Good Cycle Shops In Cape Town

[Hackster]

Olympic

a great range of gear, some good floor staff and mechanics, a real one stop shop, they seem to open earlier and close later than some stores.

Shop layout still a work in progress, prices tend to be a bit higher than some nearby shops, lack of obvious management at times, pricing stickers can be a problem

 

Crown

fair range of gear - arranged by type not brand (wish everyone would do this), friendly & helpful staff, great mechanic dude, and some very good prices, they often/always have a specials table, the store is well laid out - makes it easy to shop.

sometimes not quite enough options to choose from on the gear side

 

Cyclelab Westlake/Tokai

Nice store, though the layout could use a little tweaking - there are some 'lost' areas. Helpful staff. Have found that their workshop can turn around small jobs quite quickly.

Some are their staff are relatively inexperienced so you can end up waiting to talk to the guy who does know what's going on.

 

General comments to bike shop owners

Group your goods by type, not by brand.

Price your goods clearly.

Have a permanent 'specials' bin with good prices on the stock you want to move.

Open a 'bling your bike' corner for all those little shiny bits that serve no real purpose other than to individualise bikes (and mop up our beer money).

Run some afterhours workshop demos/talks/events in your store

Host some casual rides

Use CRM software in your workshop, I spend more money on servicing my bikes than my car and you still don't know my name.

[Lone_Ranger]

Who said that, the shop owners? While i know ppl do do what the LBS' accuse them of, i have to call BS: the lack of stock has been there way before almost anyone knew about say, CRC, or any of the other major online retailers. Firstly the pricing of local clothing is to put it mildly, undesirable, and then to top it off, the range was virtually non-existent. You goto an online shop, and suddenly the world is your oyster.

 

Up the range, down the margin, and maybe ppl will buy what they fit. Hardware has gone that route, in that there is pretty much price parity with online shops, CRC in particular, when it comes cycling hardware. Now while you can't try before you buy when it comes to hardware, the price parity situation only serves to highlight what i perceive to be the real problem with ppl not buying locally.

 

So while the high prices of cycling clothing is largely not the fault of local retailers (because of ridiculously fat customs charges on imported textiles), the lack of variety is mostly cetainly Not the fault of ppl fitting but not buying.

They didnt' buy because the price wasn't right! A minor, but crucial detail your common denominator fails to mention. Nothing against you, but that argument by LBS' riles me up no end. Flamesuit on.

 

While I agree with your sentiment, my experience with buying onlne has been that the customs for clothing is crazy (>50% if I'm not mistaken). This would certainly go a long way to explaining the inflated prices of imported clothing. The bigger question is why locally manufactured clothing is so expensive.

[Surv0MTB]

While I agree with your sentiment, my experience with buying onlne has been that the customs for clothing is crazy (>50% if I'm not mistaken). This would certainly go a long way to explaining the inflated prices of imported clothing. The bigger question is why locally manufactured clothing is so expensive.

 

Anatomic prices are hard to beat hey, check them out.

[Caerus]

Anatomic prices are hard to beat hey, check them out.

They had some well priced stuff, I did buy from them as well.

[Capricorn]

While I agree with your sentiment, my experience with buying onlne has been that the customs for clothing is crazy (>50% if I'm not mistaken). This would certainly go a long way to explaining the inflated prices of imported clothing. The bigger question is why locally manufactured clothing is so expensive.

 

it's 45%. and I did acknowledge that the local higher prices are due to customs tariffs, which are that high allegedly to 'protect' the local textiles market. The point i was making that the LBS was being less than honest, or worse, ignorant of the whole situation, when only blaming those who fit in their stores, but buy online, for the lack of range. The lack of variety and range was always there. I'll bet things have improved because of online shops. The competition forces everyone to compete on range and price, or die. Simple economics. What i dont understand is, is why some of the locally made stuff is nearing price parity with imported items. Still look like a dog's old breakfast, but costs a fortune.

And here I thought locally made was locally made, not locally 'assembled'. The whole textile customs tariff is BS. I would love to know how much of textiles manufacturing is of gross domestic export.

[Lone_Ranger]

Anatomic prices are hard to beat hey, check them out.

 

Fully agree. Bought some really good stuff from them over the past year or two.

[Wez-O]

I'm sure they have been mentioned already, but as a Joburger, I'm a fan of Complete Cyclist in Hout bay and their killer Cappuccino's after a good ride.

[Warren_G]

Yo Kanga .... many light years ago when I left school and knew even less about cycling than I do today, I worked at CWC .... what Chris is saying about the store having a target market that covers everyone who owns a bicycle or is even thinking of owning a bicycle.

 

There was a roughly dressed Client who would always come in and ask 1000's of questions, look and then walk out on a regular basis ... I entertained him and gave the best advise that I could, even if it meant complimenting a competitive shops brands as this was my honest opinion .... long story short ... he eventually walked in one morning and purchased the top of the range 20K bike (in 1996/7 this was a rather pricey purchase) and subsequently asked if we could help him load it into the car. Car turned out to be a shiny little Porsche.

 

The way he was treated in that store was the same way that a cyclist who pitches up looking like he is a pro is treated.

 

Now I do believe that this is how the CWC store still operate.

 

What might well be to their disadvantage right now is that they have this huge store with high volumes of traffic coming through there on the weekend and the number of staff on the floor are under pressure to see to as many Clients at the same time.

 

Hope you give them another chance.

 

Regards

Jerome "AKA" Hairy

Have to agree with you there Hairy, the store is too big with not enough bodies on the floor fielding questions etc. I've also walked out of CWC feeling like I've not been helped and was totally ignored. While I live in the southern suburbs the specials CWC offer are good and would drive out to purchase but I can walk into (I know I'm going to get it for this one) Olympic Cycles and be greeted and welcomed in. Now don't get me wrong, I believe Olympic's services and all work in general is sub standard (take my bike to Crown for servicing) but the staff are friendly and that goes a long way so much so that I'll occasionally purchase something from their and leave an hour later.

 

That being said Melanie did take the time to call me back re some stock I was waiting for to arrive at CWC which I thought was quite nice.

 

Will give CWC another go...

[Dumpykym]

Flandria Cycles in Stellenbosch....great individual attention even on a busy Satuday morning.

[Andro]

CWC... Visited recently, received awesome respond from salespersons, even Chris Jr came around and assisted me.

 

Excellent service received.

 

Keep it up.

[Surv0MTB]

Need to get CWC on a quiet day