I was made redundant from my Project/Site Management job in Mid March. The industry I was working in is pretty specialist and heavily dependent upon the Construction industry (Contaminated Land Remediation), although most trades associated with my education of Environmental Scientist also seem to have been hit pretty hard, since a great deal of jobs in this industry are in consultancies.

Frankly, after some time at home, I'd forgotten how crap a job I had. Long hours for the pay, always away from home, no private life, little home time. I have little desire to return to that kind of work.

I've since become primary carer for my kids and I'm loving it. With the kids, and a mortgage, my wife went back to work, and I was prudent enough to have some redundancy insurance which is tiding us by, but won't last forever.

So. What to do next. I've been dwelling on this for a good while. I need something part-time that I can where I can pick and choose on my own working patterns. – Seems I need to be self employed to do that, and I like tinkering with and fixing bikes.

This leads me to think about fixing bikes out of my garage. I have a pretty extensive workshop and tools arrangement already, although perhaps a bit short on space and I'm mechanically inclined. Round my way in North Somerset, most folk I know travel to Bristol to get their decent bikes worked on, although there are some local shops in Weston-super-mare and Clevedon.

Anyone done this? It would help me greatly to have thoughts please in general, both good and bad.

there is a guy down the road from me who kind of does this. he fixes stuff from his van, drives to your house / work, pick up your bike, if he can fix it there and then he takes it away and brings it back.

your two biggest issues are getting customers and getting spares but both of those can be sorted without too much hassle

Thats pretty much what I'm thinking of doing, although probably more a pick up and collect scenario.

Obviously I'd need to market myself. The spares side I haven't look into yet, since this is fairly early musings.

Not meaning to be pessimistic/patronising in any way but a lot of people who say "Oh yes, I could fix bikes" don't realise the difference between fettling their own/mates bikes and fixing bikes of complete strangers. The range of tools you need is quite incredible.

Doing minor repairs is one thing but trying to unseize a 10 year old 6 speed block off a knackered hub or tweak a Sturmey Archer or fix a set of RockShox Quadra forks is another matter and you'd be amazed at what is out there being ridden around by people who have no idea (or interest) about keeping it maintained.

Most people are happy just to throw the bike at their LBS so you need to offer some kind of service that the bike shop can't. Collect and deliver, late hours, some kind of accident service where you collect the person and drive them to work/home following a mechanical etc.

We have one in Exeter, apparently pretty busy, as above its linking up with people (quick web site/page would be easy ie- http://www.bicyclerepairman.co.uk/) and spares, though even the LBS uses CRC from time to time,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eCdIe0wdvU

http://www.rockfax.com/images/i.php?id=259

A mate is doing something similar round my neck of the woods at the moment, and from talking to him, it seems that you would be well advised to have some other irons in the fire while you build up your business. He is on friendly terms with an LBS who let him borrow the more obscure tools he needs, which could be one way of dealing with the issues Crazy-Legs describes.

Supply of parts is likely to be an issue, most of the trade places are reigning in on "man in a shed/van" operations to protect their retailer markets/stop price shagging

you might want to consider building a close relationship with a good LBS who can source the parts you'll have difficulty with.

My mate got made redundant from a specialist cycling business that went bust. Get brought all the tools, stands and spares cheap from them with a plan to start up a business from his already well stocked cycle shed at the bottom of the garden. Then comes a knock on the door from the local council and he finds out he cant do repairs from his shed without paying business rates and expensive fees to get his bins emptied as it is now classed as trade waste! You can use a room in your house as an office but not an out building as a workshop. Beware and check with your local council.

Matt

The Husband of one of my clients is like you, the primary carer and needs to be around pre and post school times. I was asking her what he does during the daytime whilst the kids are at school. He works for himself as a part time distributor for Kleaneeze (SP?), delivers catalogues, collects them a few days later and delivers to the ones who have ordered.

I don't know a massive amount about it, but from what she was saying it isn't a sales job and he does it when the kids are at school. I might have got this totally wrong, but I'm sure she said that he takes about £1200 a month from doing about 15 hours a week. Knowing how she is, I doubt that he would have been allowed to have stumped up any money at the beginning either!

I'm sure that there are downsides to it, but he seems to enjoy it.

Glorified paperboy possibly, but if the above is true, £20 an hour is alright. Someone on STW might have done/actually do it as I think they're a big firm.

I know the chap Mr_A mentions above and we also have another one that has popped up in Bristol.

There was also a thread on here yesterday posted by someone with the same idea, I think it's the idea du jour for the redundant cyclist.

Personally I just can't see how a living wage could be made from it, sorry to be so negative.

Doesn't need to be a living wage, more of a top up.

All good stuff. Keep it coming. Squin – looking at that type of stuff too.

SO, let me know if it looks decent as I have more hours to kill than I'd like at the moment! 😉

I was unemployed a while back, and worked for the local bike shop doing repairs. This wasn't Halfrods, or an mtb specific place, just an ordinary bike shop. The range of bikes we got in was pretty p*ss poor. Condition was almost always rock bottom, and customers wanted the cheapest possible repairs. 5 speed bottom of the range was the most common, although quite a few Sturmey Archers came by. Fortunately the owner had been around for ages, and had a mound of old bits and pieces that we could use to "bodge" a lot of repairs. That sounds cr@p, but it's what the customer wanted. I was crying out to work on a decent bike, but they never came in. Either their owners took them back to the big boys, or fettled them themselves. Not a job with much satisfaction in it. Can you guarantee that all the bikes you get will be easily repairable? Will customers pay?

As an example – for replacing an inner tube the price was £4 including tube. We were replacing rear mechs for £20, including cable. Not a lot of profit there. I was paid £40 for a 3 day week (cash in hand so no questions). You'll have to go some to make a decent living out of it, even to cover your overheads.

http://www.cycletherapist.co.uk/

Not sure there is room for two!

Hth
Marko

cycle the rapist .co.uk?

Its like that joke from arrested development

The world first analyst therapist or Anal-rapist

Can't believe I'm recommending this but if you do need to get back to a job then your skills sound quite transferrable to nuclear decommisioning work. There's a lot of glowing and not so glowing waste around that needs sorting. old sites have eventual aims to return to greenfield sites in a 100 years or so – you could pass the job down to the gt gt gt grandkids.

A lot of the bikes that we see on a daily basis in the shop are what you can call 'beyond economic repair'.

If your charge for a basic 'service' is £50, to adjust brakes, gears, and performa safety check. Then add a couple of cables, brake blocks, tyres, tube then you are easily at £75-£80, nearly £100.

This is completely normal in every good bike shop.

In most instances if the bike is worth £100 ish new, we try to get the customer to buy a new bike. If they want us to repair it then it is worth our while spending an hour servicing it.

If we reduced the charges to what the customer wants us to do, bodge a cheap repair, it isn't worth our while!

Also, bodging repairs isn't good for your long term service to customers, fixing a bike properly and making it work nicely is.

most of the mobile repair men near us tend to under-cut bike shops, due to having no premises etc.

Collect and deliver – I think Bike City (Wells) might be trying this. I don't know how they are getting on. It could work. You could have an arrangement with an LBS to pass on work you can't do and just do the collect and deliver aspect, in exchange for occasional tool use or to bulk buy parts etc. Most would see you as competition, but maybe one of them might be bright enough to realise that you are complementing their business.

I'd go for a nuclear job – that industry has a bright future IMO. Are they going to new build at Parkway and Hinkley? Both sites will need some decommission work done. At least one person on here I know works at Hinkey.

Good luck mate!