I think the new owners have shut down quite a few of the “clubhouses” ie shops. I think a lot of the redundancies have from from there.
There was an interesting bit on one of the podcasts where they were talking about the clubhouse concept and gave an example of one where it was mostly being used as a glorified coffee shop by non-cycling locals who were happy to pay 200 dollars a year or whatever it was, in exchange for a ‘free’ daily coffee without having to queue.
I think it’s actually quite a nice concept, the clubhouse thing that is, but I wonder about locations. The Manchester one is smack bang in the middle of town where no-one in their right mind would go for a bike ride. I guess that’s fine during the week when folk are working in the city centre, maybe not so clever at weekends when they’re more likely to be out of town and actually riding a bike.
I guess it would work better somewhere the urban and rural divide was less defined.