I bought my dual from trizilla. nobody around here had any in stock ,
there’s only one dealer about 10 miles away and he didn’t have any. so when I want work done I go to one of the three local shops here that are in ferocious competition with each other.
one a specialize/cannondale/giant shop, the other two trek/lemond/klein shops, although one of those doesn’t seem to be carrying decent road bikes anymore. lots of mountain and kids bikes.
I feel a tinge of guilt when I bring the cervelo in, especially at the specialized shop, since I 've been on many of their group rides.
why I care I don’t know. I got the bike I wanted.
not my fault they weren’t smart enough to carry it.
i love the comments one shop made about dealing with the internal cables…jeepers.
as long as they get paid they should not mind. A good friend of mine owns a bike shop but he did not carry the bike I wanted to so I had one imported. I don;t think he minds, I bought all the components from him.
I take my two Cervelos to my LBS. They don’t carry Cervelo, but they work on mine. They don’t mind, especially since I buy pretty much everything else there (including wheels and compact cranks) and refer lots of people to them. The shop where I bought my P2K is 20-30 minutes away by car and the shop where I bought the Prodigy is 1.5 hours away. The LBS is walking/riding distance.
Not at all. A shop can’t carry every bike brand. Plus, you’re bringing business to the shop in the form of labor costs, and presumably, you’ll buy stuff there as well.
If you paid the mechanic I think there’s no problem with both sides.
If I’d own a bike shop I’d prefer working on a bike that was purchased outdoor AND I didn’t carry it on my store then a bike that I sell but the person bought it anywhere else.
We’ll wrench whatever bike you ride. Yes, it would be great if they were all bought at our shop but that’s not realistic.
We would love to carry every line of bike but we just can’t. We’re new but growing. Next year, we will carry 3-4 lines of bikes.
We also aren’t a “tri” specific store. We carry some tri bikes, gear and will order in anything your heart desires. But we also cater to kids and MTB’s.
If your LBS doesn’t like to work on a bike they don’t carry, they are not doing their job.
Yep, just what Fleck says. The last shop I managed did about 40 percent of our profit in service. We went out of our way to promote our shop as a top notch provider of bicycle service with knowledgeable mechanics (we sent two of our lead mechanics to Barnett’s every year) and friendly advice. Any bike brand should be welcomed; bikes bought from our shop came with all kinds of service extras (and even for outside purchased bikes owned by regulars we always did a little extra for no charge; quick true on a wheel that needed a cassette change, derailler lube and adjust on a chain install, stuff like that).
Here’s some stuff that makes shop mechanics happy;
Wipe down your bike before you bring it in if it’s really scungy.
Don’t act all crazy and concerned about how your bike will be treated in the shop; wait til they do something wrong before you go off.
Be as specific as you can when reporting a problem; even write it down as you experience it out on a ride so you don’t have to pull the circumstances from last weekends workout hazed memory.
If you like the job the shop does, bring in a treat for everyone in the shop once in awhile; you’ll be remembered when you have a problem and it’s crunch time.
Find a shop (or mechanic) you like and stick with them. Always nice to have friends in the bike business; they’re unusually good people (most of the full timers anyway).