When a shop ‘builds’ a bike how much do they have to do. I’m talking about a stock build from a manufacturer, so Specialized or Santa Cruz bike with no modifications from the standard build.

Depends on how disassembled it is for shipping. Not built a Santa Cruz but for a similar spec bike I’d expect it would include fitting dropper seat post, saddle, handlebar, levers, shifters and grips. Maybe fitting gear cables, front brake, front wheel. Then getting everything checked over, torqued up and working. Maybe 90-120mins – someone familiar with that bike probably less.

Last bike in a box I bought, the only ‘building’ was pump tyres up, put front wheel on, put pedals on, attach and straighten handlebars (gear and brake levers were already on the bars, which were wrapped and taped to the frame.), put seatpost in..

There are a lot of checks and possibly some adjustments to do, depending, bolts, brakes, indexing, but the one I had didn’t need any adjustment.

This was for a lower mid range hardtail.

Standard mid-range bike from a major manufacturer:

Lift bike out. Grease & insert seatpost, put bike in stand.
Remove all the packing.
Fit front wheel.
Fit pedals (or if it doesn’t come with any you need something in the drive side crank to allow you to hold it and turn the cranks to check the gears).
Straighten & tighten bars.
Check gears and brakes
Inflate tyres.

Drop it out the stand and check stuff like headset, final position of saddle, brake levers etc.

On a simple hardtail you can get it down to 30 mins with practice from box to shop floor display standard.
Add time as required for setting up suspension, dropper post or Di2. If it’s a box to final customer build of a full sus, 2hrs is not unreasonable.

Yeah some are turn bars and fit front wheel before usual safety check. Some are a lot more work, decent hardtail that’s mostly set up is under half an hour and most of that is removing packaging, tt bike that needs bars wrapped and some internal routing done and has aero brakes…….that’s two cups of tea just before you start.

Once upon a time, quite a lot – particularly with stuff like Santa Cruz, you were effectively ordering a bare frame plus one of the build kits offered by the UK importer and that was exactly as it would turn up at the bike shop. Bike shop assembled the whole thing.

In recent times, much less assembly required – fit the bars in the stem, install seatpost, install front wheel, air in tyres, PDI check and jobs a good ‘un.

or if it doesn’t come with any you need something in the drive side crank to allow you to hold it and turn the cranks to check the gears

Park Tool dummy pedal is your friend. It’s one of those tools that after you get it you wonder how you worked without one.

Are they charging a lot for the build? or are you trying to work out if you could do it?

A good few years ago, you had to fit the forks and cut the steerer down on some marins.

Orange provide you a bike that’s about a third built and then don’t allow the shop any more margin than anyone else to do their job putting it together for them.

The actual putting it together (bars on, post in, pedals on, wheel in) doesn’t take long. What takes time is taking off all the wrapping then double checking everything – every bolt, setting up the gears and so on.

I was under the impression that Santa Cruz are still frame + build kit.

Depends very much on the bike. Some of the jobs that can need doing on boxed bikes arriving from manufacturer…

Facing frame / forks
Swapping brakes hoses (which means unwrapping bartape on road bikes)
Fitting brakes
Fitting gear cables
Trueing wheels
Fitting bars
Fitting pedals
Fitting bartape
Fitting saddle
Fitting dropper post
Setting up gears & brakes
Seating tyres
Di2 firmware updates
Steps firmware updates
Bosch firmware updates

And probably others I have forgotten

Are they charging a lot for the build? or are you trying to work out if you could do it?

I’ll be swapping the group set and the contact points and want to save them any work that’s unnecessary.

I’ll be swapping the group set and the contact points and want to save them any work that’s unnecessary.

You’re in for a whole world of joy when you find out that half the components don’t fit or aren’t compatible with the new frame.

This sounds like a frame swap which is a LOT more work than building a bike from boxed. Assuming everything fits perfectly, you still need to cable it all up and set up the position so half a day easy.

I’ll be swapping the group set and the contact points and want to save them any work that’s unnecessary.

Are *you* planning to do the groupset swap, or wanting *them* to assemble with alternative components? If the former, then if they’re selling a complete bike, they generally need to put the thing together to be able to complete a PDI. If the latter, expect to pay going labour rates, and don’t be surprised if you also get charged for any additional sundries, consumables and general bits & bobs

If I was the shop, I’d deliver a fully assembled bike that had passed a PDI regardless. That way, if it comes back for any warranty work, they can document that they supplied an operational bike. If you collect a partly disassembled bike, change some parts, then there are problems, it makes things very tricky for the shop.

Plenty of our builds are starting with completely bare frames. It seems to take an hour or so just to route the housing / hoses, apply the protective tape / guards and pull the pivot axles and grease / threadlock and torque to spec, and unpack everything so you can figure out a plan to actually build the thing. And yes, cut the steerer etc etc. A build can easily take 4+hours. I remember the days of building commuter bikes in 40 minutes…..

Halfords used to allocate 15 minutes per build from a box. Don’t know if that’s still the case but I argued constantly with my manager when I worked there because of that

I’ve bought two bikes online that were delivered in a box, a K2 and a Giant. They both needed the stem fitted to the forks, the tyres inflated, the wheels fitted, and the pedals fitted. The bars were already fitted to the stem. If you had a proper workshop and were doing them systematically, 15 minutes per bike for assembly would be in the ballpark, assuming there weren’t any problems like brakes needing bleeding, etc.

