Sounds like one of the shops doesn’t want your business, but then I have heard of a few that dont want your business after your er buying habits.

Ed, can you please tell me what you mean by this?

I have read some shyte in my time on here…..ffs
a bike shop that offers custom builds, but does not want to tie up a member of staff to do so, or does not want to tie up his credit by ordering stock to build a custom bike (which they offer to do) for a customer who is gonna pay the amount in full up front.

I am lost for words seriously……… 🙄

Im with andrym.

Ton they must know something you don’t …

It’s not worth getting into a stew over, if their price doesn’t suit you find one that does.

mattjg, exactamundo mate.
just spoke to a very nice frame builder, who was more than welcome to talk to me…….and hopefully point me in the right direction…. 8)

The whole point of this was that you can get a pile of bits for £x, or get it built for £x+£200, why are you talking to anyone else, either order a pile of bits, or go to the shop offering you £x+£200 as you’ve said you’re happy with that. 😕

To be fair, £200 more than you can source parts to do a build is cheap in real terms – factor in some price differential between online price and what they can get from a distributor, factor in parts arriving in dribs & drabs, the inevitable “that bloody part” that arrives wrong/faulty/not fitting that delays the build, consumables, 6 hours’ build time when you factor in niggles, in store customers, phone calls to workshop, cost of specialist tools etc and you are getting a bargain.

Even £980 overall margin difference including build labour is pretty decent on a £3.2k build. 6 hours @ £35/hr = £210, leaving only £770 on top of the average 6-8% margin on the online “best prices”. That gives you a total estimated margin of £962 (once you factor out workshop billable hours), equating to 30% gross margin before VAT. Deduct VAT and you’re then looking at just 24% gross margin. All of a sudden, £980 is not some “rip off” figure as originally punted but a not unreasonable 24% margin before store and staff overheads.

load of shyte andrm…….pure good old fashioned rip off.
shops jumping on the new cyclist boom, and hoping to catch someone unaware, and do em up like a kipper.
shops like that deserve to be out of business. imho that is.

load of shyte andrm…….pure good old fashioned rip off.

How on earth can it be a “load of shyte”, he’s given the bloody figures!

Why did you start this thread? You clearly don’t actually want to hear the answers, just want people to say “yes, you’re right”. 😕

Price your groupset up using the retail prices:
Here for Shimano
Here for SRAM

That will give you an idea of the extra cost in the groupset alone over what it “can be bought for”.

njee, no mate, i just wanted a yes or no. simple.
i knew what i thought from the off.

This is retarded.

agreed…….and for that reason, i am out.

load of shyte andrm…….pure good old fashioned rip off.
shops jumping on the new cyclist boom, and hoping to catch someone unaware, and do em up like a kipper.
shops like that deserve to be out of business. imho that is.

Quick question – did you speak to/email the shops in question with this tone and bad attitude? If so, that would explain why one’s price seems to indicate no excessive desire to take the work on.

A shop is a BUSINESS, not a service. It needs to make a profit to survive. I know of several shops that tried to do the whole price match/favour/free workshop hours thing to put cash in the till. Guess what? Not one of them is in existence any more.

am starting to get nostalgic for wheel size threads …

am starting to get nostalgic for wheel size threads …

Everyone knows that 650B is a pure rip off load of shyte 😉

No I agree with ANDYRM, Its your side of the argument if thats what this is thats retarded.

Love it. 24% net margin is all of a sudden a ‘load of shyte’ and a ‘good old fashioned rip off’..

In answer to your slightly cryptic question, on the facts I would say neither are a rip off. One is apparently happy to cut his throat for your business. The other, is prepared to work at a more sensible margin.

However, if I had the misfortune of a retail shop & you in all your cantankerous glory came in, i’d probably quote you double. Just to watch you go pop 🙂

Having to speak to a customer who has knows what he wants (closet weigh weenie/obsessive) but hasn’t the skills to build – potentialy the worst sort of customer who will recognise a steerer cut 5mm short and not accept a 7degree rise stem in place of a 0degree one because it’s 25g heavier/wrong make/looks bad etc.

