A bike shop should choose its customer wisely | Hacker News Reader

A bike shop should choose its customer wisely

cyclingindustry.news

111 pointshippich161 comments

Shops that do well are shops that earn their place as community hubs, and that's a pretty organic process. It takes time and care to build trust.

I am very lucky, my LBS has all of sheldon's old bikes on the wall next to the mechanic's station. They are respected enough and established enough to sell everything from $15k S-Works to $6k rivendells to $250 giants. You'll find everyone from Cat-2 guys to the local daily commuters there and it's a chill scene because everyone feels welcome.

> I am very lucky, my LBS has all of sheldon's old bikes on the wall next to the mechanic's station.

Do you mean Sheldon Brown? His website and all the information about bike maintenance is still one of my favorite things.

Their shop built my first fixie hub and wheel for me years ago, with lots of advice. Sadly someone stole that wheel from me, but it was great for 16 years.

I only ever got to experience Sheldon virtually, but he seemed like a really amazing person.

That's a strange flex, but I like it. I had forgotten about Sheldon Brown. He was an excellent author and I learned a whole lot from readin his writing.

His site is a great example of what the late 90s/early 00s web was good at doing: https://sheldonbrown.com/

Clicking the "what's new" was a great lesson in the difference between old-web and only-somewhat-old web: it took forever to load and I was like "huh, I didn't expect that, given how fast the index loaded and how it looks", then when it did finally load it was obviously a Wordpress site (old web is very very fast, somewhat old web is slower and full of "too many SQL connections" errors, new web is all 5MB of Javascript to display 100K of text).

Meanwhile, as a touring cyclist, I got a lot of cold, hostile service from the staff at my LBS. When I finally complained to the owner, he said "Look, you're a tourer. You know how to do most of your own maintenance and you buy low-margin gear. A bike shop needs to focus on the racer and clueless commuter crowd to stay in business, and serving you probably is probably a net-negative for us cost-wise".

This really opened my eyes to the importance of margin on bikes and bike parts; it is no wonder that shops like to sell the latest carbon frames, because the margins are huge.

> serving you probably is probably a net-negative for us cost-wise

I never understood why businesses do things like this. In many industries there is often a class of customer that it is proclaimed "we don't make any money on them" and as such they provide a low quality of service. If you actually lose money why don't you raise prices on them? Why are you worried about losing a customer you claim not to want in the first place?

It's in the article. Because these are the kind of customers who provide no loyalty back. They'll drive an hour to get a part from a different shop because it's cheaper. There's nothing you can do to attract this kind of customer apart from lower margins. So why bother with them if you can run your business well by focusing on everybody else?

If you aren't happy with selling items at the price you are selling them at, why sell them? I just don't see the reason to be rude about it.

Then increase your prices to a level you would be happy, and if they want to buy somewhere else, let them.

Doing low quality work is a great way to lower both your reputation and job satisfaction. And you better be 100% certain of each customer's lifetime value, otherwise you'll have a problem.

> And you better be 100% certain of each customer's lifetime value, otherwise you'll have a problem.

This resonates with me. When i was younger I used to get ignored a lot at certain kinds of store. Now I have more money I still avoid them on principal.

The article’s point is that they can’t, or they’ll lose the custom of the people who have no loyalty to their LBS and shop on price alone.

I get the exact opposite point from the article...

Anyway, if you want to serve low-margin customers, optimize your business against them, and be happy with those low margins, because you won't get any of the high margin ones.

Also, publicize your low-margin focus (tell up-front that you won't do non-billable services, and what service comes with what item), otherwise you'll be full of annoyed customers wanting reparations after a bad interaction.

The claim is that this particular customer is net loss. In that case, the customer driving elsewhere because you raised price or stopped selling is a gain.

The concept of selling part in a loss instead of raising price and then treating customer badly so that he does not buy that is still mystery.

The more absurd idea is stocking parts that sell at a loss (outside of a specific loss-leader sales campaign).

I do some basic repairs myself (up to changing the chain or ball bearings) but I don't want to do anything that requires special tools or dynamometer keys or just too much time. Sometimes the shop owner tells me to buy some parts myself (I remember the rotors of the disk brakes of two new wheels.) I bring them to him and he does the repairs. Maybe he was me pay more for his time but it's OK.

Btw, the shop was flooded by customers looking for new bikes at the end of the lockdown here (Italy.) That lasted for a month with long lines at every bike shop until the warehouses run out of parts. I saw an increase of people using bicycles at least until temperature got past 30 C (86 F.)

I'd expect some cases it's about customer development and long-term relationship development.

If you sell me a $200 basic steel bike, you might be selling near or at cost. But if you've earned my trust and comfort as a customer, I'll be back to buy my spare tyres, oil, replacement parts, and eventually the higher margin $800, $1500, $6000, and $20,000 bikes.

You must be joking, though? Who spends more than randonneur, with their hand-made frames, hammered fenders, and leather saddles?

Touring cyclist != randonneur. In any event, for tourers those handmade frames tend to be steel, and the majority of LBSs (i.e. specialist shops in a handful of countries aside) are reluctant to stock steel touring frames because they will seem too heavy and overkill to the majority of local consumers. As for leather saddles, maybe the margin on a Brooks isn't actually that high.

I guess I'm lucky that around here there are shops that cater only to steel frame buyers (like Stone's Cyclery in Alameda), shops that sell mostly cargo and family bikes (Blue Heron in Berkeley) and several others where you won't find anyone from the carbon and lycra crowd hanging around. Those folks are well-served by places like Mike's Bikes, but I don't want to go to a bike shop where most of the customers arrive in cars.

Why would one want a steel frame, besides it being somewhat cheaper? I've seen Al for $250 so the savings don't seem to be so great either. Maybe as a beach cruiser.

Some people prefer steel frames over aluminum because they transfer less vibration to the rider. So the aluminum-framed bike is usually a harsher ride. It's also generally more durable.

I own two bikes, a gravel bike with carbon front and steel frame, and a touring bike with aluminum frame. I did some 200 km day rides on both at about the same pace. The gravel bike is more comfortable off road. The touring bike is more responsive and probably faster on paved roads but I do my serious cycling with the gravel bike now. Those are the expected characteristics of steel vs aluminum. A full carbon frame would be the best, comfortable and fast.

Steel frames generally have a plenitude of attachment points for bags, which is important for people who need to carry all of their food, clothing, and shelter (and tools and spare tires) on the bike.

