Cycling UK Forum

Redvee wrote:The railings look rather ornate outside the shop. I'll let others have some fun with their GoogleFu trying to find the shop name and location, it won't be too hard.
Have you considered an ad in BikeBiz, the trade mag?

Yes it's a nice building the company currently occupies, however I expect the future owner will probably soon outgrow it and need purpose built space.

Yes I did look at BikeBiz who were supposed to get back to me. I was trying this forum primarily for advice but had not ruled out that "somebody might know someone" looking to get into that game. With an internationally renowned bike museum nearby I was thinking they might know interested parties through their mailing list.

I reckon it's Macron a shoe-in.

Why? The French will always march to a different drum and delight in being contrary to the anglo Saxon world. Now that Britain and the USA are perceived as given up on liberalism the French are bound to see this as their chance to choose a market liberal President.

The example that comes to mind is a few years ago when Jeremy Clarkson (remember him?) said something along the lines of BMW's being the best cars but owners had always been at risk of being associated with a certain sort of motorist. Then one day: "Finally we can enjoy the BMW M3, because all the idiots have gone out and brought Audi's!".

David

I am a director of a company in the bike trade. I wish to sell up and get out. Since the reason for sale is primarily lack of energy and poor health there is ample scope for a dynamic individual to expand greatly. We are exclusive importers of products some of which have been reviewed in Cycle Magazine.

The company trades out of premises that is owned by myself. We are based in a small town in a rural area. As with many smaller provincial bike dealerships the walk in trade is poor but it has a successful internet retail component. The internet business is viable and has a good reputation.

I would like to sell the business in its entirety and with discretion. I think the quiet location with good opportunities for road and mountain cycling requires somebody who wishes to move from a successful career to a vocation that puts them control of their life work balance. What is the best way to market such an enterprise?

David

I have just had an interesting debate on a local Facebook page relating to a low costs street repair in town. Cycling was not involved at all, yet I thought it worth sharing to provide a neat trick to beat the anti-cycling lobby at it's own game.

I pointed out that the damage to local streets is largely caused by lorries. To back this up I linked to research from the Campaign for Better Transport which reported on calculations demonstrating that lorries caused 138,000 times the damage to carriageways as private cars. Needless to say the reaction was quite spectacular - with several involved in the industry willing to take the bait and produce all sorts of straw man arguments, but nobody was willing to challenge this figure of damage being 138,00 that from a small car. Having found this data I calculated that a motorist would have to drive to work for over 12 lifetimes to damage the street as much as the passing of one 44 tonne wagon. I then started to highlight that the car users are paying for the damage to road surfaces caused by lorries, and also for the road works to strengthen the highway from which they as car users will not benefit.

The reason I mention this anecdote is that there appears to be a concerted and, it must be said, successful effort to create animosity between bicycle users and other road users. The attempts to discredit cycleways as causing net pollution is the latest front in this campaign. Rather than simply react to these allegations - and always fight on the back foot - shouldn't we find wedges of our own with which to split the motor lobby?

The disproportionate damage caused by lorries to the public highways is the ammunition us bicycle advocates need. All motorists are aware of the poor condition of the public highways but are not perhaps aware of the role played by heavy lorries in causing carriageway deterioration. If we co-ordinated better with other environmental groups to pre-emptively frame lorries as the reason for poor highway condition and congestion we could spike the motoring lobbies attempts to shift this blame onto the cyclist!

I'd love to hear what seasoned campaigners think!

reohn2 wrote:

HoWB Dave wrote:
The Sugino now available with "a-la-carte" chainwheel size for even more flexibility. Fantastic upgrade, anybody who has run Sugino will vouch for their quality.

http://hubjub.co.uk/sugino-ox601d-crankset-200-p.asp

But it's the dreaded External Bottom Bracket Bearing design.

This is a very good alternative:- http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php ... 0s109p3383

Dreaded External Bottom bracket? By whom? I thought ISIS bottom brackets were the ones to fear:) - hey that works on two levels!

The one that you link to probably works well enough but the chaingaurd in place of the outer ring that Sugino intended means the whole thing is hardly more attractive than a dedicated double running lumpen external BB. And whilst not to your taste the design cannot be so bad otherwise it would not have been de-rigeur on high end bikes for a good decade. Square taper is likely to endure forever but of course the 24mm axles are backwards compatible with virtually all bigger diameter BB shells that are on the market.

reohn2 wrote:

andrew_s wrote:The Sugino OX601 is available from Hubjub.
It's a road chainset with 110 and 74 bolt circles, and comes as 44/30

The Sugino now available with "a-la-carte" chainwheel size for even more flexibility. Fantastic upgrade, anybody who has run Sugino will vouch for their quality.

http://hubjub.co.uk/sugino-ox601d-crankset-200-p.asp

With saddle comfort being a perennial topic, has anybody found these to be good? The are supposed to be scientifically designed (what isn't in cycling these days!) to remove pressure points.

