State of the industry: a running thread

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Tootyred said:
A typical example of my horror was aptly demonstrated 2 weeks ago when my nephews school bike went back to halfords for its final, 3rd year check....( apparently part of the purchase deal).

Sadly hes been told it needs £250 of work....new chain, sprockets, brake pads .......plus possibly a new pair of calipers....oh and possibly a new rear derailleur...but those exact ones are not available anymore.

But the good news is a new bike is £300 at the moment....so guess which skip the old ones going in! I said i would see if i could get it going to sell, but the bikes hardly worth £20 on Facebook....and then there's the grief.....

problem is not the kid riding it....he's got a retro muddy fox i gave him and he looks after his kit, its the appalling quality of the parts on the bike....oh and the frame....and wheels.....its just junk.

Companies selling this rubbish, in a world where apparently we are eco friendly and are trying to preserve resources and energy, deserve to go to the wall.

Its time for some tough lessons in sustainability.

Imho...obviously. 🤣
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Time's up on the three year service agreement and, lo and behold, the bike's no longer economical to repair. 🤨 It sounds like a sales assistant trying to get a new sale. If it's a Carrera Vengeance or similar, surely that's no more than £100-worth of parts + the nephew learning how to fit the parts (or asking his uncle to help out!).

A friend of mine has had a woman's Carrera Vengeance for the last six years or so; as a lifestyle choice, she doesn't drive, and the bike gets used in all weathers, all year round, towing children in a trailer, and sometimes with a child seat on the top tube too. The bike is fine. Sure, it's seen better days but, functionally, it's fine.

In this case, is the problem for sustainability the quality of the bike or the quality of the advice being given? There might not be exactly the same rear mech on sale anymore, not by Halfords anyway, but I bet there's a compatible one to be found easily enough, although it doesn't sound like that was mentioned by the shop staff because there was more to be gained by not mentioning it. As the industry suffers, I wonder how many other unnecessary, unsustainable sales are being pushed on punters.
 
CassidyAce said:
Time's up on the three year service agreement and, lo and behold, the bike's no longer economical to repair
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Yep. Exactly my take on it. Pure bs. £125 in parts and apparently £125 in labour ......

Sadly my brothers not of the fix it mindset...so he's now bought him a new bike....despite my advice to buy second hand as the markets groaning!

But its another bike sale to them....however disreputable it might be.

Halfords and their kin have a lot to answer for....
 
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I currently fix cars - I really REALLY have to keep my gap toothed mouth SHUT when I go near any Halfords when I see either a car being butchered for the dashcam fitting or a bicycle being hacked to death for its pre-sale.

even watching some poorly paid monkey trying to change a light bulb makes me itch (many vehicles need the bumper removed for access)

capital letters there, a RARE thing for me

RARE!!
 
ChromeChainstay said:
now we are talking! but shimano wants to kill me with there cranksets, dare i say so. Campagnolo dropping there low end, i hope they go under imo. such are the thymes •
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Curious why "Campagnolo dropping there low end, i hope they go under imo."?

From my side, I hope they make it out to the other side and continue what is now a very rare European cycling and manufacturing legacy.
 
Woz said:
Curious why "Campagnolo dropping there low end, i hope they go under imo."?

From my side, I hope they make it out to the other side and continue what is now a very rare European cycling and manufacturing legacy.
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They don't sponsor anymore teams. The Ekar buzz seems to be fading. Maybe they will follow suit like the others and be bought out by the middle east. They gave up on the World Tour teams to push their new electric gruppo. big mistake imo. can't see them surviving really, am i wrong?
 
hmm . . . campagnolo.

i love the stuff, right up until it went carbon fibre, the most modern stuff i have is record 10 speed, carbon brake levers and rear mech faceplate, what's that? maybe 2000, 2001? after that it went full carbon over the years, at that point i just didn't want it anymore, campagnolo has always been very pretty, polished alloy was part of that, when it went carbon it started looking boring, stuffing electrics in to it was something that they needed to do to keep up with sram and shimano but it has not been well recieved, not to mention the brake calipers looking very tektro in terms of finish.

i think they should push alloy silver groupsets again, get the brakes sorted out, stick with mechanical gearing, campagnolo are an old school company with old school customers, i think thye should focus there more.
 
Okay, I'm parachuting in on page 30 so I'm probably repeating things so here's my insider view....
First, this gives me a warm fuzzy feeling for my oh-so-unfashionable monthly Bike Jumble.
Second, I called it the David Brailsford ( " marginal gains " ) effect in the past where marketing focused on a thing THAT WAS INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE ( a widget, weight-saving, internal routing, 1mm difference etc ) where people are now seeing the emporer's new clothes.
Third and final. You don't spend £15k on a bike. You spend a maximum of £2k on the best retro bike ever made and the rest on your family or holdays or education or a pet giraffe but not a bl00dy bicycle that's unservicable by you because of internal cable routing.
 
I really like where the industry is going. My Serotta SLX frame/fork cost 250$. Let the market melt selling 13spd and 14spd bikes to the non racers • until 1 of the big 3 buys up the classified electric hub patent • a big mushroom cloud in the sky °
 
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