Aluminum is generally more challenging to machine and weld correctly. I've personally had stock aluminum frames split, and I know that failure mode is much more likely than in steel. For those and other reasons steel is also easier to safely modify if you ever need.

It's not necessarily cheaper. Only budget hi-ten steel models are cheap. You'd want a quality steel frame if you have skinny wheels and value ride quality or if you're a tourer and want a bike that has many attachment points as is weldable in any shop or if you're a BMX-er and throw your bike around all day long or if you're a bike messenger or a fixie type and want a long lasting serviceable bike or if you simply like the looks of skinny tubes.

Steel frames gives you a much smoother ride, and unless you do a lot of short climbing, the difference in weight doesn't matter that much. In fact, a heavier frame carries more momentum, which can be a benefit in some cases.

This seems odd. Most people don't understand bikes, although they are very simple. You'd think they'd want to keep you on side as someone who could refer others.

this is what i meant about getting lucky: sheldon's old shop is very friendly towards people like you and me.

I bought my steel frame there, and had them install the headset, and then i built the rest of it myself and had their head wrench give it a safety once-over for $50 or something.

they're a rarity.

Tourers also need stuff like a wheel or a chain or a tire or at least a tube. Or having their rack welded.

Carbon frames are a seasonal fashion item: a new model will come out and the shop will be stuck with the older one.

This is also super important for small online businesses (e.g. specialized e-commerce shops).

A McMaster-Carr Or ThermoFisher that moves online already has a customer base and channels. But a site that sells, say, lactation aids, needs to be more than just a storefront.

You know, I had jury duty at the nearby courthouse and meant to visit. I’ve moved out of the Boston area now. I a immensely envious that that’s your LBS.

If You get a chance, CycleLoft is a Brompton dealer and seems like it might fill a similar role in that community. I made the trip from Somerville when I needed some Brompton parts. They also sell a wide variety of other esoteric brands. Love them.

ETA: Bicycle Belle in Cambridge is another lovely shop that knows their customers by name.

Shops that cater to commuters seem to be lovelier in general. At least that’s been my experience, and it seems to be echoed by TFA.

The owner of my local bike shop describes his work as "we're a utility." When I moved here last year, I planned to buy a bike because it's bikeable and it was the first place I went on the first Monday morning I was here. While I was waiting around for them to open, a man rolled down the hill in the parking lot with the chain hanging off his old and originally cheap bike. The owner said "Let me fix that" and did and the man peddled off to wherever he was going without having to pay in about the time it took you to read this.

The shop is run on a sliding scale and weight weenies can buy weight weenie gear at weight weenie prices and homeless vets can get a bike at homeless vet prices and I get what I get at something in between and feel good about paying because I trust that the money is going toward sustaining something that helps people who need help.

But I'm worried that he'll go out of business because the pandemic is killing his parts supply and the new bike distributors are dealing with empty warehouses.

What I see in the article is a bike shop I probably wouldn't patronize because it rationalizes treating some people badly. It's not any more difficult to be nice to non-customers instead of angry at them. I just don't want to deal with angry small business people. Ultimately they are not trustworthy. YMMV.

To be fair, he did fix the guy's bike and only harbored resentment afterwards, but I understand your point.

>What I see in the article is a bike shop I probably wouldn't patronize because it rationalizes treating some people badly.

100% agree. bike shops need to stop trying to pick their customers, and just sell stuff to people who want to buy it. it's nice that some bike shops can function as community hubs, but there's way too many run by people like the author of this piece, who have the "i didn't get in this business to get rich" attitude and use that as a justification for treating "their crowd" well and being rude or dismissive of the others. I eagerly await the future where 90% of local bike shops have been killed off by online sales, because then i won't have to deal with the jerks who run bike shops.

i actually get nervous going into a bike shop in a new town, because i never know if they're going to accept me as part of their crowd. when i just want to buy a bottle of chain lube, that's not something i should have to think about.

He wasn't being rude or dismissive to others. He cites repeated examples of being generous and welcoming to passing cyclists who repay his kindness with disrespect. I'd go out of my way for a shop like this.

yes, the author does not specifically cite examples where he was rude to roadies or mountain bikers.

But he wrote a 1000-word essay about why bike shops shouldn't cater to us and celebrating the failure of shops who do. as both a roadie and a mountain biker who's gotten sneered at by plenty of bike shop employees, this doesn't lead me to believe i'd be welcomed with a smile when i walked into the author's shop.

I got the impression that if you were polite and realized that it is a shop that caters to regular folks you'd be fine.

You just described my experiences with motorcycle shops.

Man I wish there was less "MC culture" there and more customer service. Where I live it feels so bad that although I have a driving license since a month, I do not fancy the idea of buying one in a shop but rather steer clear from them and buy online.

Which, I am certain, will bite me in the youknowwhat when it will be due for service.

Good luck fixing your bike online then. Bike shops that want to survive should primarily stick to fixing bikes and keep inventory that sells regardless of fashion trends. Like a tube, a bottle or chain lube. Also parts needed to fix bikes. There's little point in stocking new bikes today, but one could order for the customer or build custom bikes on order.

I mostly build my bikes by myself but I also go to a shop for things I can't do myself and also buy stuff from them even if it's more expensive because I don't have to wait for delivery.

We didn’t read the same article. The owner describes giving the same service to bike club members and grannies. They just have an opinion on which they value more.

Some people are more profitable as customers. Other people are less profitable as customers. They are each and all equally valuable people because they’re people.

And I know you’re just using language in the way it’s often used. But that’s exactly my point. The author of the article is comfortable passing moral judgement on people based on their instrumental value to him. Valuing older people with money is ethnically and morally equivalent to valuing weight weenies.

There is nothing uplifting in the article. No bicycles for migrant agricultural workers. No bicycles for teen mothers. The mentally ill. Ex-cons. The unemployed.

Because the author doesn’t value them.

The proprietor values a sustainable business that supports the community. It's not a charity, but still useful, and that's ok. Didn't state that they're rude to rude customers per se, just discussed them in relation to regular customers. I have no reason currently to disbelieve them.

Did we read the same article? Actually I think the guy is a marketing genius. Know a shop that caters to women, the entire sales floor is women. Always suspected they might be killing it. Guys always say nobody ever goes there, but what they mean is no men ever do. Girls buy bikes too.

e-bikes are probably going to vastly expand the market of bikes for this guy's target demographics: women, casuals, and older people. They overcome a lot of the power problems with wind and climbing that make biking inconvenient for the less athletic. You can get around town without dripping in sweat at reasonable biking speeds. You can bike at good speed without back-straining aggressive postures.