Ooh, yes – many years ago I did a build for someone on a Cinelli frame*, and he brought a massive list of the parts he wanted, down to the brand of bladed spoke and alloy nipple, I advised against the alloy nipples, especially on a Scottish winter bike, but he was insistent so I built the bike as specified. It had an Italian bottom bracket, so I loctited the thing in but advised him to keep an eye on it especially in the first bedding-in period.

He brought it back after 2 months for a first service, because it “felt a bit funny”. The bottom bracket had unscrewed and the bottom bracket shell had neatly almost chopped his Campag Record crank in half. Plus he’d been riding on rough paths and the wheels badly needed a true – but all the nipples had seized on and I had to take a bolt cutter to all the expensive spokes.

*which was a horribly overpriced bit of junk, TBH.

As a few on the thread have already said. Build the bike up yourself. Its all part of the fun as far as I am concerned. Having the bike running sweet and silent.

£200 is very expensive in my eyes, the £980 is just basically taking the pi$$.

Build the bike up as much as you can. If it needs something doing that you really dont feel comfortable with, like pushing in a bottom bracket into a carbon frame – then just get the individual job done.

Nearly a grand to piss about building a bike. I’d almost consider paying that for the Milton twins to build it in the front room while the wife was at work, but a shop? . Nah.

Did you try asking the second shop again, but this time with a packet of chocolate HobNobs sticking or of your pocket?

As a few on the thread have already said. Build the bike up yourself. Its all part of the fun as far as I am concerned. Having the bike running sweet and silent.

The thing is that not everybody can build a bike from scratch ,in fact I bet most can’t . Then you have to order the right parts which usually throws up some compatibility issues that you didn’t expect and get it working perfectly , which again isn’t as easy as most on here make it out to be.

Nearly a grand to piss about building a bike.

It’s threads like this that make me really greatful I’ve spent the past 20 years of my life learning all about building bikes 😉

What’s the difference between buying a £4000 bike, and buying £3000-worth of parts and spending £1000 to get it properly put together?

If it was a grand to build the bike you might have a point.

The variation in the parts is covered by most who know but the shop has to quote a price they can get. Your Internet special might not be there when you come to buy it so suddenly your parts bill goes up. RRP and trade pricing is there so that a shop can quote for something and know what it will cost them today and next month. Part of the difference between the 2 prices is the bit that goes aside to deal with setup service and warranty hassles.

24% net margin!?!
Jesus I’m in the wrong industry

I know I wouldn’t touch anything that low with a bare pole.

iain1775 – Member

24% net margin!?!
Jesus I’m in the wrong industry

Yeah you should be a jeweller .

Tony, just a couple of lads I know from two different shops, who have dealt with you in the past and you have apparently left an impression on them both for them to say they wouldnt want to deal with you again.

So in summary…

Bike shop tries to make money out of customer = this causes offence and high levels of anger.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/park-tool-advanced-mechanic-tool-kit-ak38/rp-prod109884

potentialy the worst sort of customer who will recognise a steerer cut 5mm short and not accept a 7degree rise stem in place of a 0degree one because it’s 25g heavier/wrong make/looks bad etc.

If you’d cut my fork steerer 5mm too short, and tried to get round it by fitting a different stem to the one I wanted, I’d be demanding you supply a new fork/CSU.

Assuming its reasonable to make a cock-up like that when paid to do something professionally, and then come up with the minimum cost solution to rectifying will be why I do all my own building and maintenance 🙄

Personally I think this thread is a little out of control – in true STW style – in both directions.

An LBS is a business and freebies cost money. It seems reasonable that Freebies or ‘special deals’ are at the shop’s discretion, and may not be offered to the first person in front of them waving a big wad of cash.

