Some of you may remember the thread about my wife buying me a Wally World bike. After getting a bit of a complex about it, I called a couple local shops, not very 'fat guy friendly' so I went a little farther away. I talked to the folks at Cave Run Bike Shop in Morehead, KY a couple times and ended up there yesterday. The shop is close to 100 miles from me, but they now have a loyal customer. John, the owner didn't give me the 'oh no, fat guy wants to sit on a bike' vibe. Instead, he spent about 20 minutes explaining the difference between a couple bikes that fit my needs(and my ass), recommended which helmet was the best for me, and they were very cool with my two year old son being there- another employee grabbed a couple cars and played with him while we talked bikes.

I really liked the Jamis Explorer series bikes, but they didn't have any in stock so, I ended up taking home a Giant Sedona ST (http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-US/bikes/lifestyle/1277/29344/) After spending the day at the lake and fish hatchery with my son, I ended up riding the new bike about 6 miles after we came home- no sore legs and no hamburgered butt.

I guess I need to thank you all for the hounding received about the other bike... I have seen the light :lol:
I will be going back soon to pick up another Sedona for my wife, and my little boy fell in love with a Giant Animator so I guess he'll be getting one for his birthday next month :thumb:

Hey nice one - and well done. Guess that shop will get a bunch of custom from you in future too. Hey, and when you've lost a bunch of weight and wanna get another bike, a road bike or whatever, go and buy from the shop that served you well, then take your new bike to the shop that wasn't too nice to you. Tell 'em you was gonna buy this bike here, let them guess why you didn't.

Nice find, both on the bike and the shop! I concur with you, the shops that are the most friendly earn the business. My favorite shop continues to earn my business, despite being across town (~10 miles away) when I have two other shops within 2 miles. Those others are great too, just not awesome :).

Great bike! I see a ton of those around here, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Some of you may remember the thread about my wife buying me a Wally World bike. After getting a bit of a complex about it, I called a couple local shops, not very 'fat guy friendly' so I went a little farther away. I talked to the folks at Cave Run Bike Shop in Morehead, KY a couple times and ended up there yesterday. The shop is close to 100 miles from me, but they now have a loyal customer. John, the owner didn't give me the 'oh no, fat guy wants to sit on a bike' vibe. Instead, he spent about 20 minutes explaining the difference between a couple bikes that fit my needs(and my ass), recommended which helmet was the best for me, and they were very cool with my two year old son being there- another employee grabbed a couple cars and played with him while we talked bikes.

I really liked the Jamis Explorer series bikes, but they didn't have any in stock so, I ended up taking home a Giant Sedona ST (http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-US/bikes/lifestyle/1277/29344/) After spending the day at the lake and fish hatchery with my son, I ended up riding the new bike about 6 miles after we came home- no sore legs and no hamburgered butt.

I guess I need to thank you all for the hounding received about the other bike... I have seen the light :lol:
I will be going back soon to pick up another Sedona for my wife, and my little boy fell in love with a Giant Animator so I guess he'll be getting one for his birthday next month :thumb:

You buy the shop as much as the bike, it's basic first year marketing. The most expensive part is getting the customer in the door (advertising, signage, sales, are all costs connected with getting the customer in the door) once the potential customer is in the door, it costs considerably less to actually get the customer to buy, especially if you can do so, by simply being "nice" to the potential customer. Of course after the sale, it costs very little to actually keep the customer, a customer.

Now the actual markup on a bike is very little, so the profit is next to nothing, end of season sales are often to cut loses rather then to make profit. However the markup on a lot of accessories is much higher, and so is the profit, repairs are another good profit generator. This is why shops love indexed shifting, it means that most customers need to get an annual "tuneup", and the shop makes money on those tuneups. This is the big problem with the Internet, online dealers have lower costs, and deal in high volume, so if they make half the profit on each item, but sell 5 times as many, they still end up ahead. So the online shops sell much cheaper, and people buy the high profit items online, and use local shops for high cost, low profit items, then wonder why the local shop goes out of business. This is why I don't buy online, I would rather support my local shop, but I do, do most repairs myself, unless it requires a specialized tool, that is more expensive to buy, then to get the shop to do the work.