Bike Shop Tales: Times Are A Changin'

Fully-stocked bike shops may become a thing of the past.

The other day down at the Collective I had an interesting conversation with a man who donated a bicycle to the organization. After chatting about his bicycle, he mentioned a local shop and how he had a "bad experience" (his words), and wasn't ever going back again.

Unfortunately, I hear this more and more, and not all specifically tied to one shop, but across all the shops in our area, to be honest.

The stories are similar: No good selection of wanted items, or none at all. Poor customer service. Poor outcomes with mechanics. It is a sad state of affairs, and things do not seem to be getting better.

Now, I don't know if this is something seen in other areas, (you, dear reader, can chime in on this in the comments if you'd like.), but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this isn't just an Eastern Iowa thing.

So, what is going on here? Well, from my own personal viewpoint, I can say a few things. First, getting good help has been a perennial problem with local bicycle shops. Low pay due to low charges for labor to customers makes holding on to even the decent mechanics and sales people really difficult. This has been going on in shops for decades, yet no one can seem to crack that nut to get to a place where bicycle mechanics and sales floor help can be paid enough to stick around, and be worth putting teaching resources in to.

A pumpkin I carved at work in 1996.

I was apprenticed under a very smart, patient owner of a bicycle shop starting in 1993. Most shop owners were not like this man, and many are not able to hold a mechanic's hand to get through all the little things a seasoned mechanic should know. I was very, very fortunate to have had my career in bicycles start off with this mentor.

Now, I would have loved to have mentored other mechanics, but my owner during the majority of my mechanic career was not interested in paying me to do this. It was assumed I would do this out of charity. Amazing....

So, in our area I have noted a dearth of any "good" young mechanics. I have seen a similar noticing of a lack of good young mechanics elsewhere. In my opinion, it is not because younger folks do not want to work. I would say, again, in my view, that a lack of opportunities is more to blame, and the bicycle industry bears the brunt of this blame.

Finding knowledgeable sales people falls into a similar  pattern. All of this leads to poor customer experiences. Of course, there are exceptions, but we needn't go over all of that here. Those examples are going to become fewer and further between. They already have.

So, the young man I spoke with at the Collective, a bicycle enthusiast in the making, by the sounds of it, has taken matters into his own hands. He told me he can get pretty much whatever he wants with his smart phone, have it shipped to him, and use You Tube videos to learn how to repair and adjust his bicycle. Okay, so maybe he won't get things quite right, but he can blame himself and try again. He's learning a new skill, and eventually he'll likely get it "good enough" that a bike shop won't be in his future. And I think he's aiming for exactly this.

Compound this sort of thing with youth who visit me at the Collective asking for electrified bicycles and scooters. I show them the 100% human powered bicycles we have at really affordable prices, but these things are not what they want.

Again, these are just my experiences, but I'd be willing to put money down to say this is something more common than we think.

And the future of bicycle shops hangs in the balance......