The Dutch are bike-crazy partly because of the amazing flat terrain they have, and e-bikes effectively flatten all terrain.

> weight weenies can buy weight weenie gear at weight weenie prices

Do you really think mocking segments of their customer base helps the industry (and the public's perception of bicyclists)?

These are people that have been called a lot worse, from MAMIL to Fred. These are legitimate cycling industry terms for subsets of their population:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_cycling

I learned the term “weight weenies” from hanging around people who call themselves weight weenies at my aforementioned local bike shop where they shop and hang out because weight weenies are welcome just like the man with the loose chain on his old cheap bike.

I’ve seen this term repeated five times in this thread, and still have no idea what it means?

Cyclists who value lighter parts or somehow obsess over their bike's weight. This guy:

https://youtu.be/-Q590MNTz6M

Please read the article.

> their competitiveness isn't just about their cycling stats, but buying from the cheapest source.

Well, yea. Competitive cyclists want to buy that $1000 power meter, or those $2500 ENVE wheels as cheap as possible. How many add-on products can you sell somebody who just needs a bike for commuting? Of course service is the biggest business there.

Isn't it cheaper to work with existing customers than to find new customers? All the shops near me cater to their existing customers by selling beer. All the group rides end at the bike shop and 50 people buy a pint before going home (granted this was in the past.... I have no idea how these places are still in business this year).

> I pump his tyre for him and ask if he'd like a replacement inner tube. "Not at your shop prices," he says.

That guy sucks and it must be so frustrating to deal with. I always walk out with several GUs or drink mixes when I stop by a shop. I'm sure that doesn't keep the lights on, but I try.

>> I have no idea how these places are still in business this year

Around here the shops are all nearly sold out and have been since May. It's crazy busy and sales are BOOMING for all of them. The largest shop has racks for probably 200ish bikes, and there was maybe a dozen in the entire store last time I was in there a few weeks ago. Bicycle sales are awesome this year in my area. I assume next summer there will be more than a few of those bikes bought this year listed on craigslist "used 3 times last year" :-)

That is really good to hear. Hopefully I'm wrong about beer being a large portion of sales for my local shops. For me, the whole cycling thing is about community. I just hope they are still around next summer.

I'm sure that there will be plenty for sale next year, but from my experience out on the trails people are actually using their bikes more than they used to - which is a great thing!

If I ran a bike shop, I'd definitely add a consignment component to the business, and make it really fair to the bike owner.

I saw the same here in Singapore. Waiting time to get a service was on the order of weeks, if not months. I used to be able to drop it off and pick it up a few days later. Now they won't even accept my bike because their shop is too full of bikes waiting to be serviced.

My local bike shop is something of a throwback. They don’t sell $2500 wheels, in fact, I don’t think they sell a whole bike that costs that much.

They sell a lot of kids bikes and a few medium-end hybrids and road bikes to the parents. Like you said, though, most of their revenue comes from service.

Before the pandemic, I was worried about them going under like a lot of wonderful brick and mortar, mom and pops have. I would buy some parts or gear from them even though I could get it cheaper on amazon just to support them.

These days, amid the COVID biking boom, I have to call at least a month in advance for a tune up. They are swamped.

I think the best bike shop is the kind of bike shop where you don’t notice “classes” of bikers/cyclists because people aren’t “presenting” themselves.

> > their competitiveness isn't just about their cycling stats, but buying from the cheapest source.

> Well, yea. Competitive cyclists want to buy that $1000 power meter, or those $2500 ENVE wheels as cheap as possible.

Is this the ultimately the market for parts from bike chop shops? What I never quite understood is how parts from stolen bikes are turned into cash; some of it doubtlessly goes through eBay or craigslist, but those sites are new and bike theft isn't. My suspicion is that a lot of stolen parts somehow find their way back onto store shelves as "second hand" parts that can be sold at very low prices for a large profit.

People are hopefully not locking up bicycles with power meters, or full Dura-Ace di2 or similar in public to be stolen by the local metro area's drug addicts.

Anybody who lives in a sufficiently large city, and rides a bike worth more than about $1,000 or so, knows that they will never be locking it up and walking away from it anywhere.

Maybe not those accessories in particular, but what of the rest of the bike? Tons of bikes are clearly getting stolen.

I agree they are, but from watching the several local social media groups in my metro area which are trying to keep track of stolen bikes, everything that I see stolen, if it were road would be Tiagra level or lower components, or if MTB/city bike would be deore equivalent or cheaper.

The main exception would be downhill bikes that are occasionally stolen from garages.

I think a lot of them are just cheap crappy bikes that get cut up for scrap too. Someone stole my heavy-ass steel 90s Schwinn mountain bike that was worth maybe $50 used at the time. I had a big ass lock on it too, and they cut right through it with one clean snip. I was pretty pissed because I had just fixed it all up, but there weren't any expensive components on it... Not sure what kind of money could be made on it. Maybe a few bucks at a pawn shop?

Also around Seattle, I have noticed a lot of places that look like homeless camps, but right smack in the middle is a huge pile of hundreds of bicycles. Just sitting there outside. Part of me thinks that a lot of bike thefts could be mentally ill people collecting and hoarding them.

"However, the problem as I see it, is many IBDs have as their customer base, competitive cyclists. Road and mountain bikers. By their very nature, their competitiveness isn’t just about their cycling stats, but buying from the cheapest source."

I spent a few years working in a bike shop and I think that's about right. It's nice to be able to sell high end bikes, but if you're lucky you sell a few a year. Regular people look at a bike that's $3 or $4k and are scared off, "OMG this place is way too expensive" and as a bike snob, I see something that's $200 and think "yuck". The people that came back a few times a year for tune ups and flat repair and other small things were the ones that kept the shop open.

The prices of mid range to high end bicycles and components are out of whack. Compare to what equivalent motorcycle parts cost and it's clear there is huge price gouging going on in the industry. Why are 105 level bikes $2000+? Why are tiny bicycle tires $50 when a middling motorcycle tire with more substantial construction is $100?

$50 for a bicycle tire!? Try $100! Maxxis and Schwalbe have no trouble asking for $90+ RRP on their bike tires.

If you can get hold of them, I had to wait two months for a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Tour tyres.

