Outrunning an Avalanche: Part 2
Outrunning an Avalanche: Part 2
Staring at a tsunami in the face 🌊
Behind the Curtain
If you missed our first installment of what it’s like running a bike shop in today’s world, you can read that here:
Treading Water 2024
We have received our accounts from last year, and the biggest surprise of all was not that we made a loss, but that the cost of our parts & accessories has doubled.
This is something that all local bike shops are facing, it's part of the reason why Brixton Cycles has put out a call for help (which is thankfully being answered by the cycling community.) The government will bail out banks and the airline industry, but not the small businesses that literally provide smooth and safe transportation for everyday workers.
Day to day, I knew that prices for parts had gone up, I just didn’t know by how much. And because I still have fears around money and everything that revolves around it, (old Jenni's habit is head in the sand, Jenni 2.0 is learning how to become friends with money), I was not fully aware of the bigger picture until receiving our accounts for the 22/23 financial year.
This means that even though the cost to consumer has gone up, we do not see any of that increase. In fact, it means we are spending more money to buy in that stock in the first place. No wonder we faced a loss last year. It is the worst decline we have ever had.
Prior to Covid, we had slowly been growing organically every year. Not making a profit, but not making a loss either. In fact, I believe breaking even is perfectly fine. Slow and steady wins the race. Once Covid hit and we had to shut down our teaching operations, we lost 40% of our income.
We are still trying to find our feet, and one way for us to do this is to sell more classes. So if you have been thinking about taking a class, now’s a great time!
15% Off 2 or More Classes
We are offering a multi buy discount of 15% off when you book 2 classes or more. Book a couple classes for yourself or book one for you and a friend.
Check out our latest new 3-part class series on Wheel Building:
Part 3 will be coming soon: How to Measure Spokes! We love a good scaffolded learning process, building a solid foundation and muscle memory is essential to wheel building.
Yet another way that you can help us make sure more money stays in our pockets and not with distributors is to clean your chain + braking surfaces, and get a yearly service. When you clean your bike, you are slowing down the natural wear of the parts of your bike. This is mitigation and not prevention unfortunately, as everything falls apart. Entropy is the nature of the universe, and it is our job to fight it through cleaning and catching things before they become PR0B£€M$.
We do a class on how to clean and change your chain, and we also teach classes on how to change your rim brake pads, and disc brake pads/rotors. I’ll be giving more tips in future newsletters on quick ways to clean (they still count!)
When you make a commitment to getting a yearly check up, we’re more likely to replace smaller and cheaper consumables, like brake pads, chains, and cables. The longer you leave it, the more parts wear down, and the bigger your bill will be.
As part of our commitment to spreading knowledge and empowerment, we are teaching online maintenance classes each month. We’ll have a how to clean your bike the lazy way class soon. Grab a spot when you become a newsletter supporter for £5/mo. You also get access to our private Discord chat, where you can ask us questions anytime: mechanics on tap! Current discussions are about crank lengths and a recent discovery of a basket light attachment.
The Great Ride of Return
The Big Ride for Palestine is hosting the Gaza Sunbirds’ Great Ride of Return this Saturday 10 February. Meet at the National Theatre on the Southbank at 11:30am.
The Gaza Sunbirds are still out there, using their bikes to deliver food and medical supplies as much as they can.
You can donate to support their vital work here.
Basically, everything is hard right now, and we’re all out there doing the best we can. Our logo isn’t Fix Shit or Cry Trying for nothing. Thank you all for your support over the years, each day is a blessing.
I leave you with a short documentary about our very own Silvi Vargas, who teaches our disc brake and wheel building classes, (and is an elite level BMXer!)
Ride on,
Jenni x