Parts prices clearly vary wildly depending upon connections/suppliers and Teh Interwebz are distorting the value of parts greatly – although this is the same argument as ‘out of town supermarket kills village shop’ for much the same reasoning. There’s been media focus on ‘showrooming’ recently and unfortunately (for people with stock and premises) it’s being promoted as ‘savvy consumerism’. It’s already common at trail centre bike stores to pay a fee for a demo ride that counts against a purchase for exactly this reason – although if you’re planning to drop a few grand on a new bike and have no idea if you’ll actually get on with it this sounds like a good deal.

I’d say a £200 build fee is reasonable if the customer expects everything done their way with exactly the parts specified – assuming the shop can source the parts from stock at expected price. If pricing of parts is very different I’d expect to agree that rather than having it hidden elsewhere, or be be told a certain thing couldn’t be had unless I paid extra.

If the shop can’t or doesn’t want to do the job, it’s far less damaging to them in the long run to be honest about this rather than giving a ‘f*** off’ quote – as this thread is illustrating.

Personally if I was an LBS I’d be looking very sideways at a job that meant dealing with suppliers I had no relationship with or using a big box of bits off the internet – the former because of the hassles/costs and the latter because frankly it’s a p*ss take.

I have heard of shops willing to do a deal on putting bits together if they supplied them all (at marked price) but that’s in the land of ‘Freebies’ and specials – see above. Maybe if a regular customer wants to give you £3800 (number floated above) one day it’s worth putting some markup toward workshop time instead of haggling discounts but unless this was an advertised service I would never expect it.

What really gets me with this thread and every other one involving shops though is the predictable ‘worst sort of customer’ ‘proper night mare to deal with’ that invariably crops up. It’s just unprofessional and not really helping.

I think this thread clearly shows them in the bike trade and those not.
Building up your own bike is far from difficult. Very basic knowledge of the bikes steerer and bottom bracket widths to get compatable headsets, chain set etc.
Then brakes, gears, wheels and finishing kit to finish … It really is easy.
The benefit of doing it yourself is that you gain a better working of your bike.

As said. Some jobs I prefer to take to a bike shop. Push fit bottom brackets into a carbon frame being one recently.
Because if done wrong, it’s an expensive mistake … a bit like a shop mechanic cutting a steerer 5mm too short ..

Agree.

I generally do my own work but I have a good relationship with my preferred shop and if I don’t like the look of a job I’m happy to pay them to work on my bike and be up front about the fact that I’m concerned so they can say ‘sorry we’re not touching that either’ if they want.

I have a mate who will happily pay someone else to do everything and then expect to warranty every smallest problem rather than tighten something, bleed a brake or a post or whatever so I do have some sympathy to shops on this sort of thing, but an open forum is not a wise place to grouse about it.

To be honest I’d hoped the bit about the steerer being miscut and the mistake hidden was not true because it’s shocking behaviour.

I’m just having my bearings replaced by my LBS (well, it’s sort of like Halfords but has a very good “atelier” for bikes) but I’ve supplied the bearings as their prices are eye watering. I’ve spoken to them about me supplying parts before and they’re happy enough as the workshop staff need paying too, not just the shop staff.

I don’t think either of those prices quoted to ton was a rip-off at all. Perhaps a little on the high side for workshop time but that’s the cost of having someone else do it for you; they need to make a profit. If you can find a single business in the UK that works to not make any profit, I’ll be shocked.

I think this thread clearly shows them in the bike trade and those not.
Building up your own bike is far from difficult. Very basic knowledge of the bikes steerer and bottom bracket widths to get compatable headsets, chain set etc.
Then brakes, gears, wheels and finishing kit to finish … It really is easy.
The benefit of doing it yourself is that you gain a better working of your bike.

Your hidden implication is that people in the bike trade are either stupid, or blatantly profiteering.