I believe Niner still sends a frame and parts separately. Not that we see many here of those here.

As said above some firms and importers insist on the bike being built and PDI’d to honour the warranty, the shop therefore may insist on doing that so there is no comeback on them, or get you to sign something acknowledging this. The latter probably means nothing given consumer righta so they are generally best to build it.

Often warranty clauses say no modifications bit I haven’t seen this enforced.

Depending on how extensive the build it, having them do it and sort any issues may be worthwhile, above facing and chasing is mentioned. Personally starting with a sorted and checked frame gives comfort over possibly building and finding (or creating) an issue that is a pain to resolve.

. If you had a proper workshop and were doing them systematically, 15 minutes per bike for assembly would be in the ballpark

No danger not if the shop is building it correctly.

Does that 15 minutes include unpacking and disposing of cardboard and non-recyclables properly? Filling in the PDI form with the customer’s details plus the frame number of the bike? Checking gears and brakes work correctly and adjusting? Checking bolts are torqued to the correct spec on everything from levers to saddle to crank?

Throwing a bike together in 15 minutes is easy. Doing it properly takes longer. Remember it’s the mechanic’s signature on the PDI form, they want it right when it leaves the workshop.

@Mister-P

Yes, the complete process was, in Halfords eyes, a 15 minute job. In my bikehut over Christmas we could have over 100 bikes to PDI in a single day with just me and a single 3 hour part timer

Ibis come as frame and separate build kit. I wanted to do what you were doing with mine, but the shop understandably were only willing to supply complete.
The best I could manage was then supplying with an uncut steerer, and that was a push.

Yes, the complete process was, in Halfords eyes, a 15 minute job

That’s why every one dreads working on a Halfords velocipede.

And tbh you were starting with crap quality stuff in most cases . Rushing the job only compounds it.

When I bought my Ripmo I was offered the complete build at a discounted rate, as I was initially looking for frame only.
The vendor said he could supply frame only, as it was a bare frame & the build kit came in 2 other separate boxes, if I wanted the build kit too & was happy to assemble myself then he could do me a good deal.
So, a long-winded way of saying Ibis bikes come completely disassembled in 3 boxes, so a lot more build time/labour cost.

Taking two spacers from under stem for wife’s aero road bike, hours of work. Remove cables from integrated bar/stem, cut down all cables, resetup gears and rebleed brakes. Get cables back through bar/stem, redo bar tape then done…….

In my bikehut over Christmas we could have over 100 bikes to PDI in a single day with just me and a single 3 hour part timer

So lets assume 11 man hours work, that means you’ve spent only 6 minutes per bike assuring that it is assembled to an acceptable professional standard, where you be could be responsible for the safety of a customer who will take your product and ride it on the public road. That’s a terrible advert for Halfords.

So lets assume 11 man hours work, that means you’ve spent only 6 minutes per bike assuring that it is assembled to an acceptable professional standard, where you be could be responsible for the safety of a customer who will take your product and ride it on the public road. That’s a terrible advert for Halfords.

Add in servicing (not allowed to turn away repairs), selling and taking deposits for bikes, answering the phone and dealing with click and collect orders…. more like 3 minutes per bike. This is why I ended up working 90 hour weeks despite being paid for 38

Good lord! Some companies do take the piss. For the bikes I’ve had it took more than 6 minutes just to get the bike out of the box and protective packaging off, assuming there is any.

To the OP, if you are getting the bike stripped to that level, add in Invisi-frame to the list and get that applied before its assembled.

Yes, the complete process was, in Halfords eyes, a 15 minute job. In my bikehut over Christmas we could have over 100 bikes to PDI in a single day with just me and a single 3 hour part timer

Sounds more like your manager was taking risks rather than Halfords only give you 15 mins per bike. It’s been a while since I worked there but I still know people who are there now and they allocate 30-45 mins per bike, same as I did when I worked there. That’s the time starting when the box gets to the stand to the forms being filled out. It may be well below the time needed for a decent bike to be set up correctly but then the vast majority of the bikes Halfords sell are pre-built bar the front wheel, pedals, handlebars and saddle. The rest is just a setup adjustment and bolt check. I used to allocate build slots for the christmas rush as 10 bikes per day per employee available and we would usually come out with spare capacity, some bikes like the kid’s ones could be done in 25 mins so you would be ahead and could slot in extras or start on the next day’s jobs as you saw fit. In my 7 years working there I only ever had 4 bikes come back for issues that were purely from poor assembly: 1 cross-threaded pedal, 2 mechs shifting into the spokes and 1 where the stem bolts had been overtightened. And before you say it must have been a small, quiet store we used to regularly be the highest preforming high street location in the country for bike sales on numbers and average value for 3 years straight.

One person doing over 50 a day is just asking for trouble.

This is why I ended up working 90 hour weeks despite being paid for 38.

Wouldn’t happen, they pay per hour for most of the staff and if you were salaried and having to work that amount of hours then there was something wrong.

Wouldn’t happen, they pay per hour for most of the staff and if you were salaried and having to work that amount of hours then there was something wrong.

I certainly wasn’t getting overtime as a bikehut manager. There was something wrong. The staffing split in my store