Best way to get hired at Bicycle Store

Triathlon Forum
1

I am very interested in getting a job at a bicycle store, but I don’t have a lot of experience in bicycle maintanence and was wondering what people thought was the best way to get into the industry? Do bike shops train people if they know they would stick around? Is there any way to train myself? I have read two different maintanence books, but have not really applied the knowledge. What’s the best way to approach a bike shop owner about getting a job when he doesn’t know your name, but knows that you come into the shop often and spend tons of bills? Are their any benefits to working in a bike shop, like discounts on products or is that something that is decided on by each shop?

David J
ASU SUN DEVILS!!!

3

**HUGE **discounts on product. Almost all vendors have special employee purchase programs. You don’t necessarily have to have bike maintenance experience unless you plan on working in the shop. Retail experience is good if you are interested in working on the floor/sales.

4

It depends on the shop you want to work at. I started working at a shop by having them fix my frame and asked if they were hiring. They said yes and I got the job after explaining my experience (or lack of). I had only done maintenance on my own bike and that was it. I made minimum wage when I was hired and ended up getting about $3 more an hour after 6 months. I quit after that since I knocked up my g/f and needed a real job.

Good stuff was, super deals on parts, my bike was always clean and I got free tubes if I wanted to patch them (HS.college student, so I was not rich).

5

As someone else mentioned, most shops are just looking for a warm body that can move $250 mountain bikes out the door. Shops like Nytro, Bicyclesports, and BikeSport are exceptions to the rule.

Nearly all shops will already have a decent mechanic in the back so you will not need a lot of technical expertise.

Just go to the local shops and be enthusiastic but honest about your mechanical ability. Eventually you’ll find something. And don’t expect to make a lot of money first starting out. Most shop rats work there for the discounts so pay is seldom much above minimum wage.

6

When people ask me if I will train them I walk outside and look at the front of the building. I notice it doesn;t say “Bikesport University” on it.

People can get their education elsewhere, We are here to fit and build bikes, and the margin for error is zero.

I need guys who know the sport, know that sometimes you have to pull all-nighters, can work with customers and are meticulous and have strong checklist mentalities. I need guys who can work under pressure and unrelenting deadlines and with few resources (such as constant shortages from vendors of bikes and parts).

It is a rare breed. Many are called, few answer. It is almost entirely thankless. As a matter of fact, you take shit daily for bike company’s screw-ups.

We have a good crew who can do that, but it is tough to find guys who can hang. Our attrition rate is about 70%. The only person still here after 11 years from the original crew is me.

8

I understand that a shop is not a university and does not have to teach their employees or future employees skills that maybe they should already know or should learn from somewhere else, but where do you start? I understand that there are schools out their, which is one option but couldn’t it be to the best interest of the shop if they taught one person how to do things exactly the way that they like to have things done and can set an example in the future.

I worked in the culinary industry for a long time, which if you care to hear it or not is waayyyyyy harder than a bike shop mechanics job could be. I won’t get into that argument because I know I am right even though I have not worked in a shop before.

Who should be the ones to answer the call of teaching your future mechanics. Since your not going to teach them who should. And why should they teach them in stead of you. Wouldn’t you want to be the one to teach the the “right way/Tom Demerly way” of doing things instead of hiring them only to find out that they don’t do things the same way that you do which you think is worse.

Ok, it is finals week here at ASU and I am getting a little cranky cause I have to study more than I’d like and ride less than I’d like. But the point still stands…

David J
ASU SUN DEVILS!!!

10

So are you telling me that every mechanic in any bike shop has gone to a bicycle mechanic school. I understand that a business must be run, but ther should be room to apprentice. I am not asking to be paid. I wonder if the entire apprentacing world has gone out the window. I hope not!

David J
ASU SUN DEVILS!!!

11

I would imagine that most people that get hired to be mechanics have been already working on bikes for years. Most shops aren’t big enough to hire multiple mechanics, much less ones that don’t already know how to work on bikes. Also, I would think that a bike shop owner would rather hire someone they knew rather than a complete stranger.

12

I would imagine that most people that get hired to be mechanics have been already working on bikes for years. Most shops aren’t big enough to hire multiple mechanics, much less ones that don’t already know how to work on bikes…

that’s clear, but Detsay00’s question still stands. so where does one begin? is it really the case that the majority of bike mechanics went to bike mechanic school?! here in switzerland there are great schools that include mandatory apprentiship. what has happened to apprenticing in the US. it seems like we are losing a bit of craft/skill from generation to generation.

Tom D.'s points all make sense, but what’s not clear to me is the best way to start attaining those specific bike skills. are the bike schools actually good?

13

“So are you telling me that every mechanic in any bike shop has gone to a bicycle mechanic school.”

