Insane price for a bike wash.

[mnr fly]

this guy gives out free wash and lubes fir every recommendation!! just saying. https://m.facebook.com/Rikus-Le-Grange-Personal-and-Mobile-Bicycle-Technician-1582249095384573/

[Bobbo_SA]

Also know that something like tuning your gears is not rocket science. there's a little knobbie that goes clockwise, or counter-clockwise. If you need to pay someone to do that for you, then you deserve to pay out your...

 

And if you can't do it because you don't have the tools because they cost too much... then know that the dude doing the job for you had to buy those expensive tools... so don't expect it to be done for free "because it took him 2 seconds to loosen my cassette!"

 

1. Agree with that completely, its a fine art and mostly by hearing and feeling it, you can get it spot on, but there are many variables that a non-technical person may miss, bent hanger, worn bearings, worn freehub etc that may cause intermittent issues that a good mechanic should know to look for.

 

2. This depends on your relationship with the LBS, I have spent thousands in the few around my area so have built up the opportunity to use the odd spanner / tool once in a while (most of the time i try buy the tool from them first - like that silly Shimano tool to open the lower / older gen SPD pedals), but agree, if you are fresh off the street you will be charged for the "tool-time".

[Bobbo_SA]

Only take my bike in when I can't do something myself.

If you can't do it yourself, pay someone to do it for you, period.

 

Around the house / garden my motto is that if it will take me longer than 1 hour to do I'm going to pay someone to do it, on the bike that might stretch to 3 beers.

[GhostSixFour]

Hourly rate is a tough one - nobody bats an eye (or perhaps they do but don't complain) about car agents selling their technician's time at R500-600/hour. Try that for a bicycle and people have a melt down.

 

This is where the SA industry is half pregnant. People want R600/hour service at R100/hour rate.

 

Until the rate increases and shops can afford "real" mechanics there is going to be a disconnect between service offering and service expectation.

 

There are some awesome mechanics out there but keeping awesome mechanics is tough when the monthly pay is under (estimate) R15k/month. That kind of money is fine for students and youngsters but not enough to buy a house and feed a family. So the trend is to have poor mechanics or students working in bike shops.

 

Self fulfilling prophecy....

Once bicycle manufacturers start imposing limits on where you can service your bicycle and still retain a warranty, then this will probably happen, I think. 

 

Just imagine the joy of having to take your bicycle to a Spez authorized dealer to get brake pads replaced or else you lose you warranty.. Or getting a stamped service book with second hand purchases..

[Eldron]

This depends on your relationship with the LBS,

 

This!

 

It is tough for new customers because both parties have to suss the other out first but once a relationship is formed prices, contracts and what ifs go out the window.

 

It's another reason I don't like big shops (of any description not just cycling) - you deal with a different guy each time so building a relationship is tough. It's like the real life version of call centres.

 

I have customers that drop their bikes off and tell me to fix them - most don't even tell me what is wrong. I have a quick look - send them a semi final price and get going once they approve (some I don't even do this). Gotta love trust. Probably not enough of it in SA at the moment - and sadly probably for good reason - it's rough out there!

[Goodbadugly]

The bike shop must fix a price somewhere.

I have seen bikes so dirty after a Sabie experience that I would charge R500 for a proper wash. An then I have seen bikes where a mere 20 second hosing will be ok.

 

Maybe the bike shops should have a sliding scale? Like a pain score?

 

[Pure Savage]

Just got a call from the guys that they have finished up with my bike and instead of collecting tomorrow I can come grab it now. 

 

Love my LBS! 

 

#crowncycles

[Rick Sanchez]

If you want a cheap wash, ride your bike past those window washers standing by busy robots 

[rouxtjie]

Most of the time the owner says:

"it needs a service, please eliminate all the creaks. I think it's the crank because it happens when I pedal"

Bike has done a number of stage races and been through quite a few power washes.

 

How do you cost stripping the whole bike and greasing every pivot and bearing, skewer, chainring bolt, seatpost, pedal etc, etc... Basically a full service labour cost. And no it's not possible to do one thing, build the bike back up and test it. Bring it back and try another thing, the way you home mechanic the bike at home .

 

The average rider is not as passionate about biking as all of us on this forum. They don't care about the ins and outs of it all as long as you can make the bike work again. They don't care what sealant we put in the tyres - as long as it works. They don't know what headset bearings are and why they need to be greased. They don't want to specify all the little bits on their bike which needs attention because they have no idea what they are.

 

For knowledgeable guys like you we will do exactly what you ask for and add then add a labour charge. Because chances are you know how to clean and grease a pivot bolt when it starts making noises and you change your own cables and housing, brake pads etc. You are in the 3% who do but still need the lbs to attend to difficult issues sometimes... which we done for you before

fair enough..I can appreciate that. so my roccomammas menu in a bikeshop is a pipedream....sigh

[PregoRoll]

GP4000S is a competition race tyre and one of the better ones. So maybe compare that the GT3 race tyre and you looking at 15-25k each.

 

You can get a bicycle tyre for R80 if you want to go cheap.

Yokohama R1 205/40 R17....R1000

Schwalbe Racing Ralph Snakeskin...R895.00

 

Yeah.....both very good tyres...explain that one? 

[scotty]

Well there are already mobile bike mechanic's, why not mobile bike wash 

 

 

[Spoke101]

Yokohama R1 205/40 R17....R1000

Schwalbe Racing Ralph Snakeskin...R895.00

 

Yeah.....both very good tyres...explain that one? 

 

Hahaha, they not even in the same time zone.

The R1’s widest size isn’t wide enough for the front wheel of a standard 911 GT3 let alone a GP3 race spec version.

So that point is null and void.

 

The Yokohama R1 good tyre but more comparable to a Continental Ultra Sport II and that's being generous.

[Patchelicious]

You have to love the Hub.

 

Leave a thread alone for a day, come back and people are arguing about car tyres on a thread about bike washes....

[eddy]

For knowledgeable guys like you we will do exactly what you ask for and add then add a labour charge. Because chances are you know how to clean and grease a pivot bolt when it starts making noises and you change your own cables and housing, brake pads etc. You are in the 3% who do but still need the lbs to attend to difficult issues sometimes... which we done for you before

Sean, I don't know if there is an answer but I remember what happened to me with my first DS bike.

 

I used to take it to a well known Laboratory in the north for a "full service" on a regular basis until I decided to take it to a small owner run workshop orientated shop in Greenside and asked them to give it the once over.

 

They called me to come and look at my bike and I found it in three boxes. From the condition of the bearings it was clear that they had never been inspected, much less greased. They were, and had been shot for quite some time.

 

So maybe it is the newby cyclists who need to be sat down and told the facts. A cheap service is a superficial service. A through service requires a bike to be stripped and reassembled by a competant technician. This requires time and costs money. It is not a rip-off, it is simple commercial reality.

[RockCoach]

Yes, eddy we try to educate our customers as much as possible. There are lots of times we have had to have difficult phone calls with them. That "quick check" actually really needs to be a full service. Seized bearings leading to cracked frames. How do guys actually know that their bikes have had full pivot services? There's usually at least one bearing on its way out which needs to be replaced.

 

There are also cases where we find a bike has been meticulously maintained when we open it up and we call the owner to downgrade to a mini service.

[mnr fly]

https://m.facebook.com/Rikus-Le-Grange-Personal-and-Mobile-Bicycle-Technician-1582249095384573/