Rip off price for a bike service

[Cuchilo]

I think £60 -£70 is fair for a bike service and the going rate . Parts cost more in the LBS as they are retail prices . The cassette on my Defy cost £30 but they fitted the best one and didn't charge to fit it , I could have got a cheaper one online and fitted it myself but why bother . My TCR wont need a service as it gets tweaked if I ask . They are on top of it before I have a problem , that's how I feel about it anyway .

As for cheap tools , I'm no fan of those and think you do more damage to your expensive bike by using them .

Ed , you have ALOT to learn about customers . You have those that will ask for a bill after you have clearly given them the product and those that will have the money in your bank at a blink of an eye .

 

[Cycling Dan]

I notice people keep calling the op a troll or get tired of him. Well he must be doing something right as his threads are always big turn outs.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

@Soup890: one thing that helped me finally pull my finger out, and start learning to do my own bike part replacements and servicing is: have a backup bike! When after years of riding my Vivente touring bike I finally bought a road bike about 1.5 years ago, this gave me the confidence to start doing my own replacing and servicing of parts, because I knew if I stuffed it up, I could always commute on the other bike .

 

[Big Nick]

I reckon for a full service £70 is the going rate based on prices I've seen advertised in bike shops. I remember seeing a price of £10 to repair a puncture and thinking it was a bit steep for such an easy task especially if your bike has quick release wheels but at the end of the day time is money!
Personally I think some of the fun of cycling is fettling your own bike and by getting it running better you get a sense of achievement.
I was thinking of doing a bike maintenance day run at a LBS but I'm put off as I've successfully done most of the jobs mentioned on the course content!

 

[Soup890]

I reckon for a full service £70 is the going rate based on prices I've seen advertised in bike shops. I remember seeing a price of £10 to repair a puncture and thinking it was a bit steep for such an easy task especially if your bike has quick release wheels but at the end of the day time is money!
Personally I think some of the fun of cycling is fettling your own bike and by getting it running better you get a sense of achievement.
I was thinking of doing a bike maintenance day run at a LBS but I'm put off as I've successfully done most of the jobs mentioned on the course content!

Adjusting gears are hard

 

[young Ed]

Do you want to slap some money on that statement? for every 400 people that attend a PDR course in the USA only 1 will make a go of it. In the UK the number is very slightly better.

It is certainly not rocket science, but most people find it extremely difficult even with a good trainer standing behind them.

I will give you a tip seeing as you are very new to this life thing and are yet to get a job I expect, never not ever say a tradesman job is easy if you want to keep them as a friend, no matter what they do.

sorry i meant literally holding their hands and moving them for them, but yes even so it won't be as good as you have a feel for what is right and not etc etc
very trades/skills i know including a wee bit of black smithing some carving and leatherwork and the list goes on and even as a amateur I do agree that I am still better than someone who has never gone near leather or heard a forge or thinks of a knife a weapon rather than a tool etc etc

By no means am I saying you are unskilled or a rip off nor is a good bike mechanic charging £70 fr a service
Cheers Ed
P.S: I'm by no means an expert but I know a certain albeit small amount about business and customers with my parents running 2 companies 1 of which I am heavily involved with selling to the public
and this is my second year of studying business in school

 

[young Ed]

Adjusting gears are hard

depends, some times it's impossible but yesterday it was easy!
Cheers Ed

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I'd say bike shops can't compete with online retailers for price or range of stock, but what they have got is the knowledge and skill and that is important. Mine doesn't mind me going in and picking his brains about how to do a small job. He can re-index my gears in a couple of minutes whereas I take ages, and I can't do as good a job as he can. As for price per hour - I just pay up, it's worth it to have them there when I want something (except on Wednesdays).

I made friends with my local social enterprise bike mechanic. Learned loads, as she lets you do the work yourself under supervision. I pay for the parts, then put a donation in the box equal of what a LBS mechanic would have charged for the work, about £ 10.00/15.00 an hour is what mine used to charge before he retired.
At the moment my hybrid Boris needs new drive train, new cables all round, front wheel hub servicing: bought the parts, will attempt to do the job myself.
Pretty confident I can, probably will need some help with the gear indexing after.
BTW, spent about £ 60.00 on line for new freewheel, new front cogs and cranks, new chain, set of inner and outers cables.
I think we forget how the miles take a toll on our bikes.

 

[Globalti]

FWIW I once worked in a bike shop helping out on Saturdays. People used to come in with wrecked bikes then gasp in shock when the shop owner gave them an estimate of the cost of putting them right. More out of interest than anything I offered to take a couple of them home and fix them up and the owners agreed. I learned two things:

1 - Fixing other people's neglected bikes makes your back ache and is a dirty thankless task especially when you know they don't care a damn.

2 - No matter how much you charge, you can't make a living out of fixing bikes.

 

[NorvernRob]

I don't mind doing bits and pieces and maintenance to my bike, but when Planet X do a full service inc strip down, cables, bar tape replaced etc for £60 it isn't worth the time or effort to do it myself.

 

[youngoldbloke]

In a way I'm pleased it costs so much - it means I save loads of money that I can then spend on the bikes. I have only once resorted to the LBS's workshop in recent years, with a problem of chain skating on the inner chainring of a Veloce chainset. They couldn't fix the problem, but to be fair, only charged a tenner for their time. (I subsequently worked out (with help from the WWW) that the inner chainring was not machined centrally within the thickness of the metal, and the problem solved by flipping it over).

 

[coffeejo]

Everyone has different learning styles: I've tried reading books / watching YouTube videos but it doesn't register in my brain. Having someone willing to take the time to follow the old adage of "tell me, show me, watch me" does work - but I'm yet to find anyone with the experience AND the confidence AND the patience AND the time to help me with anything other than (very) basic maintenance so I'm happy taking my bike to the LBS as I'd rather pay for the service than have something go wrong. Having said that, I always state that while I'm happy for the essentials to be changed if they need to be, they're to ring me about anything else. Four years and the only horrid surprises have been mishaps following my own attempts to repair/service my bikes.

 

[summerdays]

I'm with you @coffeejo I find it takes me a while to learn how to do each step and it's nice having the LBS to sort out my mess if I give it a go. I know I struggle with strength too, so find pulling the cable tight enough to start adjusting it difficult! But once I master a skill I feel really pleased with myself!

Now that I've discovered that two pannier struts have broken, I'm trying to decide if I'm able to do it myself! Theoretically sounds easy but I have disk brakes. And do I stick to the identical rack because I know that it should fit?

 

[kevin_cambs_uk]

@Soup890: one thing that helped me finally pull my finger out, and start learning to do my own bike part replacements and servicing is: have a backup bike! When after years of riding my Vivente touring bike I finally bought a road bike about 1.5 years ago, this gave me the confidence to start doing my own replacing and servicing of parts, because I knew if I stuffed it up, I could always commute on the other bike .

This is what helped me!

 

[classic33]

What do you do with the parts you replaced?
Shops are charged for the rubbish & tyres/innertubes can no longer go to landfill.
Part of the cost that many don't take into account.