Big Dealerships take over bike retail

 As part of the bike industry's damage control response to the Covid-19 bike boom, major players like Specialized and Trek have cut loose dozens (at least) of small shops in what they consider minor market areas. At the same time, they have started offering online direct sales, and bought up larger independent retailers to establish concept shops for their own brand where population is more concentrated and disposable income theoretically more common.

In 2021 we managed to wrangle several Specialized ebikes for wealthy customers who ordered them fully prepaid in the fall of 2020. First the orders were delayed by the supply issues that racked every industry, but hit the bike business particularly hard. Then the Big S jacked the price on them even though they were fully paid at the original price, requiring the customer to fork out hundreds more dollars per bike. Then Specialized told us that they didn't think they could deliver the bikes, which would have required us to refund all that money. The full order arrived eventually, a bike at a time over months. We ordered electronic diagnostic equipment to communicate properly with the brains of these technological marvels. Then Specialized terminated our dealership, leaving the people who bought their bikes in good faith with no reliable product support. 

Schwinn used the dealership strategy to build and hold market share for decades. Capitalizing on the dealership concept accepted without question in automobile sales, Schwinn had its shops, where a customer could be assured that all the parts were "Schwinn Approved," and would definitely fit. They had their own size of 26X1 3/8-inch tire, so that a generic 26-inch wouldn't fit the rims on Schwinn bikes. Their shop manuals standardized procedures for their mechanics. The bikes were mostly notoriously heavy, but undeniably durable. The business model weathered competition in the 1970s bike boom, but fell apart in the mountain bike boom that followed, although a lot of that could have to do with mismanagement by the inheritors of the company, who considered the family fortune to be as indestructible as the bikes themselves.

In Concord, NH, Trek has gone into direct competition with one of its own established and popular dealers. Trek bought the Goodale's chain of shops and converted them to Trek concept shops. This included the Concord location. Sorry, S&W. You're just collateral damage.

To the bean counters, a shop network that only follows the money is a good thing. The accountants don't care if riders find themselves in a town or village many miles from an authorized service center and suddenly need a proprietary part, or "dealer-only" service on an electrical component. While I have no sympathy for riders who shackle themselves to proprietary parts and electrical components, I acknowledge that new riders don't think about those issues when they buy their great new bike. Even a lot of riders who have been doing this for years never thought to worry about the trend. The onus is on them for enabling and encouraging the bike industry to do this to us all. Only a few relentlessly annoying voices spoke out against it.

Interesting footnote: I found some ridiculously expensive rigid mountain bike forks on the QBP site the other day when I was looking for rigid 26-inch forks to retrofit customers' bikes that have cheap suspension. This indicates to me that a cult of rigid mountain bikes may be taking hold. While they still embrace the ridiculous drivetrains currently fashionable, the new converts to rigid bikes are seeking refuge from the ongoing costs of maintaining suspension, and the generally poor function and heftiness of cheap and mid-price suspension parts. By making some crazy expensive forks of space-age materials, the industry helps the convert to rigidity show the world that it's a step up, not a step back. See the price tag? For that kind of money, it's got to be good.

The big dealer concept is going to hurt Big Bicycle eventually, if not sooner. In the meantime, my advice is what it always was: buy simple, durable stuff whenever you can. Hold on for its eventual return. There may always be people who will pay too much to have a very limited and expensive experience like technical mountain biking, but I wonder how long that sort of indulgence will survive the kind of economic and social reckoning that is being forced on us by consumer society's willful neglect of the consequences of its appetites since the mid 20th Century.

Bioterror for $5

 With little snow, but moderately cold weather, lakes and ponds have frozen sufficiently to attract ice skaters. Skate rentals are a meager source of revenue, at $8 for the first day and $5 for subsequent days of a multi-day rental, but a little income is better than no income.

A freelance writer from New York rented skates on January 9, and paid through January 13. Days passed after the due date, and her voicemail was full. Eventually we made contact. She said that she was still using the skates and would pay the remaining charges when she returned them. We do this a lot for renters. Just let us know, and pay the difference. You use a product or service, you compensate the provider.

When she finally returned, she owed $25 in accumulated charges. According to the store manager, she stood there with her nose hanging over her mask, and whined, "Twenty five dollars? Can't you give me a deal?"

The manager indicated to her to please raise her mask the rest of the way. According to his account, she refused to cover her nose, snapping abruptly, "No!"

Not wishing to have her exhaling in the vicinity for any longer than necessary, he said, "Fine! Twenty dollars," and moved quickly through the lift gate in our backshop service counter. The bioterrorism gambit had succeeded. The woman got a discount, just for being petulant and irresponsible during a pandemic.

The speed with which the manager emerged from behind the counter apparently alarmed her, because she hastened out of the shop to conclude her transaction by phone. But she still got her discount. She can now add bioterrorist extortionist to her resume. Weaponized breath gives a new tool to chiselers.

What's a little extortion among friends?

Specialized recently sent our shop a bunch of bottles as part of their 40th anniversary promotion.  Fortieth, right? So the bottles have reproductions of 20 year old ad slicks. The designs include photos of a rider in US Team garb with Bill Clinton's head pasted in (years before Photoshop), and another rider with Mikhail Gorbachev's head -- complete with birthmark altered to look like a Specialized logo. They were worth no more than a chuckle even then. Now few people even get the reference,  especially from a fuzzy print reduced to fit on a water bottle.

Today I thought of a serious drawback to the Clinton bottle:

Isn't it tempting fate to have a bottle featuring a picture of someone known to have had a notorious bit of trouble containing his fluids?

Maybe if you carry the Gorbachev bottle your bike comes apart. 

The bottles arrived unsolicited and unannounced. Then we got billed for them. We're not allowed to return them. We have to try to unload them at a high enough price to cover the cost we would never have incurred if it had been up to us. 

Extortion. Part of any good long term business relationship. We've been a Specialized dealer since the 1980s. Don't think for a minute that this earns us any respect from the Big S. You're only worth as much as your last order. 

Celebrating your business anniversary by forcing dealers to pay for questionable promotional materials is like telling the people you've invited to your birthday party how much they already spent on the present you bought yourself.