Right, there has always been something amiss about the LBS sales model. Besides franchise restrictions, nearly every bike I've purchased has needed to be ordered. And its not a week long turnaround, i've had to wait months for them.

Frequently by midyear, its more like, hey all the bikes of that model are sold out, you have to wait until next year to order whatever they happen to produce.

Its the manufactures which have really turned me off recently. I DO NOT WANT a 27.5" through axle bike for my middle school kid. Yet, outside of maybe a single XXS bike, not a single manufacture makes 26" bikes anymore. So you have the choice, of the sporting goods store bike, or some 27.5" where the geometry is wrong for someone who is 5.5' or so (besides now having to carry a 3rd tire size when we go on family outings, me with my 29" and my other kid with a 26" from a couple years back).

So, having customers walking around with $$$ in their pockets and not having a product to sell is a problem. Particularly, when the answer is "come back in 4 months" so we can check inventory again. In four months, I've probably managed to find another source.

Try finding a ten year old rockhopper comp, those were mostly still 26" with QR and seem like a great budget friendly choice for a middle schooler.

Kids are not a very lucrative market for the manufacturers or for the bike shops. Hardly any parents are willing to shell out four figures for a bike the kid will outgrow in nine months.

Yah, I've been trying, the used bike market seems even crazier at the moment than the retail bike market. I've yet to find anything that is both the right size, and not either a complete POS, or multiple thousands of $.

Try buying a 300-500 kids bike right now I dare you. Everything is sold out. Totally worth it btw with all playgrounds shutdown nothing for the kids to do of all ages 3-16

I got a 26" bike for my son a few months ago [1]. It was the last one in the area so I had to pay full retail, which certainly was a disappointment, but it's got a great frame and we can upgrade components as he wears them out

[1] https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/kids-bikes/kids-hyb...

I miss a good bike sale. Since the pandemic and subsequent lockdown none of the LBS' in my area are doing sales. they move as fast as they can get them (except the carbon racers)

Get your kid a BMX or a 26" dirt jumper. No gears = not much to break. Or a 4x 26" bike with gears if you want them. You can also install gears on most DJ frames with an additional mech hanger. Sadly the only options for 26" are dirt jumpers, some 4x bikes, 26" BMX and some specialized 26" tourers. I remember the 80s when every kid in US movies rode a BMX. Fun times. We rode Soviet or domestic 20" foldables in Eastern Europe.

I needed a pair of Maxxis High Roller and had to call around a lot until I found a shop that had a pair.

As annoying as that was, as a biker I'm really happy that more people people take the pandemic as an opportunity to discover biking.

I recently bought a BMW GS310 motorbike for 5.5k (new, not used), that is just 500 Euros more than my Mountainbike did cost. Sure, the BW is an entry level model, and the MTB is upper class, but still. Mountainbike prices are a rip off, especially if you consider that after 3 years you will have problems getting spare parts for some stuff on the bike.

BMW will make parts for damn near ever. I can still get new parts for my '81 R100RS, which is damn incredible!

> Mountainbike prices are a rip off

You haven't seen road bikes. Look for S-Works.

In our local group rides there is a guy who rides in the fast group on a mountain bike. That is always my reminder that money is best spent on something like trainer road rather than upgrading your components to save grams.

He would still benefit from a road bike. Moving from 30 pounds to 20 pounds is significant without delving into weight weenie territory.

I have to lose at least 30 pounds before my bike's weight is my biggest problem.

Would he care though?

A good 80% of the people I see riding 3k+ road bikes (in an area that likes to bike, there are lots of them) are carrying far more extra pounds on their bodies than they could ever shave off the bike. It's probably safe to say that the vast majority of people riding bikes have far better bang-for-buck performance improvements available to them than a new bike or components, but don't choose them....

If he's riding in a "fast group" then the weight savings will be worthwhile. You can do this with a used 20 year old aluminum frame. It doesn't take elite hardware to benefit from light weight.

If he's keeping up with the fast group already, he may not care (i.e. it's not worthwhile, to him)

I'm not saying you have to spend a lot of money. I'm saying people mostly don't do the obvious performance changes anyway, and for most riders it doesn't really matter (as they aren't doing anything competitive enough to need it).

The weight has to be way less important than the tires. Mountain Bike tires have more ground contact area and have very aggressive tread compared to a road bike tire, which is going to have a huge effect on efficiency. You can hear the difference if you ride each style of bike over the same piece of pavement.

I stuck some smooth tires on the 30 year old mountain bike I was riding around town. It's amazing what a difference it was. It wasn't that expensive or hard to do either.

Of course it made me run headlong into the fact that the bike was geared to go up hills and I was hitting the top gear of it even on relatively easy rides.

Maybe he likes the exercise...

In our local group road ride there is a guy who rides a single speed gravel bike that he assembled himself out of random used parts, and he still beats the rest of us even on hill climbs.

Not really, the whole point of "cycling" is conspicuous consumption and virtue signaling. The high price is what shows that you aren't some pleb riding a bicycle shaped object out of necessity. It's also health conscious, so extra status points. So the market charges this much as a differential, in the same way a "bespoke" suit is pricer than something off the rack.

People who want a car-alternative for necessity either buy a wal-mart bike, a cheap electric/gas moped, maybe a motorcycle, or walk.

How is it different to people who buy, or custom build, high-end PCs when chasing high FPS? What home user actually needs a 16-core Ryzen CPU?

Nobody can see your 16 core Ryzen

> People who want a car-alternative for necessity either buy a wal-mart bike, a cheap electric/gas moped, maybe a motorcycle, or walk.

This isn't true across the board. There are absolutely folks who have a $12k INEOS Pinarello because of status, but there is real value in more expensive bikes (more expensive than walmart).

Going from steel to aluminum is a very recognizable weight difference. Your commute just became more manageable.

A 105 groupset is way more reliable (ime) than lower grades. Your gears will shift better, not click, not skip, and not drop your chain during your commute.

A bike shop (which sells more expensive bikes than walmart) is going to fit you properly. You may get lucky with the walmart bike, but a proper fit removes knee pain, lower back pain, shoulder pain and neck pain.

If you are commuting, shopping, using your bike for real world things, the extra money is well worth it.

Note: I'm talking about a $500 -> ~$2k. Not a $5k bike for a commute. By ditching your car, you more than make up for the $1500 difference in insurance payments, car payments, gas payments, it really adds up quick.

> A 105 groupset is way more reliable (ime) than lower grades. Your gears will shift better, not click, not skip, and not drop your chain during your commute.

