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Can't forget donuts

A Frend of mine bikeshop that was his dream I was racing bicycles tried to work out a sponsorship with him.. oh he was like not having the people he brought into work for him in the Bikeshop or actually giving stuff away selling it out the back door his wife was tagging the till for pocket change.. I was asking for was to help promote his business but I got stuff at Costco and it wasn’t a lot of things handful of tubes couple Tires chain couple sprockets in six months. But you can’t hire the homeless an think there going to be awesome employees.

I have local bike shops. I wish your shop was my local shop, I'd actually want to go there.

STEEL IS REAL!!!! Love it.

Fun build when you have the parts kicking around.

Appreciate the knowledge base and numbers. The business side of the dream always seems to be an eye opener for a lot of folks.

Subbed, nice work. This is why I work out of my garage and basically pay retail for parts. So basically I end up earning only labor, no margin whatsoever. This end of the bike business is kind of like going up to dracula and just bearing your neck. When people talk to me about working in a shop I turn them down. When endeavoring entrepreneurs want to open a shop, I tell them to do something else. Meanwhile, the behemoth vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers are better insulated, to the point that they've put themselves into their current predicament. Even working out of the garage, it's tough to make it work. After accounting for all the stuff listed in this video, lease aside, it's still ridiculous to work on bikes to make a living. This is one reason why factory direct has hurt bike shops. That additional margin made it possible. Now, I just can't see it making sense.

How to make a million dollars owning a bike shop? Start with two million.

Great! Was the business plan posted anywhere? I would love to have a look. Im Norway based. It was fun to "walk around" in Google maps around you shop. What a great location and what looks like a cosy town. I guess it great to ride around the town and outback trails.

The ice cold truth! Makes you hate the big sport stores that dump the prices all day with big discounts. #supportyoulocalbikeshop

I was looking to see or hear how many square feet you started I was looking at 800 sq.ft. To start. An yes a million sounds crazy but reality 30% of a million to get real mechanics your own paycheck.

How much NM of torque?

Dude, you rock! Thanks for sharing ... good video for anybody who wants to do any business

opening my own bike shop after having a webshop for 2 years and those numbers seem very high. i believe my running costs are around 10k per year because im running it off my own property, because of the locaiton i will loose a little bit of revenue but not paying a lease makes up for it :)

Just a tip the rachet and bits are exact same with the Topeak ratchet rocket ntx so you can use the torque bit

250k to start a shop?? Just invest that in real-estate. Buy the building and just open up the doors for business. Hopefully the building has an apartment on the second floor for income. This way your double invested. You have real-estate and you have a business. Forget employees, just hire a part-time mechanic if you can't handle the workload. Another option is to buy an established bike shop. You can never know what will come . Any business you have to be able to take risk, otherwise you'll never get started.

I'd imagine Retail bike shops have a massive uphill against online dealers with bike parts but make up with bike fits, servicing and repairs etc. but I've just started cycling this year, I went to my first credible bike shop and what a difference it makes the experience of me not fully understanding everything but the guy did. Very clued up and left a good impression. And I'll surely be using again and supporting my lthe local and maybe smaller but professional businesses.

So essentially, you need to service 3 to 4 customer every day

You do look like Greg Minar, lol

I make a decent living and I love to just splurge at my local bike shop and I don't return anything. It's hard enough to find an honest good small local business in the US these days, why would you not support them?

I’d Love to peal at the business plan. To get a better idea how to get my wheels turning

If this is the thought process for opening a bike shop it’s no wonder why it’s a “high fail” industry. *where’s the face palm button on this thing?*

Great stuff. I've owned several not bike shop retail stores over the last decade. Got tired of people and closed them all. Obviously these numbers vary depending on one's own market, but pretty much spot on.

Thanks for the video. I am looking at purchasing our local bike shop, and this was helpful. I would love to look at your business plan, as I will need to make one for my SBA loan. Thanks!

Is it better than the previous gen?

This is eye-opening. I'm in the UK and now have a better understanding of why so many bike shops are failing.

You gotta love it when a Shimano 105 Group from QBP is $200 more wholesale than one shipped free from England. I kicked Shimano out of my shop in 2013 and only used Sram, Microshift, etc. Worst company ever.

I had one from 2011-2024. I only took in bikes that I knew I could fix easily for max profit. If someone brought in a complicated fix I told them NO. If someone brought in a Schwinn Varsity or other restoration the cost was $125/hr. Swing at pitches you can hit. No bogged in complicated BS. New bike sales NEVER pay for the space needed to heat, display, build, ship, insure. Fixing 10 yr old Giant mtbs is easy big profit.

Дякую хлопці. Було дуже цікаво

Thanks for the brutal honesty. I hope you can keep on serving the Kelowna community. One thing to look forward to is that we've hit peak car, and e-bikes are likely to become the sustainable transportation choice in the face of Climate Crisis and the economic tumult that comes with it. I know the bike industry is feeling much pain this year. I wish people could see tge forest through the trees and start investing in cargo and other e-bikes to help get to where I feel we'll eventually all be. That would also remove the seasonality that I'm sure is disruptive to your shop and your employees.