Their anatomical credentials on the Kontact website look convincing enough. They are available in the UK from Hubjub.

The OX601D, the slightly more economical version of the same, is available on Hubjub.

This is not within the brief of the OP (and not within budget either!), but to my mind Surly's Mr Whirly crankset looks very much like a modern interpretation of TA's system. Has anybody used one?

I know this is not the answer you wanted but bear with me... If you replace the original components to the bike, keeping the upgrade components, you might be able to trade the bike for a decent frameset from which you can build the bike you really want.

The site appears to introduce buyers to each other ... and doesn't "control" the whole process in the way that ebay (like it or not) does ... that lack of control seems a weak link?

Sounds good to me - as a bike shop I see potential to use this as something half way between one of the web auction sites and a proper online store. The absence of an enforced process by which I must conduct my business (and for which I would be charged, whether or not I wanted it) should enable me to develop a process which better serves my customers and the type of transactions I wish to promote.

The above might be slightly irrelevant for most people though.

robgul wrote:.... AFAIK this only got started in the last week or so - it's in beta test mode, thus no track record.

The obvious challenge is building critical mass quickly ... having looked at it (from a semi-professional point of view) I'm afraid it looks a bit half-baked as a business model. I hope I'm wrong in that presumption.

Rob

I am aware it has only just started - there is a news entry that the launch was on 20 July - but there appears to be product selling through it already so that seems a promising start.

You will have to be more specific as to what you feel is wrong with the business model.

One thing I forgot to ask on my original post - are there any other viable bike auction sites around? I seem to remember visiting one a few years ago and which seemed quite good, however I don't remember what it was called so cannot search for it by name.

I have heard about a new bike auction site at http://goinggoingbike.com/ and I shall be using it to dispose of product from the local bike shop I run. I was wondering if anybody has experience with buying or selling here. Of particular interest to me is the ability to run my own customised store front. Although other websites offer this feature, in this case it would be viewed by a community specifically interested in trading bikes and could be an alternative to an individual web store.

There is of course the famous auction site which I will not promote here (it rhymes with "flea spray"). I feel that when it comes to bikes however that they have had their chance and they've blown it. They have not done a jot about stolen bikes and as a victim of theft I am rather unhappy about supporting a site that seems to be the main beneficiary of the black market in stolen goods. GoingGoingBike on the other hand claim to take the legitimacy of sellers and their listings much more seriously, however I would like to know if this proves to be the case in practice.

The selling fees are much more attractive than the alternative during the introductory period for the site - a flat rate of 5% sale value until the end of September. I would not mind knowing what it will be after that, however a new account is free so I guess there is not much risk getting stuck in and finding out.

So, anybody using the website, let us know your experiences and report any issues which us newbies should know about. For those who are not using it, please do so I can sell to a bigger market!

GrahamNR17 wrote:HoWB Dave, you are in the perfect place here to do some serious market research into what it is cyclists want from a bike shop. Why not tell us who you consider your target market to be, and if it includes the demographic here, we can help you fine tune your offering to our requirements. If you are going the Raleigh dealer route (ie Cyclelife, retailing only with a narrow selection of accessories) then we might not be able to help, though, but then you're competing with Halfords and Tesco and probably won't survive anyway.

You never know, after a few pages of discussion on you as a LBS and us as consumers, something may click that changes your fortunes

Thanks for the suggestion. My store is based in mid Wales and is intended to cater for road and touring riders, in addition to the MTB'ers that Wales is better known for. The store will be doing rentals (as soon as I have assembled the hire fleet).

The brands generally reflect this touring and utility riding aspiration with Dawes, Ridgeback and Saracen currently stocked.

Incidentally the trade has picked up as the publicity has had effect and the weather brought out the bikers.

Clothing has not yet been a major part of the business and only a few basic items of clothing stocked.

The store webite is here: http://www.heartofwalesbikes.co.uk

As far as the OP is concerned I have decided not to persue it in light of comments, although that is not to say that I am changed my views on the matter

reohn2 wrote:Theres no less cars on the road though ,and 4x4's seem to be breeding faster than rabbits

There are officially less cars out on the street, 0.7% less according to figures

I don't expect that these figures are sufficiently up to date to include the attrition on cars that the cold winter must have caused, either directly through cracked engines caused by people skimping on the antifreeze, or indirectly through cars falling off the carriageway due to slippery conditions.

Regards
David