All Things Bikes and Tacos! (...and every vehicle imaginable)

huh. odd spot. yeah, maybe for a rack attachment point? not sure though. seems odd positioning though. what's it look like under the plug?

 

I bought some tires...
Could be a chance to get some cheap wear items. Sealant, Tape, chainring or Cassette

https://www.mtbr.com/threads/e-thirteen-25-off-sitewide-thru-oct-31st.1210861/#post-15772914

 

Not sure wanted to know what it was before I go poking around in there...

 

gotta full send!

 

NBD! Finally received my custom BMX frame and built it up with a few new parts including my custom sprocket with my logo on it. Super stoked on the build and can’t wait to take it for a spin.

 

Anyone know what these are? They came with the Stumpjumper Evo frame. The rest of the parts I can identify, headset cups, bearings, spacers and the axle. Can’t figure out what these would be for…

 

Honestly looks like headset cups but it’s tough to tell.

 

I agree, but the shape is odd and they’re plastic. Would they give me parts like that to run a straight steerer in a tapered headset? That’s my best guess at what they could be.

 

They're headset spacers. Fiber reinforced,so not exactly plastic.

 

Neat, thanks! There’s another bag of regular spacers also, weird they’d include these also.

 

That color looks awesome either way.

 

A buddy of mine got his new Stumpy (same color) wrapped at Evo in SLC. Apparently only charged him $150. For that price, I'm not going to wrap any more bikes.

A good friend of mine went down this exact rabbit hole a few years ago in Denver. He and a friend laid out the cash together to buy the bike and coffee shop (SloHi Bikes and Coffee) and he hired a very experienced shop manager from one of his favorite shops to run it. Pretty much let him do what he needed to make it work. He "gave" him a 20% share in the shop up front so he'd have skin in the game, in exchange for a lower up-front salary.
The two owners were very involved in daily stuff, but deferred to the manager's experience in all the important things.
Over time they settled in to lower-end bikes, stocking Giant, a couple smaller brands, and small parts and service. Their bread-and-butter is small parts and service. Basically low up front costs and high profit margins.
The coffee shop makes more money. It's physically connected to the shop, which makes for a lot of cross-business traffic and impulse fun buys.
None of them make a lot of money from the shop. It's a labor of love and creating a community. I remember him saying that everyone who works at the shop needs to be able to talk to customers and have a good attitude. Being heard and the image of the shop being "friendly" is what makes it work.
2.5 years ago, I almost invested with them. But the drive from where I was living to the shop was a no-go, as was the payback. If it were in a smaller community, and I lived closer, I probably would have bitten. In retrospect, COVID hit right after that, and they made more money in 2 years year than they made in the 5 before it, combined.

 

I'm the purchaser at my shop so I see all the money that comes in and out.

Between me and the owner we are currently looking very hard at how to diversify, sell online, and many other strategies because the money just isn't there. It's not a losing business but the amount of work we put into it isn't worth the amount of money we are currently bringing in. The last two years were tough and the next one, at least, won't be much easier.

The owner of the shop would sell in a heartbeat for the right price, and I have the money to buy, and have considered it but I'm not sure I'd want to currently take on that burden.

In short... It's a fun idea but crunch the numbers and whatever you come up with... Take some more money off that.

This is of course depending on your market.

 

Ride wrap on, cranks installed, fork steerer cut, bars mounted and cables/hoses that I have are run. Starting to look like a bike!

 

Anyone have a good source for custom graphics? I want to get a different color for those forks.

 

https://shop.ridefox.com/collections/bike/products/decal-kits

 

If you want to try Ride NF pants or shorts nows the time. Watch their Instagram story for 30% off.

I had to watch the thing twice to get it.

 

That actually worked, ended up going with the Kashima colored graphics, should look good

 

That is gonna be a good look.

 

$150 isn’t bad assuming they do a better job than me haha.

I think small parts and service would have to be the bread and butter apart from coffee for this shop. The showroom or whatever you want to call it isn’t big so I’m curious what kind of storage they have in the back. I don’t think it would take a ton of effort to make it good though. Like their website has been down for maybe a year and very minimal activity on social media. I think between those two and really leaning into the coffee it has potential to grow. The community as a whole here is pretty tight, or at least wants to appear that way, trying to appeal to all the DC people moving out to the “country”
Haha. Basically to say that I think the market around here is solid outside the bike shop, by doing both it could be very successful.

Yeah I am still debating whether I reach out. I actually have a friend that works in baking with the SBA small business loans. I think he specializes in small business buying other small businesses. I’m probably going to see if he has any thoughts from that perspective. I would also 100% have an accountant look into whatever the seller would be down for if I start to move in that direction