My bike shop is no more.....

[jimmymoonlite]

I was out n about on my auld Vulcan this weekend, just tooling about the town as yer do, n NO, I WAS NOT POSING....I LEAVE THAT TO THE BOY RACERS OF MY FAIR TOWN.........and wended my way to BANBURY MOTORCYCLES to have a peruse and a drool..........but....it was there no more, well the building was but of the inhabitants thereof there was nary a sign....so, I thought I would have a ride to Kidlington (well it was a nice day) and visit the sister shop T.W. MOTORCYCLES....forsooth but they were gone as well!!.

Now Banbury has 3 food hypermarkets...3 cash n carrys............5 D.I.Y. hypermarkets (although Focus is closing as I write...),17 garages of which 5 are main dealer.....I lost count of the pubs after 23 as I kept falling over.....3 burger places, 4 pizza parlours, gawd knows how many chinese restaurants and Indian eateries, two Thai restaurants and two bicycle shops. There are other retail outlets but I can' t be arsed to list them as it would be too feckin boring. But the point is that all live cheek by jowl with each other and all appear to make money (although Banbury Garden Machinery recently shut up shop and moved out of the area citing extortionate rates imposed by the County Council). Now if all these disparate outlets can make money how is it that an honest to goodness motorcycle sales and repair outlet can't?? There are now only two motorcycle repair outfits in town and both of them are on the outskirts of town including Bolton Autos who do the needful for me when necessary. The specialist custom cruiser place off Beaumont Road closed down some time ago.
F2 Motorcycles is still is on going but they are out at Middleton Cheney about 7 miles out of Banbury.

My nearest bike dealer is now Stratford on Avon (KNOTTS), or FRETTONS (Leamington Spa) or a 28 mile trip one way to Oxford. to OXFORD MOTORCYCLE ENGINEERS......

What is it about Banbury that has it fast becoming the elephants graveyard of motorcycle outlets?? The past five years have seen the demise of five motorcycle shops in Banbury to my knowledge....Surely It can't be something I said ...................Surely not......can anyone out there enlighten me??


EverReady

[johnr]

sportsbikes and ebay mate. they buy the bikes and run them till they need a service, then flog them on, and any parts needed are all from ebay, so no one ever pops down to the local bike shop for a spark plug or a bulb anymore. preston once had at least a half dozen breakers, 4 or 5 small one man bike shops doing repairs and servicing, and a main dealership for suzuki, yamaha, kawasaki, and 4 honda dealers!! (same firm, but 4 local shops in surrounding villages). now, theres a couple of big shiny sportsbike shops, just fast new stuff, leathers and lids. a harley boutique, and a scooter shop. and no breakers. my local independant who also does mot's is away out of town, and is cherrished as he is the last of the old school of bike mechanics who dont use a bloody laptop to service stuff, and knows how to twirl the spanners from old brit stuff to modern tackle. last of a dieing breed of propper mechanics.

[Pugwash]

coz u r living there :p

actually been through Banbury 3 times in the last 10 days tell em to finish the bloody roadworks will yer :p

[John Hopkins]

It's hard to find mechanics for motorbikes, most of the bike shops are run by people who have used them and made a name for themselves, and they are getting old, not many youngsters want to do it now and even if they did...Lets say you have a good bike repair shop and you do the repairs yourself, or have a good mechanic, can you afford to pay a lad to learn, then have to stand over him and show him how to do the jobs, because your reputation and business is on the line, train him up to be really good at the job, and then have him leave to go to another firm that can afford to pay more. Now that the factories have gone, Britain is a place to sell other peoples products, so the money is just not there for the training. another thing to look at is the bike you ride, the dealer buys it for a price from the importer, who brings out a new model in a month or two, would you pay the same price for last years model as this years...and sometimes the price drops with the new model..On this forum there are some people who can afford a brand new motorbike, but there are many more of us who have bought a fixer upper. so maybe a simplified version but that's about the size of it..John

[kitkatman]

hey jimmy, i am in banbury delivering on wensday.....if you see a wells dray, gis us a wing mirror :D

[Pugwash]

hey jimmy, i am in banbury delivering on wensday.....if you see a wells dray, gis us a wing mirror :D


easy to spot that drey it's only got 1 mirror :p

[dracken1]

john what you are saying rings so many bells.