A build-up from parts is considerably more of a hassle than selling a complete bike. There’s time spent discussing the component choice (could be hours), time spent ordering all the parts from multiple suppliers (including chasing out of stock parts, time checking if substitutes are suitable etc), and finally time spent assembling everything (at least half a day to do it properly).

That adds up to at least a day’s work. £200 for a day’s work isn’t economic for most businesses – you wouldn’t pay that for a car mechanic, you wouldn’t pay that for an accountant. And we haven’t even factored in the after-sales stuff, having to be responsible for the warranty for the bike.

why all the fuss/blame the shop/mechanic over the to short of steerer?

thought it was due to SWAPPING parts from ONE frame to ANOTHER frame? and due to diff headtube length/headset stack it was unsafe to ride due to the stem not clamping enough steerer?
And customers who think everything will just swap over as it “just” bike parts! (seat post, headsets, forks, BB, front mechs etc) and every thing works together. I even had someone saying they didn’t need new cables on a frame swap I was doing as they not that old, it was only when I pointed out that cable stops/full outer sections are diff to his old frame, that he got the point!

I had this the other day, customer got a new frame, asked me to fit BB headset and forks and he do the rest. all fine till I put the forks in and it was too short. Just one of those things.

Tony, I assume you have the skills to build the bike yourself but want it setup better than you can achieve. If this is the case then get the parts yourself and fit them but leave the cabling, gear setup etc to the bike shop saving yourself some money as you’ve already done the donkey work for them.
I would recommend Garage Bikes at Morley to finish the build off as they aren’t far from you and their work is top notch. This recommendation is after using most of the LBS around Leeds and not been that impressed with their so called professional bike mechanics.
If it’s the tools that is stopping you from building it then give me a shout as I have the tools for most build ups.

I think this thread clearly shows them in the bike trade and those not.
Building up your own bike is far from difficult. Very basic knowledge of the bikes steerer and bottom bracket widths to get compatable headsets, chain set etc.
Then brakes, gears, wheels and finishing kit to finish … It really is easy.
The benefit of doing it yourself is that you gain a better working of your bike.

And that comes across as ‘someone who’s built a few bikes at home’ who thinks he knows his stuff and not as a professional mechanic.

All of what you said above is true IF everything works together nicely, which most of the time it does, but not all components play nicely together (whether published specs say they should or not) and it’s only doing it day in day out that you learn the subtle details and what will and won’t work well together and workarounds.

You can quite easily buy parts from the cheapest source based on the catalogue published spec that should work and then find yourself in a mare of situation with bits not working together, not fitting, or working sub-optimally.

It’s this that the home build crew often overlook as even if you’ve been building and riding your own bikes for a couple of decades the number of permutations you encounter is trivially small by comparison.

FWIW, I think the 200 is too low, that shop could find their entire profit wiped out by extra time or component substitutions from a couple of build niggles, bit of a risk but theirs to take, add in the extra support of now being there for followup and warranty work and it really is looking like they’re cutting it fine…

The ~900 quid one sounds a bit high but is probably based on RRP prices as already mentioned, OP not clear about how the quote was broken down and if any other services included or if he even said ‘hey that sounds a bit high, could you do any better?’

Sounds like what you actually want is ‘Rent-a-workshop’ style service, where you supply parts and just pay for build time, in which case you’re not really after a custom build service with parts sourced by the shop*

*So many people have already explained the difference between what you can buy off the interwebz Vs actual trade prices for non-OEM with full warranty etc. that I’m not going to do it again, but it’s not a load of pish as you suggest, its true.

As a final thought, even professional mechanics make mistakes and the shop ‘profit’ has to cover these as well. Everyone cuts a fork steerer too short at least once in their life, or rounds off a bolt because a tool has reached the end of its life. If you’re only dropping off your bike to do the riskiest jobs that you don’t want to do yourself expect to pay a premium for that too.

You can quite easily buy parts from the cheapest source based on the catalogue published spec that should work and then find yourself in a mare of situation with bits not working together, not fitting, or working sub-optimally.

Examples please…