Hi, Really appreciate this and your previous starting a bike shop video. I'm currently entering a set up phase for a bike store here in the UK. I'm interested to know how you managed to source the data from trail forks, and if this is something that might be able to be translated over to Strava? Thanks again for the videos

Got my first bike shop job in 1972 and I've seen many many shops close up since then. Paying rent is the surest way to go under. Just like home ownership vs renting. You don't build up any equity with rent that will increase. Watched a few other shops fail due to over spending on advertising such as race team sponsorship. The entire history of bicycles has been booms and fads. Each new design spurs another boom that fades out. 2020 was a record sales year, like the early 1970s when every bike you could get sold fast. The pandemic bike boom is over. The 2019 bicycle tariff increase from 10% to 25% is the main reason prices are up while demand has crashed. Now would be a poor time to open a new shop in many areas. One owner I knew built oversized new buildings and rented out the extra space that paid for the buildings so the bicycle business didn't. Other retail and upstairs apartments covered the bank loan payments. Banks are more likely to loan money for something they can repossess and resell like a building. What are they going to do with specialty fixtures excess inventory. Multiple locations. Yoiks. Two stores means double expenses just so customers won't have to drive as far. Save that for when you are making a lot of money. You will spend more time calling the other store(s) to see if item X is available. Tell the customer "we will have it here in a couple days" and they won't return. Enlarging a single location will bump up some expenses but not all of them. My pet peeve "We can order it..." Yeah in this age of the www so can the customer and it will be delivered to their door just as soon and probably for le$$.

Brian, Thank you very much for creating this video. The question I have is about the 2.5 mm drive side spacer. While I am waiting for my highlander frae (thank you for shipping fast) i've seen this spacer thing in the user manual (on deviate website). Manual says 52 mm chainline is must do which is exactly sram dub with 3mm offset chainring. As you probably know, sram dub BB does not use and frame spacers on either side (for 73mm bsa). Instead 4.5 mm external drive side spacer (between BB cup and crank) is used. I guess I can ignore this 2.5mm spacer requirement?? Thank you!

wow man, just in time. I am like a few days from opening a shop here in Spain and I have gone through the same population calculations and considerations. The budget I have here is quite a lot lower, but also, I am not going to sell bikes, so this helps. Your first video on the topic was quite frightening, this one not so :)

im in the UK, I also started April 2020 so prime Covid..... i work from home and earn approx $16000 usd..... granted im well below average income here however affords me the flexibility to help look after family... bike shops can be as simple or as complicated as you want them to be... loving these videos though, great to see someone actually show the costings involved..... would love a shop tour

Decide yes, I will put the business plan in the description : )

Tip #1: don't make a tool board out of unfinished softwood plywood. It will get filthy and look skanky in a very short time.

Still a great video! When I describe how my shop is just not profitable (I eek out a sub $40k living), while also required taking on a certain amount of debt and moving it around constantly, they are flabbergasted. I send them here, you explain better than me.

Why should you have to have brick and mortar to sell sram or shimano

Thanks for the video and honesty in the breakdown of the figures. I started a small (workshop based) shop 18months ago on my own dime, and have been very patient gauging the business before expanding into a showroom next spring. Great to see information from some 1st hand experience

Cameraman makes me feel like I'm actually there which is nice, natural movement. Only thing that's missing is looking at random things when I turn my head to listen better. Oh and thank you for all this S-tier information.

Is it really a issue to run the stem without a spacer above

That is mind-blowing.

If he had a TH-cam channel, he could put out a video every month, randomly, that subscribers could watch, to get a service or part from his store at 20% off.

Awesome video thank you!!!!!

So I'm able to get them to "open" me? what does that mean? I'm opening a shop as an independent

Yeppers you hit the nail on the head! That is why I run my shop on my own. Support your local shop and don't ask for freebies or discounts!

Hello Brian . Wow! Incredibly transparent , I own a small bicycle repair shop out of my garage and it is very real everything you said about the cost of setting up a bicycle shop. One of the biggest head aches is doing the taxes at the end of the year. I am retired and thought it would be good to start up a bicycle shop so I enrolled in the Central Alberta Bike School and the instructor Brian was very clear and helpful on the work involved to run a bicycle shop. Three years into the project and I have never worked harder but it does have it's rewards which are wonderful. Wish you well in your endeavors. Did find the Shimano S-TEC courses helpful. My favorite tool for truing wheels is the Islandix wheel truing machine from Victoria BC which saves tons of time truing wheels. Fun Fact 10 times more bike shops in Quebec than the rest of Canada 10 times more bicyclists than the rest of Canada. Saludos John

I can build and fully maintain a MTB, gravel or road bike. I ALWAYS go to my LBS for quarterly maintenance, I will buy parts and tools et’al when they have them on sale and I will ALWAYS refer them to other people, either new residents or new to the sport etc. YES, it may eventually cost me a bit more more but I am contributing to a viable, healthy, local economy that gives me back the most precious asset of all that no currency can pay: quality life, smiles, banter, socialising, networking and meeting new people! Support your local bike shops folks; support Brian man! Ride on! 🤟

Your accounting of starting and maintaining a bike shop is very similar to my business I started 10 years ago. I have a scuba shop in the Florida Keys, every time you said bike I heard scuba. Small business is very rewarding and very challenging all in the same day. Brick & mortar way of doing business is threaten with online shopping, however I do repairs and service scuba gear which is my ace. They use to say the first 5 years are the make or break period on a small business, well I believe it's now the first 10 years and soon it'll be the first 15 years. Cycling is one of my favorite ways of exercise and escaping the grind . Good luck to you.