ibbz":11dp4vpp said:
Is the good old skool local bike shop dead?
There used to be a good few here in Waltham Forest in London - almost all gone except Heals Cycles in chingford and Station Cycles next to wood st station Walthamstow which is mess.
All the other Indy ones - Bellchambers, Ditchfields etc gone.
I've noticed the choices these days are either Halfords and Evans or other boutique upperty shops usually in trendy parts such as Islington and Hackney or Shorditch or Bethnal Green - some dedicated to these new fangled Chinese made multicolour fixie junk
How's it like elsewhere ?
It's hard to tell from this and subsequent posts what it is exactly you want? There are plenty of independent bike shops fairly local to you as pointed out by Jerky, but they are either not local enough or too trendy or too something?
If you mean: 'Is the good local old skool bike shop that had loads of cool stuff at 1990s prices and is staffed by genial tea-supping men in brown coats who'll do complicated, time-consuming jobs on your bike for a pittance 'cos you're local and who order things in especially for you even though they aren't in stock and then kindly agree to discount it on account of the fact that you are a regular customer and "it's cheaper on the internet" and don't cater to the ever-burgeoning high-end road or low-end multi-coloured fixie market but just sort of deal with the things that
I need, now dead?', then the answer is yes.
As outlined by numerous responses to this thread, bike shops are either not carrying the thing people want, right now, at the price that they want, are not able to fix their bike correctly or in a time-frame suitable for them or simply are selfishly catering to a market that is not their thing. I would say the problem most LBS's have now is not the internet, or competition, it's something all the more intangible and harder to react to: expectation.
I know of one proper old school bike shop in my neck of SW London, it's the kind of dusty place with a bell on the door where you are guaranteed a short, slightly stern answer to almost any question, but they will go up to the store room and pull down a 6 speed Regina freewheel in the packet with the original £16.99 price sticker on it if you ask. By virtue of the fact they own the building they work from they have survived this long, though it has become clear over the years that they are really struggling and the workshop is the only way they make any money, fixing cheap fixies and kid's bikes.
FWIW, Evans, Cycle Surgery, Halfords, EBC etc all have some great staff members, are geared to serving a much larger section of the cycling community than is represented by the demographic on this site and have made a great success of a business that has seen many, many people fail.
