A real LBS

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
::: I discovered a real Bike Shop in my area. After so much reading on
::: this Newgroup I actually realized that the bike shop I was going to
::: was not the same kind of bike shop you all were talking about. So I
::: found one in Montclair NJ. I am very familiar with this town...yet I
::: did not know anything about this shop. I saw the TREK bikes you
::: speak of, and all the equipment you talk about. I talked to a
::: person who was on a team. It was fascinating. I also realized that
::: bikes can cost a freakin' fortune. It was a real education I'll
::: tell ya. Now maybe I will understand a little more when reading
::: these threads. BECAUSE.......Sometimes while reading I feel like I
::: am lost in space. I never try to comment on things I do not
::: understand. I let go of trying to be a pompous idiot years ago. I
::: plan to visit the shop more often just to talk to people. The
::: cyclists in there were fascinating. Just like this newsgroup. ;-) I
::: am really glad I found the shop.
::
:: A "real" bike shop isn't the one with all the fancy bikes and cool
:: displays and perhaps especially not the one frequented by team folk
:: (it could be, but it's often not).
::
:: A "real" bike shop is the one whose primary mission is to get you
:: out on a bike, an appropriate bike for the opportunities in your
:: area.
::
:: A real bike shop is more interested in understanding *your* dreams
:: than yakking about their own recent accomplishments.
::
:: A "real" bike shop wants to make sure that, whoever you are, the most
:: painful thing you can do is walk past your bike and not be able to
:: ride it. Maybe something's not quite right with it- a little gear
:: adjustment, perhaps the stem's a bit too long, whatever.
::
:: A "real" bike shop tries to make sure you're as comfortable as
:: possible bringing it back into the store when something like that is
:: the case, because they find it terribly painful when a customer
:: brings a bike in four years after they bought it, with virtually
:: zero miles on it, because some little, easily-correctable thing made
:: it no fun to ride (and they worry about how many other bikes sit in
:: garages, unridden, and not known about, for the very same reasons).
::
:: That, to me, is a "real" bike shop. It's not easy trying to be that
:: shop, but it's a lot more rewarding. I often wish I could do a
:: better job being that kind of shop, but just defining it once in a
:: while (like now) helps me to keep focus.

Dude.....you should print that up and hang it on the wall in your store.
I'd be happy to have such a statement written by the owner/management of my
LBS. It would make me feel really special about that relationship.

"B i l l S o r n s o n" wrote in message
...
Red Cloud wrote:
Even $600,000 Shimono all made Gold bike can't even beat 60 buck
made-in-china bike. I told you these folks are not a real biker. You
don't see a European
real bike in Ameriac. American bikers is like a Hollywood.

Worst paragraph is Usenet history! (Or at least this week...)

--
BS (no, really)

That's why Red Cloud's been in my killfile for months now...the only way I
see his drivel now is by someone quoting him.

Red Cloud wrote:

Even $600,000 Shimono all made Gold bike can't even beat 60 buck
made-in-china bike. I told you these folks are not a real biker. You
don't see a European
real bike in Ameriac. American bikers is like a Hollywood.

Me I got lid clummy American bike went bought fine China bike. (Now
ass not fat no more.) Made in finest sweat shop all China. Workers get
thirteen cents hour sixteen hours day plus all paint fumes can breath, no
charge extla.

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

(a great series of real bike shop factoids)


Forgive me, but *most* real bike shops are open on Sundays. I know I
should have checked the hours on your site but I was in the neighborhood
for the greyhound picnic and thought I'd stop in to browse and pick up a
jersey or something. Had to settle for looking at the cool stuff in the
window.

When are the new jerseys coming out?

--
My bike blog:
http://diabloscott.blogspot.com/

"Diablo Scott" wrote in message
news:1100133566.AcrRDITxPAflCUt5DpNZeg@teranews...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

(a great series of real bike shop factoids)


Forgive me, but *most* real bike shops are open on Sundays.

Yeah, but your favorite wrench won't be there. He starts before the shop
opens on weekdays, and then leaves at 4:00 PM, and doesn't work weekends.

If you know the secret knock, he'll let you in before the official shop
opening and you can drop off your bike for repairs before you (take the bus
to) go to work.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
please substitute yahoo for mousepotato to reply
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

Forgive me, but *most* real bike shops are open on Sundays. I know I
should have checked the hours on your site but I was in the neighborhood
for the greyhound picnic and thought I'd stop in to browse and pick up a
jersey or something. Had to settle for looking at the cool stuff in the
window.

Our Los Altos location is open Sundays (and closed Mondays), while in
Redwood City we're closed Sundays (and open Mondays). This seems to work out
well; when we've been open Sundays in Redwood City in the past, it's never
been a very big day. Different shopping patterns in different areas; El
Camino isn't much of a shopping hot-spot except for shopping centers. Of
course, it could also be excessive rationalization on my part, as well as
one of those things where being open 7 days would add too much to my
workload because I still feel a desire to be involved in just about
everything that goes on. This is beginning to slowly pass as I get older and
realize that the world doesn't stop when I'm not there; we've got plenty of
very good people that can handle things just fine.

When are the new jerseys coming out?

All the time, but I'm actually not the person to ask on that one; I'm more
of the hard-goods guy, while my brother Steve (in our Los Altos store)
handles the apparel.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

Dude.....you should print that up and hang it on the wall in your store.
I'd be happy to have such a statement written by the owner/management of
my
LBS. It would make me feel really special about that relationship.

