Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club

The SMH is reporting Cranks bike stores are no more: http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/ma ... 2c8bd.html
I work next door to the North Sydney branch and it is all emptied out with not even a note in the window.
Sad - the guys there were nice and always happy to lend me the compressor, plus having a bike shop next to work was handy.
S.

Their Balmain store also went. When I last visited toward the end of last year, a fellow DHBC rider was the manager of the store. It was looking up from my perspective at that point. Unfortunate.

I got my road and track bikes from the Balmain store.

Ah. That might explain why I couldn't contact the Balmain store by phone last week.

I'm not surprised. I was told by a bike shop guy that it was actually cheaper to buy products from a very well known groupset/ component manufacturer retail from a very well known online store in the UK than it was to buy wholesale in Australia.

And rent and staff costs you would get a better return on your money from the bank. It's also made more difficult by a shortage of skilled bike mechanics.

All part of a paradigm shift I feel. I notice that DVD/ video stores are closing all the time. But from my own observation cycling appears to be growing strongly. Maybe the local industry needs to find smarter ways of competing?

Bike brain in Pyrmont have aligned themselves with wiggle. you buy a bike from wiggle, get it delivered to bike brain. they set it up, and you get the first service free.
they also have a wiggle order service. you pay per 30 min on what to buy from wiggle. great for the people who want to save $$$ but have no idea when it comes to bike parts.
they also offer to do all the mechanic work for your orders.
and you can get the stuff delivered to the store, that way the other half doesn't see the bike order.
i recon they got the bike shop online store issue sorted

Clever of Bike Brain but without significant risks.

This might explain why my FFWD wheels from Wiggle arrived within two days. I love cheap mail order now, but in ten years when I need a headset installed or a BB replaced (two parts of a bike I don't touch) then it's going to suck. Maybe I'll just have to evolve too.

I gather Wiggle now warehouses some stuff locally - might be worth keeping an eye on the documentation with future orders.
It's good to see folks like Bike Brain innovate: the typical bike shop experience is seldom good, in my experience. YMMV.

I went and visited the North Sydney store today for a purchase, and found that it was shut (I'm on the other side of the highway from it).

I get it that it's hard to compete on price with the overseas prices, but I (brutally) maintain the idea that any business has to evolve or die. In the ever increasing globalisation of business, as a local business you can no longer work on the fact that you are the only person to offer something. If it's too expensive etc, then people will go else where.

I've stated that bike shops need to ensure that they offer a service that cant be provided by the online stores. Simple example, you want to buy a pair of shoes and pedals, bike shop offers to size you, fit them, attatch the cleats and put the pedals on the bike, and give you a quick lesson on how to use them. Yeah, it may be more expensive than the online store, but the LBS is doing something that the online store can't.

I can see that the business model for Bike Brain being successful.

James

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I have also found that some stores don't provide a good service, I've taken my bike to them, and got a service, and I've had issues with the quality of the work, end result, I started doing my own servicing and while it may take me longer, I know that if there is anything wrong at the end, it cost me nothing, and it's my fault. As opposed to paying $100 for a service and them not fixing the problem.

e.g. Get a service done on the bike, and on the ride home (which was only a couple of km's) and the rear wheel popped out of the hangers, I wasn't hurt, but they didn't do the rear skewer up hard enough.