Cycle servicing plans?

dmccart32

Would you sign-up to a low cost pay monthly servicing & insurance plan for bikes?

davis

No.

The Rookie

NO learn to DIY, why on earth would you, or is this your market research?

dmccart32

I agree i would personally do it myself, however there are a lot of people who do not have the time or the money to stump up the £60-80 in one hit. That's why you see so many people riding rust buckets that are clearly not safe for the road around London!

And yes this is for market research purposes, so would like people to look at it objectively :-)

stu-bim

I get my bike serviced in LBS as I a very new to cycling. It only costs about 20 quid for a full service, i.e. crank off checked and greased, wheels same, front fork same and gears indexed. Get it done every 500-700 miles. Rear hub needed a few bearings last time. There are things I would not have any clue about but intention is to do it myself in time.

The Rookie

Depends on how you offer the service, if it's all inclusive you'll get people signing up for a few months to get loads of parts fitted and you won't see them again for a year, if it's labour only people will always be suspicious you are padding the bill with parts.

Apart from DDD who can't seem to tell one end of a screwdriver from the other, most on here wouldn't dream of paying for the service and don't ride tatty bikes, so your aiming your research at the wrong target audience, you need to aim it at those who may consider it. Thiose riding £60 wrecks are also unlikely to want to spend £20 a month to keep it just about useable!

Not really the right forum either.

dmccart32

Ok, thanks for the feedback.

rolf_f

stu-bim wrote:

I get my bike serviced in LBS as I a very new to cycling. It only costs about 20 quid for a full service, i.e. crank off checked and greased, wheels same, front fork same and gears indexed. Get it done every 500-700 miles. Rear hub needed a few bearings last time. There are things I would not have any clue about but intention is to do it myself in time.

There's your problem see! 500-700 miles. For me I'd be having to take my bike in every 2-3 weeks. £20 isn't much though I assume it doesn't cover parts. So, for example, I never touch my cranks until the bearings fail (apparently I should so I'll be doing a bit more greasing of them in future!) - they last 7000 miles or so in all weathers and cost about £22 to replace (and I fit them myself - takes 30 minutes or so). My cheaper wheels are sealed bearing so there's no real maintenance there and indexing doesn't need touching in 1000s of miles.

Now after about 12000 miles, the wheels need all six bearings replacing. Those cost £15 off ebay and again, hopefully should be free to fit (not done those before!). Generally, on bikes, it works fine to just do things when they need doing rather than waiting for a due service. And most of the time, those service things simply don't need to be done. I can bet that if I took my Look (which is in perfect order) and rode a 1000 miles on it, that there would be nothing on your list of service activities that would need doing - let alone paying £20 for.

It's better to over maintain than under maintain but this is still an expensive way to run a bicycle which, after all, is (or should be) a very simple piece of equipment. DIY is really the best way unless you are hopelessly cack handed!

The Rookie

I do 1000miles a year on my commuter, mostly all it needs is a chain lube,I check a lot of stuff regularly but usual no work is required, wheel bearings (shimano cup and cone) haven't been touched in 4000 miles, Indexing hasn't been touched since I fitted all new gears 3000miles ago, brakes (cable disc so need more tlc) I do about every 3 months and it takes 5 minutes, other than that I lube the chain.

The MTB need shed loads more TLC, per year and even more so per mile!

the_hundredth_idiot

I confess I had my Fratello serviced at my LBS recently - it has Campag bits on it and I don't have all the specialist tools (e.g. BB tool). As it turns out, it's such an obscure Campag BB that the LBS didn't have the tool either - one day I'll just buy the right tool and replace it with something less obscure. :?

I also didn't have the time to do it myself - it needed a good strip down rather than a quick clean and lube, and it was much quicker to drop it off at the LBS than spend a weekend taking it apart and putting it back together (because, inevitably, when it's in bits I'll find out that I don't have something I need and then have to put it to one side while I go out and buy the bit).

And the service cost £59 - hard to see that this sort of cost would need spreading over a couple of years. If you have a rust-bucket, you probably wouldn't spend £59 on it to get it running smoother, and the admin costs of a service plan would likely be disproportionate to tehc ost of the service itself.