Thanks, but keep in mind it's easier to write such things than it is to live
by them 100%. But with all the harping about "mission statements" that
businesses are supposed to have, maybe it's something I can start with. It's
tough though when you own a business and so many things are going on all the
time, and a lot of what you get to deal with (as an owner) are the times
when things haven't gone quite right.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote in message .com...
I discovered a real Bike Shop in my area. After so much reading on
this Newgroup I actually realized that the bike shop I was going to
was not the same kind of bike shop you all were talking about. So I
found one in Montclair NJ. I am very familiar with this town...yet I
did not know anything about this shop. I saw the TREK bikes you speak
of, and all the equipment you talk about. I talked to a person who was
on a team. It was fascinating. (snip me)


A real bike shop is more interested in understanding *your* dreams than
yakking about their own recent accomplishments.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

Well, I guess I really have not been to a real LBS yet. The LBS I was
in Yakked on and on about their teams and their accomplishments. I
don't think we discussed me or my needs once. Boy there is a different
way to look at everything. They did let me try one of those Trek
bikes....but I am definately not ready for anything like that. Boy
come to think of it, I don't think anyone even asked me ANYTHING!....I
was just in awe of them. I guess they enjoy when people come in to
admire their abilities and their accomplishments. Especially idiots
like me who stand there saying....WOW, REALLY? I have a way of making
the pompous asses of the world talk about themselves incessently while
they ignore me. Your LBS sounds like a great place. If you were
closer to Lake Tahoe I would come visit when I go there next week.
http://hometown.aol.com/lbuset/
"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without
passion."

Diablo Scott wrote:
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
(a great series of real bike shop factoids)


Forgive me, but *most* real bike shops are open on Sundays. I know I
should have checked the hours on your site but I was in the neighborhood
for the greyhound picnic and thought I'd stop in to browse and pick up a
jersey or something. Had to settle for looking at the cool stuff in the
window.

Their Los Altos shop is open Sunday, been there many times on Sunday. I
agree with you regarding Sunday hours, but I’m sure that the shops base
their hours on studies of the cost of being open versus the quantity of
sales. There are several shops in the Mt. View, Palo Alto, Redwood City
area that are open Sunday, so it's not a big deal if you live in that area.

I always wondered about the bankers hours during the week that most bike
shops tend to keep. I drop a load of money at REI and Performance simply
because I can go to those places after work, reserving the weekends for
other pursuits. The four LBS's closest to me, don't have good weekday
hours; I wish that they'd stay open late at least one night a week. Bike
shops are not the only businesses that often maintain banker’s hours. I
have a high end kitchen and bath supply store very near my house with
hours of 9-6 M-F; They lose literally hundreds of thousands dollars in
sales a year to a competitor about 2 miles down the road, who is so busy
on Saturday that you have to sign in and wait upwards of an hour to be
served.

I try to support local businesses whenever possible, but they often make
it very difficult to do so.

Bike shops are not the only businesses that often maintain banker’s hours.
I
have a high end kitchen and bath supply store very near my house with
hours of 9-6 M-F; They lose literally hundreds of thousands dollars in
sales a year to a competitor about 2 miles down the road, who is so busy
on Saturday that you have to sign in and wait upwards of an hour to be
served.

I try to support local businesses whenever possible, but they often make
it very difficult to do so.

I feel your pain. There is a good reason why many (if not most) small
businesses have "banker's hours" though. It's just not practical for a small
business to have multiple shifts of employees, and the present rules
governing wages make a 10-hour 4-day workweek impractical. It wouldn't be a
problem if one end of the day was much busier than the other, but the truth
is that it gets very busy at opening (about 11am-11:30), and then busy again
from 5pm-6:45pm or so. If we were open later, we'd need to shift people to a
later start in the day, and if open earlier, vice versa. Either way we end
up understaffed for one of the busy times.

Also, one of the biggest challenges in any business is essentially people
management. How do you train them, make sure things are going right,
motivate, etc. As the number of employees increases, the amount of effort to
keep things going right seems to skyrocket. At some point a business is
large enough to have people who specialize in such things, but that's not
the case for the small business.

You can read all of this as a series of excuses and rationalizations, and
you'd be right. My take on it would be a bit different though- to me, it's a
recognition of my own limitations. I've had opportunities to "go big" and
passed them by, because I didn't feel I'd be able to maintain the levels of
quality that I want to see. Even the move from one store to two took quite a
bit of time to get things right, and there's no amount of money in the world
that would convince me to go past two. Clearly it's my own limitation; I
know of others who have handled it quite well.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
IMBA, BikesBelong, NBDA member

"Steven M. Scharf" wrote in message
hlink.net...
Diablo Scott wrote:
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
(a great series of real bike shop factoids)


Forgive me, but *most* real bike shops are open on Sundays. I know I
should have checked the hours on your site but I was in the neighborhood
for the greyhound picnic and thought I'd stop in to browse and pick up a
jersey or something. Had to settle for looking at the cool stuff in the
window.

Their Los Altos shop is open Sunday, been there many times on Sunday. I
agree with you regarding Sunday hours, but I’m sure that the shops base
their hours on studies of the cost of being open versus the quantity of
sales. There are several shops in the Mt. View, Palo Alto, Redwood City
area that are open Sunday, so it's not a big deal if you live in that
area.

I always wondered about the bankers hours during the week that most bike
shops tend to keep. I drop a load of money at REI and Performance simply
because I can go to those places after work, reserving the weekends for
other pursuits. The four LBS's closest to me, don't have good weekday
hours; I wish that they'd stay open late at least one night a week. Bike
shops are not the only businesses that often maintain banker’s hours. I
have a high end kitchen and bath supply store very near my house with
hours of 9-6 M-F; They lose literally hundreds of thousands dollars in
sales a year to a competitor about 2 miles down the road, who is so busy
on Saturday that you have to sign in and wait upwards of an hour to be
served.

I try to support local businesses whenever possible, but they often make
it very difficult to do so.