dbmtb":up8h4ge2 said:
Only thing about Rose and Discount and Canyon and all the other similar German outfits is that they're another nail in the coffin for your LBS in terms of bike sales.
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You see i used to think this too and every time i bought a discount part i had a pang of guilt, went to my lbs the other week to get some spokes replaced and a wheel trued. i was told that i would have to wait a week for the repair becuase business was booming and they had a backlog.
Usually i get chatting in there for an hour or two and it can be hard to get away, this time they had no time to talk to me.
The bike shop used to sell high end mtb componants and bikes the now shop does its trade in commuter bikes, it sold 3 in the 20 minutes i was there.
A guy came into to have a tube replaced , could not do it himself so £25 for the tube and fitting in total.
I watched people paying silly money for lights i could get on line for a quarter of the price
I even said to the guy that i thought you guys were struggling, he said business is crazy and we will never go to the wall. The majoity of their income is now through repairs ad replacement parts and not through people upgrading.
When i go there i see deore level stuff at the same price as i can get xt and xtr stuff online.
Just because we are clued up about bikes doesnt mean everyone else is, there are massive portions of the population who would never take a spanner to a bike, would not have a clue what part to buy and so rely on their lbs.
then there are all the jobs the average home mechanic cant do, facing, chasing threads, reaming seattubes etc which the LBS does.
My LBS understand that i go online for cheap parts, they do the same for their bikes, but they also know they cant compete with these businesses with low overheads.
A few years back i saw a good few lbs local to me close, those that have weathered the storm are well established and here to stay it seems