parts is because they appear to service really cheap bikes and for people who buy cheap bikes, that's what they want. I know many shops who wouldn't service cheap bikes and I know many shops where they would but I wouldn't trust them with my more expensive Trek road bike. So it's strange that they also stock carbon frames.

They insinuate the shop marks the price of the tube up ~10x and charges $100+ an hour for simple labor.

You don't seem to respond to those things.

My LBS charges the same fee for any labor, whether it's changing a tube or building a wheel.

If you ask a skilled professional to do menial trivia, expect to pay for their skill level.

Oh I just realized they meant inner tube and not top tube (I was confused about that while reading it)

Yeah an inner tube for $35? And it's not even those fancy orange ones?

Well it's not hard to change it yourself, as long as they're not charging more than $4 for a basic ones. If they are actually selling it for $35 that's pretty yikes. I'd just buy it online given that it doesn't benefit from retail (you don't need to see a tube in person, just need to know the dimensions)

The bike shop can't compete on price with the biggest online retailers/Amazon. I have my doubts about a tube costing $35. $10 or $15 rather than the $5 you'd get online, but I have been to a lot of bike shops and that 10x markup doesn't comport with anything I've seen. Perhaps the $35 also includes the labor? (Also, it's an inner tube - it's a cheap commodity product, who cares if it's a Chinese no-name brand?)

Bike shops need to charge for labor because most people don't buy bikes from bike shops anymore, so labor is where they make their money. $100/hr for labor is on the higher end but doesn't seem crazy in expensive locations. Not to mention that the prevailing way people treat bike shops (as places you can walk in at any time, get your bike fixed, and walk out) is incredibly antithetical to bike mechanics actually being able to take the uninterrupted time to focus and do good work.

> Carbon is more comfortable by reducing the vibrations that you'll feel compared to aluminum.

Is it actually noticeable for an average cyclist? I don't doubt it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a marketing slogan from carbon frame producers and people went with it, and since their bicycles were more expensive, they "felt" better.

> Carbon is more comfortable by reducing the vibrations that you'll feel compared to aluminum.

So you approve of my steel frame bike? ;-)

> they were trying to sell so much fragile carbon fiber stuff that was miles outside of my budget range

This is self-awareness issue. At what point did you realise you'd wandered into the wrong shop for your target segment? Judging by the misrepresentation of the genuine preferences of folks like me, as being somehow nonsensical or antithetical, I suspect, "not yet".

I'm reminded of the vegetarian who visits a steakhouse and complains there's nothing for them on the menu but salad.

> all they had was some Chinese brand

Place of origin indicates nothing about the item manufactured, and product labeling even less so. Most bicycle tube & tyre production is in E/SE Asia.

> it's more comfortable because you use less energy to get there

I wonder if these people are internally consistent enough to eschew the use of ramps or pulleys.

I didn't read it to say that, just that it is very hard to be a mechanic only shop - they also need to sell something else to be a profitable business.

In London there a few mechanics/coffee shops that stayed profitable that way.

If more people cycled I'm sure you would see more 'just mechanics' but in most places they can't afford to be that.

Bikes are pretty low maintenance, the repairs are usually fairly simple, and the parts are cheap. It's hard to make margins on a low price low volume service. If a bike is really damaged it usually makes more sense to just replace it wholesale.

If e-bikes take off they could help. There are a lot more moving parts to break and especially electrical issues to track down. Electrical issues are real moneymakers in diagnostic fees on cars.

I think you might underestimate the higher end bike market.

Parts are often higher priced than what lots of people pay for complete bikes (e.g. a set of disc brakes 400$, a MTB fork 1000$, a groupset 1000$, a wheelset 800$, a dropper post 300$, etc). And the associated repairs like a brake bleed, a shock service or a wheel rebuild might take time and will have a high cost too.

You don't have to look into ebikes. On Mountainbikes that are used as intended parts break often enough to keep mechanics busy.

Ebikes might however indeed bring the higher priced bikes to a higher amount of people.

High end bikes are a tiny sliver of an already small market.

And also, while a groupset might indeed cost $1000, what sort of circumstances might require one to replace the entire groupset?

(We're talking repairs rather than upgrades.)

A chain for a high end group (like a XX1 Eagle) is 80$. A replacement cassette - that you will need after 2-3 chains is 300-500$.

And if you are into mountainbiking - there is also a fair amount of chance you might break something like a derailleur and spend a few hundred to fix that.

Riding 50k km on dust/gravel roads, and the frame and wheels will still be good but chain and groupset will be significantly worn.

Chain is indeed a wear item. It costs tens of dollars to replace.

$1000 groupsets simply don't deteriorate in the manner you describe. Source: I rode many thousands of kilometers on my gravel/adventure bike, including a 1000km ride around Kenya (very dusty, rocky roads where there are roads). The only two groupset components I needed to replace on this 2016 bike so far were the derailleur hanger and a jockey wheel. The former got bent due to carelessness on my part and could have been straightened, but I chose to replace it for structural reasons. The bearing in the latter got a little sticky and so I replaced the jockey wheel.

Each of the two parts cost the equivalent of US$15 here in the UK.

I think this is a very long way from replacing the entire $1000 groupset, which was what the post I was replying to suggested.

I believe the new 11s/12s with their higher chain angles tend to wear faster. They actually recommend changing it with the chain.

I think we're talking about different things.

I am talking about the groupset (the shifters, brake levers, brake calipers, derailleurs, crankset, bottom bracket, chain and cassette).

There are indeed some wear items (chain; cassette, especially if the chain isn't replaced when worn; brake pads; brake rotors) but, apart from those, a looked-after quality groupset can last decades.