No way, not even close. I would be surprised if 10% of all bike mechanics have ever been to a school. Those that have were usually sent there by their shop at the shop’s expense. Spending $1000 and flying out to Oregon is not realistic for a $5-10/hour salary.

As I said before, shops like Demerly’s are not “normal” shops.

14

Working on bikes is not brain surgery. All you have to learn are a couple of basics. Derailure adjustments, break adjustments, the ability to remove a bottom bracket, true a wheel. All this stuff can be learned in your basement on your own bike. Not to take anything away from a skilled bike mechanic, but again, it’s not brain surgery.

15

The following is a gross oversimplification of a true story.

Crash it. Break it. Bring it in. Pick it up.

“How’d you fix it?”

“Like this.”

“Like this???”

“No. Like this.”

Crash it. Break it. Fix it. Bring it in.

“Like this???”

“Yeah. Like that.”

“Like that one???”

“Yeah. Like that one???”

“Like this???”

“Yeah. Like that.”

16

I spent the 1st year out of college working at a bike shop–it was about the only thing I was qualified for. My experience b4 I got hired was limited to building & maintaining my own BMX & road bikes. I lived in a small town growing up that had no bike shops–I learned by having to do it. No internet, and before the Zen bike book came out.

I was fortunate that I had a name for myself in the midwest due to triathlons, and I knew plenty of people. Convincing a shop that catered to the college crowd at IU (they sold truckloads of <$600 Mt. Bikes every fall) to give me a shot as a wrench wasn’t too difficult. The first few months, all I did was build bikes. That gets old really fast, but when you are paid $10.00 per bike, you learn how to do everything quickly. Oh, and you will change lots of flat tires (those were sweet–made $1.95 per)–somedays you would have 20-30 different flats come thru the shop.

After the fall rush, and the free tuneups on the bikes you’ve built (which you don’t make squat on, so you make sure they go out the door perfectly with cables already stretched), you get a shot at doing whatever the regular wrenchs don’t want to do (can you say hub & BB rebuilds) or whatever takes the least time & pays the least.

Its not rocket science, but you do learn to do things correctly. Having the proper tools at your disposal is awesome.

If you can build a road and a Mt. bike frame up from scratch, you can wrench at a bike shop. Some of the specialized jobs, like rebuilding mt bike forks, take some time to learn (and that technology changes all the time + every manufacturer has a different set of specs), and if possible I would focus on a shop that does primarily road/tri business, as you are basically dealing with two manufacturers for 90% of the parts & there is uniformity in how everything operates).

There are some things that to this day I don’t know how to do such as how a 3 or 5 speed hub works, but 99% of the day-to-day is replacing cables, adjusting brakes, replacing headsets, rebuilding hubs/bb. It certainly isn’t rocket science, and as long as you have a basic understanding of how things work (if you built erector sets as a kid you are set), have good attention to detail, are not afraid to ask if you aren’t sure, and don’t mind shitty pay & getting grease everywhere, its a pretty laid back job.

17

Okay, bike shops like Cobb’s, Tom D’s, Nytro - those that can meet the needs of both the entry level cyclist and the high-end, mountain/roady/tri specialty crowd - in many ways those shops could be considered the Guicci stores (boutique) of the bike world! Also, realisitcally unless you have asperations of wrenching for a trade team like Healthnet, Sierra Nevada, Postal, or T-Mobile, there really is not any reason for an entry level person to try to foot the bill for a pro-bike tech school when you likely will not be earning more than $5-$6 an hour to start without any experience to back such a certificate!

The natural progression for most shop hands involves getting your foot in the door at a smaller, less specialized, family oriented bike shop! Stores like this usually have 1 or 2 mechanics that handle bike repairs/technical problems almost exclusively while the rest of the staff are sales people who will assemble bikes to keep the floor stocked when not assisting customers (speed in that case is essential)! After serving in that capacity for a period of time, employees become more “marketable” in terms of moving up the food chain! The time you spend building experience is dependent on such things as how many shops are in your area and the size of the available labor pool! regardless of the size of the labor pool, if there are few jobs available, lateral/vertical movement up the bicycle shop food chain may take even longer than your degree plan! On the other hand if employee turnover is high or employees are constnatly jumping ship while trying to find higher wages, then it may take a relatively short amount of time to make it to the shop of your choice. Here in my neck of the woods (Houston), the two or three “boutique” shops all have extremely experienced mechanics who for the most part have been with the shop for 3-years or more in their current position but the faces of the sales staff seems to change pretty regularly!

Michael

18

THE best way is to buy a bike shop and hire yourself. But, be prepared to fire yourself if you don’t learn quickly enough.