so i started a bike shop. update 31/07/24

[Twister]

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bought an Ultrasonic cleaner, awesome!!
IMG_7526 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

Reading through your thread on the shop. All credit to you for taking the plunge, the world needs more bike shops like yours.

How have you found the ultrasonic cleaner? Is it the 6l version?

 

[jonnyboy666]

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i like it, i use a mix of degreaser/water and it cleans the chains up pretty well, then i wash it off in my normal parts cleaner then leave it to dry, they come up pretty good, even the cheap non plated chains

 

[al-onestare]

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@al, yeah, knowing what people want is very important, there is the element of "if you build it people will come" but you can't just stock high end stuff and expect people to turn up an buy it, it's slowly slowly but even if you do go high end you then shouldn't ignore or dismiss the lower end bike rider which is what a lot of shops do when they go high end

And I think that's the trick. Knowing your customer and sticking to it and moving with their trends, within a reasonable scale, works best. If you're high-end, go high-end. If you're mid-range, accessible, go that way. If you're looking at the lowest common product, buy cheap sell high (margin), go that way. Mixing these up is when the customer gets confused, and the shop looses it's core identity.

 

[jez-4-bikes-max]

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bought an Ultrasonic cleaner, awesome!!
IMG_7526 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

Reading through your thread on the shop. All credit to you for taking the plunge, the world needs more bike shops like yours.

How have you found the ultrasonic cleaner? Is it the 6l version?

I think I need to buy one of these.

What do you put in there to clean - anything? Chains, cassettes, cranks etc?

 

[jonnyboy666]

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i use it mostly for chains, i have a bigger Rozone parts cleaner for bigger stuff, i find that anything coming out of the ultrasonic cleaner tends to have silt from the process on it so i tend to wash it off in the parts cleaner afterwards but i really think they are useful. i probably use it 4 to 6 times a day. definitely pays for itself in terms of time.

i set the timer for 20mins, hit start, my challenge is to then remove the rest of the gearset, clean it in the parts cleaner and stand to dry, then clean the appropriate parts on the bike in the stand, then true up the wheels, that should be about time for the chain to come out at which point i wash it off and leave to dry, then wipe off all the other parts and refit them, then once the chain is dry i refit it and set up the brakes and gears, it's become a routine and methodical.

 

[jonnyboy666]

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thought i'd do an update to this thread, it's been a while, lets face it it's been an amazing year for the bike trade for a really awful reason.

so the shop is now 4 and a half years old. mental that it's been that long! so this year started with me going back to NZ, the idea was to go back to Burkes Cycles for their 100 year anniversary party, while i was there obviously i got some riding in, and i bumped in Valentin Anouil, factory Orange ride and his buddy/mechanic Karlito, crazy pair of guys and they came out riding with me and the Burkes Cycles boys, unfortunately while we were out the head mechanic at Burkes had a bit of a mishap and went over the bars and broke his collar bone, as a result i stayed a little longer and helped out at the shop, my shop was being covered by my friend and he was happy to cover for an extra 4 weeks. so as a result i got 6 weeks in NZ with loads of riding. see pics

pics descriptions, Peter Burke has a nice pickup truck, me and Pete on Mt Vic in Wellington, and my 2020 model Orange 5 at Makara peak

 

[jonnyboy666]

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so after i got back from NZ at the start of March the shop was reasonably busy for the time of year, then the lockdown happened. now truth be told i didn't get it to start with, why was Covid any worse than anything else? but the family was panicking a bit, as a result i moved in to my sisters place with her as my parents who i live with have various health issues meaning we were worried about passing it to them if i got it as i deal with the public. but one night at my sisters did my head in, so i moved into the shop. but there was also another reason, by the time i moved in to the shop the break ins had started, loads of shops and business' in the area were getting broken in to as they were empty or shut down for extended periods, also people were at home so thieves were hitting business property as opposed to home break ins.

then the poo hit the fan.

the shop went mental, i was up at 7am and drove 10 miles to my sisters place, dump/shower etc, back to the shop to find a queue at the door, mental. i was taking in sometimes 20 bikes a day, wasn't finishing for the day until 11pm if i was lucky, then hitting emails, orders, bill paying etc. after 3 weeks of lockdown i had no bikes for sale, nothing available from suppliers and a pile of bikes everyday that were mostly shed/hedge/pond finds, most needed 26" basic tyres and tubes, a bunch of cables, grips and replacement chains due to rust, it was soul destroying to be honest, although at least it was good money for feeding the till.

but i was getting knackered, at 56 days in a row of 16plus hour days i called it. shut the shop for a week.

but in that week i carried on working, to get through the back log, so i had finished on the saturday, then worked every day in the shop till friday on the repairs, then on saturday and sunday i built 2 custom bikes, then had monday off, then opened again on tuesday morning, 22 bikes came through the door in under 2 hours.

crazy :shock:

so in may i ordered the 2021 kona's. they started arrving in late july, no bike was on the shop floor more than 2 days, i went to order more, the whole range was sold out for the year. sucks. the rep has been in this week to talk about the 2022 range which shold hopefully drop end of May, brought forward for obvious reasons.

anyway here's a few pics:-

my social distance T shirt
typical start of bikes, cobwebs!
the tips were good though!

 

[jonnyboy666]

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so now finally it has calmed a bit, still very busy, but manageable. i got home tonight at about 830pm, that's abotu average at the moment.

the shop is looking quite good though, not quite as tidy as i want it but it's a proper working shop, these pics were taken today, might have to reply to the thread a few times to fit them in.

 

[jonnyboy666]

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more pics!

 

[jonnyboy666]

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more