Let's talk bike shops

[darkemeralds]

Recent bike shop win and bike shop fail has got me curious about other people's experiences.

What's your best bike shop experience? Worst? Ideal that hasn't happened?

Do you have a preferred local bike shop? How would you characterize it? Neighborhoody? Big and sparkly? Sport-and-performance oriented? Down and greasy and can fix anything? Woman-centric? Family-friendly? All-purpose?

And how do you use your bike shop? What kinds of repairs do you have done and what kinds do you do yourself? Do you buy accessories from them? Peripheral sporting goods? Clothes?

Do you have a good selection of bike shops in your area? Do you know if different ones have different specialties?

How far do you have to go to get to your favorite bike shop? Do you feel loyal to it?

Me, I dislike working on my own bike, and as documented here recently, the bike my former bike shop sold me has needed probably more work than average, so I've been a frequent flyer at the service counter. I'll have a flat fixed at the nearest shop, but for scheduled repairs I'll ride three or four miles to my new favorite commuting-and-city bike shop (Clever Cycles FTW!), where I plan to buy my next bike. I'll give my limited accessory business to whoever has the beset stuff (again I say, Clever Cycles FTW! Cutest panniers you've ever seen.)

There are approximately eleventy-eight bike shops within the Portland area, and half of them are within an easy walk, ride, or push of my home or my workplace, so I can afford to be kind of picky. So unless I've got a flat in the rain, if I walk into a place that has all men staff and all men customers, and mostly speedy sport bikes, I expect I'll walk out again.

What about you?

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I can't speak to the "support female staff" aspect, but we are always so torn -- mail order for parts has better prices, but when we really get into trouble with bikes, there are a couple of shops that have very cheerfully repaired, fixed, given advice, etc. Yeah, their markup on parts is enormous, but maybe worth it.

also, when the husband had a defective Specialized frame a couple of years ago, the bike shop where he bought it totally went to the mat for him with the manufacturer and he ended up with a new frame. so i guess the local shop is a good thing. despite the markup.

unless you're a great mechanic your own self.

and i bought my shoes from the shop -- i don't dare buy shoes without trying them on. again, the markup. but it was worth it.

[darkemeralds]

Warranty work is the best reason I can think of to have a bike shop on your side. I'm getting some of that myself this week.

I can see why you'd want to avoid paying high parts prices to a shop when you're going to do your own labor. My sister is avidly learning to be her own bike mechanic, but since I don't have the aptitude, the eyesight, the knees or the place to be my own, I'm glad I can support the local bike biz.

Now to move towards a bike that doesn't NEED quite so much repair...

[princessofgeeks]

they really are in it for love, as far as i can tell.

[uhhuhlex]

In the city where I cycle I've been to about 4 cycle shops in my time here (4 years).

One was near an old house I lived it. It was quite large and seemed to have a quite wide range of stock - even if most was kids bikes and mountain bikes. One thing I disliked was that it was just *too* clean. I felt guilty wheeling my mountain bike in there. That said, when I bought a new lock the man did put the frame bracket on for free. Something small, I know, but appreciated.

The second is probably the one I've used most often. 8 months ago I moved just round the corner. This place is a real cyclists shop - the window is jammed with sexy bikes and you can barely move inside for frames. I bought a new seat in here reduced once, they fitted new brake blocks and a new inner tube on my old bike, and they fixed Doolittle's brakes a few months back. One thing I dislike is that there is an American guy who is really condescending, but the guy who owns it is always nice.

The third is the 'community' bike shop. I admire what they do here - training local kids and recycling old bike parts. However, I have found them really condescending the past few times so I've sort of fallen out of love with them now. I went to them for a second hand bike and they said they had nothing for me - in a room full of bikes. Boo hiss.

The last is the only shop I haven't been to in person, but they did a health check on Doolittle on campus 2 weeks ago. The man was really understanding, seemed to genuinely admire Doolittle and gave me advice on panniers (don't get big ones for a folder or your heel will hit them). I had heard good things about this place before because a friend bought the most beautiful vintage Kingpin from them. They also have a mission statement I agree with 'all kinds of bikes for all kinds of people'.

[darkemeralds]

On the one hand, "boo-hiss" indeed on being told they have nothing for you. On the other hand, I wish the shop where I'd bought Clyde had told me the same thing. It would have saved me a good deal of money and heartache.

"All kinds of bikes for all kinds of people" sounds like an attractive mission statement. I don't know that it's possible or desirable for one shop to try to be all things to all people, but that mission statement sounds like it's intended to attract more of the workaday cyclist, rather than the sporting and competitive sort. I'd go there!

[vlion]

There are 2 bike shops in my town (Moscow, Idaho). Of those, I use Paradise Creek. Largely because they don't upsell me, unlike the other one. There are several other stores that sell bikes.

