Good day at the LBS?
 

Went by the LBS today to pick up a couple co2 cylinders.
I used them to help others on the MUP.

An older lady was there picking up the last of her order
and paying for all the parts she had ordered over the
past month or so. She was looking at some drop bars
that came in their own velvet bag....

Her bill was $13,376

I helped carry some of the stuff to her car for her. I had
the frame, I am sure it was an empty box. He built the
wheels for her..

It all fit nicely in her MB roadster.

I once received a frame via UPS. The driver asked me to open the box in his presence to be sure there was actually something in it.

Certainly a good day for that LBS.

For 13,000, I would have made the LBS guy carry it to my home.:D

This is a one man, three day a week bike shop.
He carries high end stuff as well as the regular
things for the average rider. It is my shop
of choice, I have four within ten miles.

He has consignment bikes as well.

Unless the weather is real bad he commutes on his bike. I think the lady lives about twenty miles north of town.

I looked at a $13,000 bike at a LBS a couple of years ago. It was a Serotta and it was payed for.

$13,000 would probably cover the cost of my entire collection and still have enough left over to buy several more...and I have ~30 bikes :eek:

Aaron :)

I sold a $12,000 bike once. It was a custom sized titanium Santana tandem with S&S couplers and a packing case.

I didn't even have to assemble it for the customer because he wanted to see how everything fit into the packing case which it was shipped in.

Wow! Talk about disposable income . My 13 bikes don't come anywhere near that . Anyway , glad that she's spending it on bike stuff.

That would have made a good down payment to a brand new shiny SUV.

Relax. J/k.

That is about what I paid for my last dually pickup...used.

Aaron :)

Yeah, but when you park that pick up in your driveway your neighbors might not even notice.

Casually mention that you paid 13 large for a bike that you still have to pedal and watch their eyes get big.

I spent about $600 on my last bike (not including upgrades) and people still freak out. Actually the dually garners plenty of attention, in fact it may be sold as of this week, someone saw it and asked if I would sell it...yup if the price is right.

Aaron :)

it could be a good day for the shop, perhaps not, depending on the shop. yes, 13K is a LOT of money, but if you look at it another way, it's 3 - 4 bikes (it's all relative, to me, a bike is 3-4k). depending on how big the store is and what they usually do each day and the overhead, it might be a regular day, it might be a slow day (assuming that was the only sale). it's not a bad day at all no matter what, it's just degrees of "good" day.

I'm not sure why bars come in a velvet bag. LOL! I paid around $13k for my 1995 Honda Civic back in 1995. People spend crazy money on lots of thinks. I saw someone reply that the best coffee grinder was $800. Damn 1%.

Her name wasn't Alice Walton was it? Maybe her nephew Tom has gotten her into bicycling or she got too many DWIs.

http://images.forbes.com/media/lists...ice-walton.jpghttp://media.arkansasonline.com/img/...30eb3e6a451be5

Uh, what business was it of the drivers if there was or wasn't anything inside the box? Is that standard UPS policy?

Just yesterday I was talking to the owner of the bike shop where I work and he was telling me about a $12,000 bike he had sold to a guy who hung the bike on his living room wall as a piece of art.


He probably was thinking the box was so light because what ever might have been in the box had been stolen, and he didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of a stolen item claim later.

That sounds paranoid to me.

I doubt it's standard UPS policy. I just thought he was going an extra step to provide good service. If the box had actually been empty, I'm thinking it would have definitely simplified my claim process with the shipper. Keep in mind this was a driver who made daily deliveries to me.

I paid $18,000 for a 3 bedroom house sometime around 1970. At that time a Schwinn Paramount sold for around $500.

Depending on how "good" of a thief the thief is/was wouldn't there be some sort of evidence that the box had been messed with?

I agree, I somehow doubt that this is UPS' standard policy. Hopefully that is what it was. True, it would have been good to have the driver as a witness if the box was empty.

Ah, okay you didn't say that in your OP. Knowing that know it does make a bit more sense.

It does come down to margins for the shop owner. Hopefully, collectively, the package made some good money for him.

If that is so, Good On Him!

A three-day-a-week operator who presumably has low overheads and knows his customers and what he can do for them seems to me like a winning business formula and one I occasionally dream about.