Really? I feel like my old 8-speed Sora bike needs far fewer derailleur adjustments than my newer 11-speed 105 bike.

I guess this is because the higher-end groupsets are lighter-weight and have more gears (so, a thinner chain and finer mechanical tolerances).

Walmart bikes suck. Mopeds and motorcyles require licenses and insurance. Walking...I'm not sure you're even serious.

Not everything you disagree with is "virtue signalling". As a bike commuter (i.e. ride for transport not pleasure) the difference between a Walmart bike and a $300 Trek is night and day. And between that and a $700 bike is still good, if you can afford it. Quality costs money.

Totally. And people who use cars to travel to work buy the cheapes cars available.

It's insanity... Average sales price for new cars is like $37,000 right now. I'm a huge car nerd, and can't justify spending that kind of money on car. I can get a lot of car for $10k used.

Could be low market volume, or drive for low weight. I share your observation, but last I knew, many things on bikes are made by hand. Carbon fiber frames are laid by hand, nice wheels are built by hand, bicycles are assembled & adjusted by hand... and a nice bike might weight 20lbs while a nice moto might weight 400lbs.

If there was anything on a bike that seems strangely expensive, my mind goes to shocks. Fox sells a small number of models across the entire mountain bike industry, and participates in multiple other large industries as well, so you'd think they would have plenty of volume for economies of scale & amortization of R&D.

it's because cycling enthusiasts are generally wealthy. The high-end bike industry is a scam, standards change all the time for dubious reasons. Soon it'll be impossible to find a new 26" tire.

More substantial construction does not necessarily mean that the component was more expensive to make. Powerful engines make weight reduction far less valuable than on a bike.

This is true for every domain that has a sizeable number of passionate hobbyists. When you have a big enough group of people that make thing X part of their identity, statistically speaking a few of those people will be rich, and purveyors of thing X will eventually create products that cater that price point.

Basically, if you've got someone who has $100,000 and wants to have the best X, someone will eventually make thing, claim it's the best X, and slap a $100,000 price tag on it. I mean, why wouldn't you do that? A fool and his money are soon parted, and rich fools are the best of all.

Men seem particularly prone to this and you really see the effect in "masculine" pursuits.

See also: Audio hi-fi gear, musical instruments (guitars in particular), watches, photography, cars, liquor (whiskey in particular (Scotch in particular)), cigars, woodworking, etc.

If dudes got into knitting, two weeks later some company named YarnProMax would be selling the neodymium jacketed titanium-core YarnSLAYER6000 needles for $18,000 and there would be dudes who bought them just so they could show them off to other dudes at the BBQ.

It's annoying, but it mostly affects the very high end and there is plenty of good affordable gear a tier down. Even better, a lot of this stuff trickles down into the used market for much better prices, so these people tend to act as a net win for the hobby's ecosystem by infusing it with extra money.

Gucci handbags and Jimmy Choo shoes aren't a thing then?

I'd like you to consider whether your response to my comment is a charitable interpretation of what I wrote, or unnecessarily combative.

The bicycle building business is more of light manufacturing and motorcycle building business is more heavy manufacturing. The difference is at the component level economics. Bicycle manufacturers buy the same Shimano groupsets as the local bike shop. Motorcycle components are mostly bespoke and manufactured to a specific motorcycle manufacturer's specific specification.

So motorcycle components don't have all the overhead costs of bicycle components. There's a lot of marketing costs in the price of a Shimano groupset whether it arrives at Trek's loading dock or via Fedex at a neighborhood bike shop. The chain and gears on a Honda CB650 didn't have a marketing budget to build brand awareness.

One of the most important things a shop can do is very basic - make people feel welcome. I’ve been riding and racing for 25 years. I’ve been in hundreds of shops. I still feel intimidated when walking into some of them. At other shops you immediately feel like an old friend.

it doesn't work everywhere, tho.

Check out how Walmart failed in Germany, for exemple. Among others, management forced the employees to be welcoming to customers, but the Germans found it creepy.

Personaly, I'm more the German kind. I've avoided grocery stores and businesses where the manager is overly talkative and gives discounts for no reason.

IMO, to have a great shop, just have the parts the poeple need, so that they don't come for nothing. Then, have a website to let customers check out your stock, the prices, and choose parts from home. Not only it's reassuring to them, but it's also quicker to you when they know what they want. And know how to fix bikes, as much as possible on the spot.

It's hard to disappoint a customer in a shop. Actually, they'll often be happy and truely appreciate the place. Running this kind of business is mostly about getting them back. When they need something, they'll go to the place they consider the most appropriate. Even if they also like other shops.

I don't want a pushy salesperson and discounts - I just want to be treated without hostility when I walk in the door. I don't want to work to get someone's attention to attempt to buy a $550 bike from them. I don't want a rude answer when I ask what's wrong with my bike, or how long it'll take to fix.

There's a middleground here, and the problem is that at least where I am in the US, most bike shops are actively hostile to anyone who walks in the door - or maybe it's because I'm not wearing a full kit.

I’ve noticed a thing common to most retail shops that are not clothing-based.

Bicycle shops attract employees who are really into bicycles. Computer stores pick up folks who are really into computers. Book stores, comic book stores, record stores… you get it.

None of these types of shops select for "people skills." Insider knowledge is valued, the ability to have a conversation and not make a customer feel like shit is not. It's so bad that archetypes like Comic Book Guy from _The Simpsons_ and the bestselling novel & movie _High Fidelity_ got written and became cultural archetypes.

All of which is a long-winded way to say: bicycle shop employees can be incredible, intolerable jerks.

I'm not sure why clothes seem to be an exception… perhaps because the merchandise is curated by buyers, so rather than hiring experts, they can hire exclusively based on people skills? Or maybe clothes just attract people with more empathy, I'm not sure.

Anyway, when you find a bicycle shop that isn't staffed by troglodytes: make friends. Be loyal. Spend.

The worst people are the ones who work at auto wrecking yards. You can go in and tell them you're here to spend money, and buy parts, and do the fucking work yourself, and they'll still treat you like shit. Like you interrupted the show they were watching and they had to stop and reach for the phone... You can't even call them up on the phone and get a "Hello?" You just get a pissed-off "What do you want?"

I finally found a yard with cool people in it, and interesting cars. But pretty much all the local yards in my area are gone now, and the only one left is the Pick-n-Pull chain...