> Bikes are pretty low maintenance, the repairs are usually fairly simple

Most forks and rear shocks require full service yearly or more frequently (typically every 100 to 200 hours). It is not that simple and requires experience and tools. Tubeless tires are messy. Bleeding breaks is another thing I would rather not do at home. And frankly, I can never setup my derailleur as well as my mechanic.

> the parts are cheap

Shocks, forks, transmission components, performance wheels are easily in the iPhone category and beyond.

Clothing, protection, accessories, smaller components like handlebar stems or seatposts are still usually in the three digit range.

You would be surprised to know how much consumables like chains and tires can cost per year.

> low volume service

I might be living in a place where both MTB and road cycling are very popular, but bike mechanics have so much work that they redirect clients to each other.

> If a bike is really damaged it usually makes more sense to just replace it wholesale

Full suspension bikes can easily have a $2K frame and $2K worth of components. Unless it was hit by a freight train, the bike is almost never completely destroyed by a crash. So it makes sense to replace what's broken. If the frame is solid, everything else is replaceable.

As long as bikes are ridden hard, there is always work for mechanics, and it can be pretty expensive.

An acquaintance of mine tried to do the cafe/sales/repair thing [1]; he went more high end on all three, selling fancy drinks, pricey Dutch cargo bikes, etc. It didn't work out. I think they lasted ~3 years, though it was clear by the end that the writing was on the wall.

[1]: https://twitter.com/berlinbikecafe

I'm not exactly sure why Berlin Bike Cafe didn't really work out in the end. I do think KW is very well served by existing bike shops, and while Graham focused on a market segment that isn't well-represented by incumbents, it meant that he needed time for it to grow as well. London Bike Cafe seems to be chugging along quite nicely on a similar model, so it doesn't seem like it was an entirely hopeless endeavour on the face of it.

> he went more high end on all three

Maybe that was the problem there?

Possibly, but it was also not a large storefront, and it's been replaced by a boutique donut shop. It's down the street from a creperie, a wine bar, and some other bistro thing. There used to be a health food store on this block.

Basically just saying that some combination of floor space, rent and other fixed costs, etc etc led to pursuing a higher-end business model and it didn't work out. There may be lots of reasons for that, but one of the principles here is that you need to be able to bike to your bike store— it's not fulfilling its purpose if it's in a power center plaza that you need to drive to.

Yeah high-end cafe seems like a tough sell. A cheap cafe to go to during group rides sounds great for having people learn about your high end service shop.

I feel like high end bike service in general is a tough sell unless you have a huge local club-ride community of people whose time is extremely valuable.

I know someone who operated a Velofix van for a few years, and I used it a few times, but the minimum cost was basically $100+. For that much coin, I would just walk my bike home or take it on the bus. Particularly if it was something like a flat tire where I know I can fix it myself at home for a few dollars.

Berlin is the wrong place for that. Even in tech salaries are often in the EUR45k range gross, and with mandatory medical insurance at EUR400/m, rent at probably EUR800/m and still taxes it doesn't leave much for expensive bicycles.

Cheap bicycles plus good mid-priced service is where it's at. Of course, that's hard, dirty, skilled work.

Note that this is Berlin as in the pre-WWII name of Kitchener, Canada, not the Berlin in Germany.

Ah, I saw a similar setup in Berlin, Germany at a location which has now been replaced by Rose Bikes, and the cafe seems to be gone.

It’s not that simple. If you own a brick-and-mortar store of any kind, there are a lot of costs other than labor and parts, like the building itself, marketing, security, and attending the desk or phone. A lot of these costs won’t go down if the store stops selling new bikes; they’re flat, or there’s some minimum amount that you can possibly buy.

What is the "true rate"? You could say it's whatever you need to charge to keep the lights on and rent paid based on however many hours a week you expect to be performing maintenance. You could say it's what people feel is fair for skilled labor. You could say it's what people historically pay for the service. But we are talking about bike shops going from selling things and selling services to just selling services, so it's really what you need to charge per hour to keep the lights on.

So if the "true" rate ends up being more than the market will bear, and you dont have alternate income, you close down.

So it isn't really a situation where one thing had an artificially inflated price and the other an artificially deflated price, more like the way bike shops as we know them work is to have diverse income streams, and removing an important one means that the business model as we understand it ceases to function.

The reason is that the price elasticity of demand for bikes, outside of, say, the netherlands, is extremely elastic. Your counter-argument presumes that cycling can't just fail, that the prices are inelastic enough to support mechanic-only shops.

I truly believe that cycling, as an activity, can just fail and cease to exist. It has ceased to exist in many areas in America. Many, many, many novice cyclists would rather abandon cycling than pay a large premium on bicycle maintenance. Perhaps there is a different business model that would work, but I see the large manufacturers as having in interest in creating an environment where maintenance service can be delivered at-cost.

The mechanics end up helping pay for the building and profit margin, same as everything else in the shop. There’s a price point where you can keep your mechanics running at 90% every day, and that may or may not pay for the building.

I see this as the major issue. Any business has to pay the commercial landlord. That rent seeking behaviour is a huge tax to place on a business.

The only way I would operate a shopfront business of any kind is if I owned the building. But I'd need to build a business first that could pay for the building. If I can build such a business, then I likely wouldn't bother with the shopfront until you get "Apple" big.

You lose about half of your customers when you move to a new building and the landlords know it.

Big companies and churches play this right. They buy more land then they need, and when the market is down they buy more, and when they have too much they rent it out a few years at a time so they never have to wait long to expand.