Giant USA targets sub-$500 bike consumers with new campaign
We’re doing this for the long term; we’re doing this for the future of our retailer’s market strength.
Giant USA targets sub-$500 bike consumers
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Author Archives: zundel
Old rules: least change
Old mechanics have old rules for old bicycles.
Good engineering, and good mechanics, have the principle of least change: make the smallest change needed to achieve the desired outcome.
The principle applies to whole bicycles. Beyond a certain age, beyond a certain level of disrepair, do little.
Great old frames deserve rebuilding — if the customer has the budget.
But don’t over-write and overwork a beat-up bike. In the end, the customer could have better spent the money. In the end, the bike will take more work then charged.
Old bikes have unpleasant surprises: bearings that seemed dry turnout blown; cables reveal rust; etc.
Do the least possible — or do everything, and charge for it. Anything in between rarely works.
Culture of service
We have a culture of service as a legacy from un-fine old steel such as Schwinn drainpipe sadly not yet rusted away.
Yet modern components operate close to the limit of tolerances.
A customer tightening a loose bolt or an inexperienced technician can ruin a frame or component.
Centering a disc caliper can offer fewer frustrations than centering a single-pivot side-pull. Yet the young technician struggling with the single-pivot will not likely harm the part nor put the customer at risk.
Steel bolts into alloy threads require judgment and a more skilled technician. Do we charge more to center a disc caliper? Or do we wait for the store down the street to change their prices or go out of business.
Is cheaper better?
Is cheaper better? by Ray Keener
… in the $300-$400 range sales plummet from 25 percent to 12 percent over that same period. [2009–2013]
Consumers don’t identify their needs by quality as much as they do by price. They buy bikes they think they can afford for the riding they want to do.
Wheel Whisperering
Wheel Building Tip No. 5 – Be a Wheel Whisperer
…a single loosened spoke will generate a broad “S” bend in the rim, a sort of sine wave. If you try and correct this by truing each section of the wave, rather than discovering the true culprit, you’ll have wasted time and possibly worsened the wheel’s condition. Eventually, of course, you’ll find the culprit. Your measure as a builder is how quickly you can find the source of a wheel’s trouble and make a bulls eye correction.
Never spot true.
The difference between those that can form quick and accurate mental maps of wheel tension and those who can’t is huge. It’s like night and day. I pity builders who are essentially blind in their work, stumbling around, superstitious, expecting weird outcomes and struggles. Don’t be among them.
Eventually, you’ll deduce and fix wheels in a fraction of the time it takes others.
Winter Bikepacking Resurrection Pass Trail, Alaska
The long nights of winter are waning, finally. Riding our bikes has been paramount to avoiding seasonal blues– we ride to and from work, we meet for night rides on local singletrack, and we choose to ride all day in the sun when away from work.
An even greater therapy is to get out for an overnight ride. In a year where snow has been less common than ice and warm afternoons, many routes are supremely rideable. Jeff Oatley’s 1000-mile, 10-day trek to Nome in the Iditarod Trail Invitational is a great example. His record improves upon notable rides by Mike Curiak and Jay Petervary by almost a week. These are all very strong riders, and each of their record-setting rides has included favorable conditions. This year was simply faster. Every human-powered Iditarod record has fallen.
Resurrection Pass is a popular trail for hikers and bikers…
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The Greastest American Racer
Greg LeMond: (Still) America’s Greatest
One of the truly great. Great form. Very interesting stroke.
Great athletic ability and stunning will. He came back.
The racer of my era (only a few years older). Still worth watching.
A nice, informed, condensed read about him.
Bicycle retail salaries: How low is too low?
Customer service is a great tool for building long-time relationships with bike shop customers.
But good customer service requires qualified and motivated people on staff, and this is not easy to achieve or maintain. Staff issues are frequently cited as one of the most vexing challenges for retail bike stores. Why? One reason is that it’s hard to recruit the talented people you need when offering the relatively low wages available in bike retail.
Bicycle mechanic salaries made the news earlier this month when Bicycle Retailer and Industry News reported on a blog post that had gone semi-viral (by bicycle industry standards anyway), with 197,000 views as of this writing.
Donny Perry, a global development manager at Specialized, posted a presentation in mid-February (http://www.slideshare.net/donnyperry/bike-mechanic-salaries) that called out the sub-standard average pay offered to bicycle mechanics.
He noted that the average bicycle mechanic earns just $22,337 per year (according…
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It’s all about the helmets.
Wrench Fu 