This is very accurate, and two other types of people working in bike stores are endurance athletes and hipster fixed gear types both of which often give off airs of superiority. I try to spend money at my local shop but as a casual road cyclist I often can’t get the time of day from these types.

It's interesting to contrast western bike culture with China. I've always found it weird how seriously people take it here - gotta dress up in a little speed suit, $5k bike, constant animosity with drivers. I guess that's the difference between a hobby-based subculture and commodity transportation.

The bike shop I'm familiar with is the one-man operation on the side of the road, with a dish of water and some tools on a tarp.

People do this for exercise and because riding fast is fun. Having proper equipment, which can be much cheaper than you might think, makes it more enjoyable. Do you think exercise is weird?

To me, it is a bit weird for exercise to be the public face of bicycling and for riding fast to be the presumed goal and all the bicycle marketing to be aspirational and never practical. Weird because bicycles are such great tools.

There are negative externalities to this too. In crowded big city parks or Multi use trails where safe speed is like 12-13mph you get groups easily going 25mph+ on high end carbon fiber.

> I target customers few other bike shops appear bothered about – the older cyclists who are often returning to cycling after many years’ absence . . .

Crazy coincidence that less than 24 hours ago, I was the customer he caters to. I'm 49 now. The summer between high school and college, I road with a friend from Philadelphia to Maine and back -- 1,500 miles over one month -- with a tent and all we needed in the paniers.

Through college and grad school I biked everywhere. Eventually the MTA offered the unlimited Metrocard and I shifted to public transportation and sold my bikes.

Now I inherited a touring bike just after visiting Joe De Sena, founder of the Spartan Race, at his farm in Vermont (here's the episode on his podcast we recorded: https://youtu.be/hP5h9rpd6Jo), and I may go up there again, so it seems the perfect excuse to restart riding. The bike needed a tuneup, a new seat, and maybe more.

I looked up local shops on Yelp and went to one with high service reviews. They gave me attention and service, even referring me to another nearby shop for some things. I felt confident going with their recommendations on pedals, shoes, and a few other things, not defensive about them profiting off me, so I spent more with them without first checking online.

Solid business practices based on customer service got my business.

Near me, there is a bike shop owner with this same attitude, which is respectable. However, along with high prices, the shop’s service is slow and poor, their brand selection is unpopular, and their knowledge of current bike technology is low. Yet there are always old-timer cyclists in there shooting the breeze at all hours and they have been in business 40 years. I don’t get it.

Bikes isn't about being high techs, nor speed. (otherwise, you need a BMW or an Audi)

If cyclists want something fixed fast (ie on a commuter bike), they buy the part on the internet, or on the way back from work, and mount it themselves in the evening.

Also, there is still a load of retro design in bikes. I'm a student, and I don't have the hotest model from the most popular brand, for exemple. I have a 1990s road bike, and a 2014 trekking bike with stuff like threated bottom bracket, for exemple.

Lastly, a shop that is able to tune a old headset with the 32mm wrenches, straighten a wheel perfectly, and know that your handlebar is probably 25 mm wide, and not 26.5mm like you ordered (or the vice versa), is greatly appreciated. I've seen franchises that were unable to do that.

So shops with experimented people are the place to go.

Yeah, there's definitely an advanced skillset a shop can provide that is valuable. As a commuter I happily clean my chain, adjust my shifters & brakes, patch tubes, and so forth. But I generally don't assemble bikes, true wheels, inspect frames, flush hydraulics, pack bearings...

I feel like I'm missing a lot of context to why, where, and when this is being written.

USA Bike Shops are flat out of inventory, both high end (Rocky Mountain Bikes, Santa Cruz, etc), mid-range (Specialized, etc), and even Walmart/Academy Sports/etc are flat out of low-end inventory.

Agreed, it feels like this was in response to something that I never read.

It's a UK thing. Local shopping is pretty much extinct here (not just bikes, anything). If you want stuff, you get it online, full stop. Even, more increasingly, food.

So local hobby shops that still exist try to carve some weird niche catering for old-fashioned people who value a good banter and "service" over inventory, low price, or competent mechanics.

I can pump my own tyres, thank you, but I find it very sad that there's like 2-3 places in the whole country where you can get your suspension serviced. You need to book a couple of weeks ahead, post it, and total price is like 2/3 of new item.

> There’s a lot to be said for working smart in a business where turnover has shown to vanity and profit sanity.

This isn't grammatical! What does it mean? Is it machine translated?

I think it should be "turnover has shown to be vanity and profit sanity." This is apparently based on a phrase I've never heard: https://www.quora.com/Who-coined-the-phrase-turnover-is-vani...

I realize this doesn't really help, I don't understand the phrase either.

Interesting! I had never heard that phrase before.

Also found this good source:

https://www.otmbookkeeping.com.au/turnover-is-vanity-profit-...

Presumably it should have a ‘be’ in there before ‘vanity’ and thus mean something like, “in the bike shop business, turnover (number of bikes sold) isn’t as important as profit.” I imagine that profit margins are not exceptionally high when selling bikes.

That makes sense of it. Thank you!

I re-read this sentence a dozen times trying to figure it out. Here's my correction, based on sibling comments:

> There's a lot to be said for working smart in a business where turnover is vanity, and profit is sanity.

The entire article is poorly written

Sounds like it might have been written by a bike shop owner, and not a writer. Cut the guy some slack.

Was it ? I couldn’t comprehend the writing well enough to know

When I lived in the US, every bikeshop I ever visited was awesome, and my home bikeshop knew me by name. If anything was wrong they could fix it on the spot, and.major work was usually ready next day.

Now I live in the bike friendly country Denmark, and the bike shops clearly have unlimited customers with no need to stand out. On a recent ride I was 70 kilometers from home and had my second flat. I could see the back tire was done for, so figured I'd find the local bikeshop to replace the tire and tube at the same time. After over an hour walk, showing up in full cycling gear 70km from home, they offer to change my tire for pickup two days later. It's a 10 minute job with the right machine, but my hands can't stretch a fresh tire over the wheel. I wound up buying a tube and changing it myself out the front of their shop, which set a good expectation for the level of service one could expect. Not that it mattered ... again, unlimited customers.

As a customer, I spend at least $2k a year on my bike in service and parts, and never complained or ordered online. Now I buy what I can online.

Spending $2k per year maintaining a bicycle is absurd. Could you not just buy a new bike every year (keep the saddle)? That's obviously a waste, so buy some tools online and DIY. The hardest part about bicycle DIY is bleeding hydraulic disk brakes if you have them, but even then that only needs to be done max twice per year.