the trade had it rough last year. mainly due to the weather. not just here but in the us also. 2 very well known aftermarket v twin engine suppliers were way down on sales based on the previous year.

i have to fit parts bought from ebay by the customer which are identical to ones i have on my shelves. purchased for a price i cannot match because i'm legit.

that is the suppliers fault though.

kuryakan are strict on mark up. but ther parts are often sold way under that mark up anyway.

and don't even get me started on staff :mad:

i told one lad i employed to either switch his sodding phone off, (he received a text from some bint whilst i was telling him) or fuck off.

his reply was "you have one" it just wasn't worth explaining t to him :)

[bird]

i have to fit parts bought from ebay by the customer which are identical to ones i have on my shelves. purchased for a price i cannot match because i'm legit.




Thats just rude.

I wouldn't dream of asking a bike shop to fit parts I'd bought elsewhere when they already had them in stock. Obscure parts sourced over months perhaps, but not stuff on general sale.

Thats like one of the rules, isn't it?

You'd never get a car dealership to do that in a million years.

Hope you charge 'em extra on the labour...

[ChopperFXR]

The bloke that does my MOTs' is an old school mechanic. He fixes things rather than replaces them. He is the only bloke within 12 miles of me where you can get a bike MOT. He works bloody hard and does long hours. Owns all his own kit and owes nothing to suppliers. Damn decent bloke, (Even goes deaf on demand at test time)!

His biggest problem is the same as for amny other small business's. Over heads. His workshop has to be a minimum size to do MOTs', he has to have a certain amount of space around ramps etc, viewing area yadda yadda. He rents a building that is just big enough for what he needs. His council tax is double the rent he pays. Yet he gets NOTHING for that money. He has to pay for refuse collection, no street lighting, no street cleaning. He had to update his oil burning heater to satisfy H&S regulations and his insurance company.

Now when you look at trade premises near to town centres, the price of them goes through the roof, so does the council tax. When you add up the annual fixed costs of having premises, not including staff wages, then divide by the number of trading days per annum, you will be staggered at how much it costs just to open the doors.

Most customers have no idea what the hidden costs are. They see shiny new parts on the shelves and think that the shiny part fairy just drops them off for free and that the guy who owns the business is making zillions of pounds every year.

Then when you get things like Evilbay it causes even more problems for the small trader. Being a one man band you cannot have the financial mucle to buy in big quantities to get the best prices. I don't blame customers wanting the best for the least, BUT evilbay has become a pain in the ass for legit small business. With no overheads to speak of, ebay traders are making much bigger margins than the one man bands are doing. Its a hard fact that when you run a business, profits are king. No profit = no business, its really that simple. Its all about discounts, plastic, throw away products, finance agreements and big business trying to cream off any profits for shareholders that are not even interested in bikes.

The small business and one man bands have to fight, imports, ebay, tax man before they even get off the line.

Chopper.

[Mitch]

where I am, I've got a choice of about 3 MOT places in a radius of ten miles - however, I only choose to go to one of them because the others are a tad unreliable (also, he's a mate so I support his shop).

I can get spark plugs for £1.75 each from the local Unipart shop in Newhaven - half the price of anywhere else; bulbs and stuff off Dracken1 :) as again, it's much cheaper. I don't tend to buy stuff off ebay unless I can't get it elsewhere... (spent two weeks waiting for a mac keyboard to arrive... paypal :rolleyes: )

I know at least one local bike shop that's gone out of business because of the overheads down here - the landlords put their rent up by 50% - they soon closed down.

[Peirre]

I lost count of the pubs after 23 as I kept falling over.....3 burger places, 4 pizza parlours, gawd knows how many chinese restaurants and Indian eateries, two Thai restaurants
Wot no chip shop :confused: :confused:

[jimmymoonlite]

hey jimmy, i am in banbury delivering on wensday.....if you see a wells dray, gis us a wing mirror :D


Wot fettl KKM, its right grand to chat with ya n your lovely missus....sure bro, if I see ya I'll toss ya a wing mirror...."LIVE TO RIDE " CHROME JOBBIE do ya?? don't fret about the mastic stuck on the back, the mirror was a bit loose after a minor tussle with some patio furniture and kept hanging down like a eunach's dangler, hence the mastic.............tried two pack epoxy first n then had to go to casualty to get me fingers unstuck....BUGGER...........!!

