What's up with bike shops, I thought they were inundated with work

shimanobottombracket

Went to 3 bike shops yesterday to source a part. All 3 were closed. Altho 1 was sort of open. They just had a service counter and a massive queue outside. Bike shops are key businesses so why are they not open? I thought commuting by bike is encouraged?

Maybe it's just a thing in my area. Are bike shops open where you are? Despite being allowed to open it seems they'd rather stay shut and claim money off the government. I'm all the more glad I done a cycle maintenance course. If I had to rely on bike shop mechanics I'd be stuffed!

Cargobike

Er.....
Social distancing?
Perhaps you could have ordered the part online rather than mingling with all the numpties.
Different businesses will be open or closed for different reasons. Just because the ones close to you are shut doesn't mean they are sponging off the government and I doubt their needs will be anything like that twat Branson is asking for.

Darius_Jedburgh

Could be they have childcare issues. Mrs may still be working. Kids off school.
Lots of reasons.
They may conceivably want a day off from the numpties who have just pulled a load of sh1te from the back of the shed and "absolutely" need it fixing by tomorrow morning.
They might be open tomorrow.

shimanobottombracket

Cargobike said:

Er.....
Social distancing?
Perhaps you could have ordered the part online rather than mingling with all the numpties.

Generally I do. Bit difficult to do when your looking for a certain type and length of bolt.

On the plus side it was a helluva day for a ride. Roads were very busy despite the situation which was a bit unexpected.

Cargobike

As are the ones around my way.
Then again when Rolls Royce makes half the people in Derby in decent jobs redundant they'll struggle. It's quite noticeable that the smaller shops that rely upon servicing bikes are more likely to be open rather than the warehouse operations that pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap.

fenix

If they're inundated with work they're probably just doing that then. Nobody wants Joe public wandering into their shops these days.

Try ringing or emailing them. As you say they're inundated so busy working on bikes - not hanging round in the shop.

dcwhite1984

My local shop is open and trading, however they have put in place an appointment system, you phone them with what you are looking to do, they then say whether they can help or have what you want, or if you need to go in they book a time - allows them to easily stagger people and give enough time to each person.