I also liked the bikes they had better than the other one - I selected a Retroglide 1, which has mostly endured my use, but I tend to bend the wheel on the local curbs.

Anyway, I would characterize it as "hippie downtown", which also describes most of moscow downtown.

I use them for tune-ups, bike tube purchases, and repairs that involve specialized tools or knowledge.

[darkemeralds]

I've never been to Moscow, but any town with a hippie downtown sounds like fun to me.

When you say "upsell" do you mean sell you more than you need? Or higher prices than the next place?

And that Retroglide is a fantastic-looking bike!

[vlion]

Well, they want to sell me 'more', more repairs, more items, etc. I don't like being sold at.

My bike is 'creamsicle', it is white with orange highlights. Very nice. :)

[wychwood]

I'm pretty lazy at doing things to my bike myself, so I tend to take it in for things like flat tyres; our local shop is pretty small, but we've been going there since I was a child, and we've always been fairly happy with them. There's not much competition, though; there's a big Halfords (I don't know if you have these in the US? It's a car-accessory chain, but also does bikes and their accessories) not too far away, but they don't do repairs as far as I know, and I don't know any other specialist bike shops.

The staff seems to be all-male, as far as I've ever seen, but it's quite family-friendly - as I said, they did all our bike work and sold us most of our bikes when my siblings and I were growing up. It's actually attached to the local blind school, so all the staff are blind or partially sighted; it's kind of a community project, in that sense, I suppose. They don't have much in the way of accessories, and I've not had much contact with them beyond just taking my bike in and collecting it once dealt with, but they seem reasonable to me! They just opened a new branch more convenient for me, and I think it's got a bit more space; I'm hoping to go and take a look soon!

[darkemeralds]

Your bike shop sounds in some ways like the best of all worlds: community-oriented, local, long-established and family-friendly.

I should have been more judicious in my wording about all-male staff. I didn't mean to imply that that's inherently wrong, or that such a shop will be unfriendly to women bike-riders. I meant that if I don't get a woman-friendly vibe, I'll walk out, and the combination of all-male staff, all-male customers and all-men's bikes has been a fairly good indicator to me of my being unwelcome there, despite the fact that they're happy to have my money.

[wychwood]

I didn't mean to imply that that's inherently wrong, or that such a shop will be unfriendly to women bike-riders

Oh, no, I do get that - and they're pretty good that way. They don't really seem to cater to the sport-biker crowd, you know? And that seems like a good sign for not being jerks about people who don't look like their idea of a sports cyclist :)

[copracat]

There are three bike shops within two minutes ride of my house and another two within ten minutes ride. Why yes, I do live on a major bicycle route in my town. My favourite is the part of a small chain (three stores in our town) and all the shop assistants (mostly men, a couple of women) I've dealt with have been respectful of my non-male, non-lycra-wearing self. They don't try to upsell or ever suggest much beyond my (fairly firmly stated, I admit) financial limits. I've also found their other customers to be friendly, too.

The shop is varied: they sell all-ages bikes and those trailer and such that are for transporting kids or pets. Small critters, anyway! So they have a family-friendly vibe.

[darkemeralds]

I'm struck by your saying that their other customers are friendly too. That's a huge point that I hadn't thought about consciously. But of course, I'm going to feel more at home where the other customers are more like me. In the bad-fit bike shop I wandered into and wound up buying Clyde, my current bike, I always feel like a huge clumsy in-the-way thing and the other customers are allowing me to speak to the mechanic with a sort of embarrassed politeness, the way one might if a mentally disabled person were ahead of them in the queue at the bank or something.

Hah! This is a great insight. I'm going to the place where the other customers smile at me and talk bikes.

[rivenwanderer]

My parents live near Portland, and Clever Cycles is my girlfriend's and my "home away from home" bike shop (it's where I got my excellent panniers, and she ordered her Dutch bike through them). At home in Cambridge (MA), Broadway Bikes is the place I take my bikes for repairs. I feel really good about them :) I'm hoping to either take a repairs class or rent repair space with employee instruction sometime soon. The fact that they will both fix your bike and be happy to teach you to do it yourself is really valuable to me. Right now my MO seems to be "drop off bike on the way to work, pick it up on the way home" when something minor is wrong with it.

I had a pretty bad experience with a Somerville bike store--the mechanic was an older guy who was pretty condescending about the loaner bike I'd brought in to have the squeaky brakes dealt with.

[darkemeralds]

Well, it's good to know that I'm not alone in my Wrong Bike Shop experience, but it's sad that it happens everywhere.

I think the "drop it off before work" MO is wonderful, especially since in my own case, it can make the difference between riding or not riding on a given day.

That "bike school" looks great, and that "learn to ride in the city" class is fantastic. We need some of that here!