I conciously decided that I didn't want to do my own bike maintenance, I do enough stuff as it is.

Every three months I replace the tires, breaks and chain, and have the bike shop do a complete tune up and clean. My last service cost about $400. Then there's inner tubes, clothing, handle bar tape, other replacements, etc that also add up.

My bike is my primary form of transport, and I average about 8000km per year. That's not far off what people put on a car.

If you're happy doing that then fine. I will add though that replacing a chain every 3 months only makes sense if you're a pro. Make sure you also replace the cassette and chainrings at the same time or else you'll just wear your new chain down very quickly. They should all be replaced at the same time. If your cassette and chainrings aren't worn then your chain isn't either. A chain-splitting tool costs about $20.

Entire brakes or just the pads? I hope it's just the pads.

No I appreciate the advice, and at risk of turning HN into a bike forum, I have to ask, how long do you run a chain for? I was told that frequently replacing the chain prevents the cassette from wearing down because you replace the chain before it becomes too stretched and mismatched to the cassette.

It really depends, there are cheap tools that can measure chain stretch. A decent chain should last a year or more unless you're climbing up the Alps every day.

The chain, cassette and chainrings are a combo. If your chain is worn then they are too. Check their teeth. A sign of a worn chain can be gears slipping. It takes some really intense power to wear out a bicycle chain every 3 months.

Cassettes aren't that expensive unless you're going for elite titanium ones. But if you're at that level you should have your own tools in case something breaks on your 100km regular ride!

The chain, cassette and chainrings are a combo. If your chain is worn then they are too.

That's not true. If you change the chain early enough, cassette and chainrings will last for a couple of chains. If you ride with a worn chain, the other components wear at an accelerated rate.

Chainrings will last for more than "a couple of chains". In the touring world, one is usually advised to replace the chain every 2500 km or so. A steel chainring, however, should easily give you 20,000 km of life.

Right. My rule of thumb is about 3 chains for 1 cassette and set of chainrings. Where one chain was about 2500km.

That depends on initial manufacturing tolerances and how it's used. The better you keep it clean and well-lubricated, the longer it will last. Some people get 15,000km out of their chains, I'm hoping for 5000km or more.

I ride about the same distance as you and according to my chain checker the chain is still good enough after 4.5 months ("0.25% wear", change at 0.5%-0.75%).

You are correct about preventative chain replacement (which prolongs the life of the much more expensive cassettes and chain rings).

But, even at that, it's unlikely you need to replace the chain more than annually, unless you're riding many thousands of miles/year. When I was training 10+ hours/week, I would replace chains a few times/year, but now that I'm averaging about 8 hours across 3 bikes, it's pretty much an annual thing.

A simple wipe down of the chain after wet/dirty rides will also help a bunch - just run an old rag along the chain as you wheel it into the garage/shed/whatever.

Brake pads should be annual or less frequent unless you're riding in sand or gritty soil. Same for cables (shifter or brake).

Tires are all over - depends on the type of tire. Mountain bike tires rarely last a season - the knobs start to wear off and the rubber gets harder. I measure their life in hours, not months. Road tires should last a few thousand miles unless damaged. Even longer if you aren't worried about absolute traction.

Edit - you said you do about 8,000 km/year. Most of those maintenance items are probably fine to do annually. What I'd do... take the bike in for a basic service every quarter (clean the chain, adjust the brakes, check for wear). Then annually, do the chain replacement, tire replacement, etc.

My experience on a 9 speed bike is that you can safely get 8000km/5000mi out of a chain in a flat dry place like Texas. For me that was about once a year, and lubricating it 3x a year.

Once you add in bike racks/panniers, trailers, hills, rain, snow, sea spray, sand/grit, etc you may need to reduce service intervals.

There are different schools of thought about cassette wear etc. If you have a 10 or 11 speed bike, which have very thin/lightweight chains (9 speed chain is considerably larger/beefier) then you probably need to shorten your service intervals even shorter. 11 speed chains in particular seem to be very expensive and have relatively short lifespans.

That said, changing a chain on a bike takes about 2 minutes with the quick release links they come with now. It's probably more effort to take the bike to the shop than it is to do it yourself.

Replacing the cassette and chainrings every time you replace the chain is excessive. Chains wear most quickly so have the shortest lifespan. I generally replace the chain when it’s worn by 1/16th of an inch over 24 links (see https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/when-to-replace-a-...), which is around 3000km for me. Cassettes easily last for several chains — you can tell when they need replacing because the teeth look like shark fins. Chainrings last even longer.

I’m also not convinced that a worn chain actively wears the cassette and chain more quickly. How would that happen? The loads involved are the same. In my experience putting a new chain on a worn cassette just results in the chain skipping over the teeth when under load. If you notice that it’s easily fixed with a new cassette.

Get a chain gauge, it will tell you when to replace your chain along with advice from YT Park Tool videos. Normally every 2k kms but varies with wear and lack of maintenance. If you do 8k a year, they you're probably better off with a belt transmission, a Rohloff hub and a pair of Marathon Mondial tires. They're heavy but they can last 10k. And rim brakes, the pads for them are cheaper and last way longer. I still have Maguras on my touring bike and Marathon Supremes.

Even at 8000 km per year, I highly doubt that you need a new chain every three months.

I like the idea of supporting my local shop (I’m an early 30s MTBer, the target of much of this article’s justifiable complaints however I would have happily bought that inner tube if they’d just pumped my tyre up like that and probably gone back to me a larger purchase) but my shop doesn’t deserve my support.

Slow, rude and one ran up a £250 repair bill when I asked them to do an investigation with an initial cap at £50.

There is a guy running a repair shop locally though who I recently discovered, he charges slightly more than I would like but he does a good job, has gone above and beyond for me on one occasion and really knows his stuff. He I will happily give my money, the local shop not so.

Now I think about it, there was a great shop where I lived up north who would regularly not charge me for small jobs. Nothing I did persuaded them to charge me. Their stock was really low end due to being in a poor town so I used to just buy a box of CO2 canisters and a couple of inner tubes, I’ve got dozens of the damn things kicking around still, they must have wondered how I got so many punctures!

This year you can hardly get a bike in New York at least due to insanely high demand because everyone was home from their jobs. We bought two bikes from a shop here sight unseen as they were still in their boxes, because bikes were flying out of the store so fast that they had no time to build new bikes and put them on display before they were sold.