Er....is it left hand or right hand?? Personally I'm a right hand man meself but when I get to 100 I change hands.............get cramp in me wrist otherwise and it plays merry hell with me arthritis.............

Peace, love and respect bro..............

[jimmymoonlite]

coz u r living there :p

actually been through Banbury 3 times in the last 10 days tell em to finish the bloody roadworks will yer :p

Bastard Council are at it again, every bloody road into town and they feck all of 'em up at once...........obviously spending our council taxes on more road schemes by some brain dead twat with a university degree in inner city traffic management..........as if that wer'ent bad enough the tossers are renewing the speed bumps on the rat runs on my estate............the ones that were there before were bad enough but these feckers put you into feckin orbit if you hit em doing more than 20 mph (which I commonly do) and I'm oh so glad I ain't riding a hardtail or me chalfonts would be displacing me tonsils...........BASTARDS, THE WHOLE USELESS LOT OF TORY TOSSERS...come the locals I'm voting B.N.P. - they know fuck all about traffic management but a lot about which are the black bits n which are the white bits on estates.............VIVA REVOLUCION ...............!! ARRIBA !!

[jimmymoonlite]

Wot no chip shop :confused: :confused:


Yep, THREE - one run by chinese, one run by an asian gentleman , one run by a greek chappie!! Now, if you mean an ENGLISH TRADITIONAL FISH N CHIPPIE, then....er....no...

Such is this multi cultural town that you can't even get good auld fashioned fish n chips anymore...........! and I feckin hate kebabs....!!

[krammer]

West brom kawasaki on the ring road was an old hangout of mine where chaps like stumpy and zoom where to be found. There were none of the poncey coffee machines in them day's either but there was a kettle and some tea bags. Typical really, it was only missed when it shut down and a fair few of us were guilty of taking it for granted but i think they did ok out of me trading the Z900 in the Guzzi california :). Still miss the place though and the crack with the lads on a saturday afternoon (when the boozer shut for a few hours) :)

[bird]

Maybe we have a responsibility, a need and a desire to keep the small bike shops going.

Next time you need a lightbulb, or a can of chainlube, or a sparkplug, don't buy it online, don't go to your big main dealer, or halfords and don't buy it from M+P or whoever.

Go into that small bike shop down the road and get it there. Chances are it won't cost much more, and next time you need that small bike shop, not only will the guy behind the counter remember you, but he'll still be there....

And if you're off on a saturday afternoon run passing a small town and see a small bike shop, go in and buy something.

Or you could just let them die....

[Mrs Reject]

Yep, THREE - one run by chinese, one run by an asian gentleman , one run by a greek chappie!! Now, if you mean an ENGLISH TRADITIONAL FISH N CHIPPIE, then....er....no...

Such is this multi cultural town that you can't even get good auld fashioned fish n chips anymore...........! and I feckin hate kebabs....!!

Seaford where we live is a white town - no mosques here but has the same syndrome - motorbike shops shut within months as it is all pensioners here and they don't ride bikes, no useful shops - it's all various boring chain eateries, millions of CARD shops (sorry you died etc), 100 newsagents and a few disability shops - that's it. nearest interesting shopping place is Brighton - half an hour on the bus. I don't think arabs make any difference it's the same all over mate. Apathy-ville on Sea n:rolleyes:
Oh yes...and out last seafront pub is closing down to become yet another nursing home - the entire seafront is now nursing homes and retirement apartments.
Why do old people think they want to watch the sea everyday until they conk out - there is nothing interesting on the seafront, just stones and water - no boats, bathers, families or anything :eek:

[Dougie]

Maybe we have a responsibility, a need and a desire to keep the small bike shops going.

Next time you need a lightbulb, or a can of chainlube, or a sparkplug, don't buy it online, don't go to your big main dealer, or halfords and don't buy it from M+P or whoever.

Go into that small bike shop down the road and get it there. Chances are it won't cost much more, and next time you need that small bike shop, not only will the guy behind the counter remember you, but he'll still be there....

And if you're off on a saturday afternoon run passing a small town and see a small bike shop, go in and buy something.

Or you could just let them die....
Or you could go to yer local bike shop and watch the muppet behind the counter look at you blankly when you ask for something for a model that ain't current......... :rolleyes: :mad:

[Simon B]

There's a few down Thame way