I don't get the mass closure thing they talk about in the article. Where are the journalists based ?

In here, in France, merch in almost every bike shop is easily sold out, as people rushed to transition from car and public transportation to bike, to avoid crowded trains without generating hellish traffic jams and pollution. (and roads were even closed to cars, and became the most enjoyable bike routes,like Rue de Rivoli in Paris, that connects the Louvre, le marais, les Invalides... now without cars)

So they don't suffer from anything, and I haven't seen a single shop out of business.

The entire premise of the article seems to be that the owner has written off the middle to high end of the market, and everybody who rides seriously or competitively. It's just fine, it's a totally suitable market niche to cater to the casual customer, if that's who makes up a large part of the local customer base.

Serious cyclists will indeed laugh at bicycle shaped object sold by Walmart and similar stores. But, when somebody who rides 10000 km a year for regular base training is asked, by one of their friends or relatives to recommend a bike shop and a normal bike in the affordable price range, their opinion does carry some weight.

The best bike shops that I know of are not ones that cater exclusively to the high end of the market, or to only the casual cyclist. but rather shops that carry a full range of everything from bicycles for a two-year-old child, to a $400 city bike, to $6500 road bikes.

How many accessories and higher profit margin small items can a shop reasonably expect to sell to a person who has purchased a $600 bike to ride around town? Helmet, maybe a light? It does follow logically that they would rely on more revenue from repairs and services.

Once you get into much more expensive bikes, which are more technically complex, the riders are also much more likely to be capable of doing a good amount of the work themselves. the sort of people who owns several $3,000 road bikes probably also own at least 400 to $500 of Park Tool hand tools. They're not going to be going into a shop to change a chain and cassette, they're doing it themselves. Similarly people with serious mountain bikes are likely to own their own hydraulic brake bleed kits and such.

UK bike shops had a tough time last year, I seem to remember sales fell by about 50%. Cycling had become very popular over the previous couple of years but I guess once you have a bike there isn't a great deal you need after that.

Most of the growth had come from sports cyclists. I get the impression most of this years boom has come from ordinary people. It's nice to see more utility cyclists out on the roads.

I never thought about bike shops as market selection business cases, but this is a really good write-up. I've had shop owners tell me flat out they were in a different market that was out of my budget, which I kind of appreciated because I had $1,500 to spend, not $4k, so let's not waste anybody's time. But I bet it worked really well for that owner.

I feel super lucky atm because we have multiple shops within a 5-10 mile drive who have awesome service knowledge, and are pretty price competitive with shopping online to the point where I don't even look anymore except in the cases where they don't carry a specific brand I want, and can't order it.

Also, check out your local bike non-profit group/chapter. Some work with local shops to provide discounts on demos and parts + accessories.

Essentially-- don't choose what the industry calls "gearheads" as your target customer base.

It would be like a startup hiring a couple dozen "premature optimizers" to stand around the office all day giving their advice on using threads and SIMD instructions for every line of code.

Interesting article, I grew up in Amsterdam and have been biking most of my life. As I moved to Berlin I didn't for the first few years as the roads just weren't up for it. At some point I ordered a MTB online, got me back into biking for enjoyment (as opposed to commuting), however quickly noticed a gravel bike would make more sense. I bought a gravel bike from a LBS and sold my MTB, however the service was absolute garbage. Everyone who worked there had no clue and were purely box movers.

I would love to find a local bike shop that cares, but seeing everyone and their dog in Berlin bikes to commute nowadays the LBS have their customers for the choosing. A friend actually dropped off his bike 4 (!!!) weeks ago at a LBS because he had a crash with a car and needed to know what was actually broken, they called today to let him know it was ready for pickup, just to be called that they couldn't order the part they needed to repair it.

Sadly, a lot of shops are like this, so the author of the article is correct in choosing his audience. I know a lot of guys I ride with who refuse to spend 15% markup more to get it local and installed directly but will whine endlessly because they can't do it themselves.

I took it on myself to be able to maintain my entire bike myself, which works well too. Sure it was a pain to figure it out but the gratification is worth it too and now I feel confident that on a longer ride (I prefer multi-day) I can repair the bike on the side of the road without stressing out.

The market also shifted, many tech from MTB transferred to road/gravel like thru-axles and disc-brakes. Parts are dropping in price, but if you have an "older" bike it's more of a pain. I opted to go for an "entry" bike with thru-axle, 105 and disc-brakes. I replaced almost every "cheap" component and sold it used for nearly the same price as the sale component cost.

However if a LBS would be as good as my local car shop I'd be there more often then I'd have to be... he did say he considered getting into repairing bikes as cars are less popular, and I figure if you can service a V12 how hard can a RD be?

502 bad gateway.

Choose your hosting wisely (too) I guess?

Maybe I've a bad mobile connection.

oof. no wayback archive, either.

here's the G-cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:J9i6XlH...

Ah, thanks

The article and the discussion so far are all about bike shops specifically, however I would say this lesson generalizes well.

No matter what your business is, one of your first and most important decisions is who will your customer be. Getting that wrong usually leads to a failed business, and even when “successful” can result in a business that is miserable to operate. Fortunately, if you got it wrong to start, you _can_ change who your customer is.

Site seems down. Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200814144723/https://cyclingin...

I've biked a lot, and been into different styles of bikes over the years.

Hands down, the best and friendliest service I ever received was buying my first road bike from Sports Basement (in Sunnyvale).

Buying my xtracycle from a hip Berkeley independent bike store was probably the worst service.

And all the bike snobs (that make normal people like me hate bicyclists) can't click the downvote button fast enough on your accurate observation.

Don't know why you're being downvoted, but I share the same sentiment with you. My first road bike was also from a Sports Basement and got nothing but top-notch service. They certainly got my repeat business.

Bike snobs are probably like coffee snobs, where the bigger the store, the more it's vilified.

Very strange, bicycle shops in the DC metro region are booming.

I agree with the author. With local bike shops, it’s about guiding you in the right direction. When I was getting back in to casual biking, I was thinking about buying a black helmet and the owner said, “something to think about here, let’s say you’re wearing what you’re wearing right now (black sweatshirt and jeans), if you got into an accident in low light conditions, which might prevent your head getting run over by another passing car?”

He was completely correct and I bought the reflective white helmet with light mounts and a light to mount when dark. I probably paid $20 in markup but the advice was worth much more.

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