Let’s talk about the future. A lot of retailers are pessimistic or downright frightened. Not me. It’s the most exciting time during my lifetime to be in the business of delivering goods and services to the triathlon community; for consumers as well.
But it’s new knowledge, tools, and delivery channels that’s made this time interesting, and that means nobody can stand pat. Nobody. Not even Amazon.
Where does a consumer buy his product? And why does he buy it there? One reason: he can’t buy it anywhere else. If you’re a bike shop, thank goodness your biggest grossing product — bikes — are largely unavailable except through brick and mortar stores like yours.
Another motivator driving consumers is product knowledge, but it’s not enough just to know all about a bike, or a pedal, or a crankset. What drives consumers to specific retailers is a hope and belief that the retailer knows how to mate a specific customer to a specific product.
Take me, for example. I’m involved, editorially, in two product launches right now, one from Shimano, one from SRAM. In each case I needed to provide to these component companies a lot of information about me: fit coordinates, crank length, chain ring and cassette gearing options, desired pedal spindle lengths, and when it’s all done a bike is provided that will fit me perfectly in every way so that I can fairly test new components. Could your bike shop generate all that data for you, specific to you, and mate that data to product solutions for you?
This is the great part, and it’s the scary part, for bike shops around the country. If you came to me, I could tell you whether you needed custom footbeds, and I could provide them for you at my workshop, while you’re here. I could varus/valgus wedge your cleat, mount your cleat, adjust inward/outward rotation, deduce your proper stance width and choose an appropriate pedal spindle length if your pedal company provided pedals with variable spindle lengths. I could do all of this, and I’m not the resident expert here. At my bike fit workshops I bring in Paul Swift and have him teach pedal/shoe interface (I’ll write about a Paul Swift invention below). The point is, what I know about this subject is, according to me, the bare minimum. Nevertheless, a consumer would be a fool to go anywhere else for cycling pedals and shoes, mail order in particular, because these products are too tweaky and personal. The delta between pedals and shoes inexpertly mounted and pedals and shoes done right is legion, unless you’re the sort of consumer who can just ride anything.
And this is really the determiner of future success for an LBS: Will the retail store of today understand the value he brings, the edge he has, and either leverage — or equip himself so that he can leverage — this formidable advantage? When Amazon or Pro Bike Kit figures out a way to deliver a custom footbed, I’ll begin to worry about your LBS. That said, I see two types of retail stores in the future: the very basic store that is inoculated against mail order because its customers do not know what a presta valve is, and so cannot order it online because he doesn’t even know what to search for; and the store that offers it all, with a fully fledged fit studio, in-store custom footbed maker, and all manner of tooling and gadgets that enhance the customer try-in, try-on, test-out experience.
What will die is that shop in between, that seeks the pro sale, but does not offer anything beyond mail-order expertise and service.
Be the Culture / Honor the Culture
Mark Rouse owns a store in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago. It’s one of several running stores in those burbs that comprise what I consider the best aggregation of specialty running stores in any metro area anywhere. Mark has flown in, to speak to his customers, Mirinda Carfrae, Chrissie Wellington, Craig Alexander, and many others. Mark isn’t simply true to the culture of running and triathlon at Runners High n Tri. He is the culture or, at least, he and his store is woven into the cultural fabric of running and triathlon in Chicagoland. This store has a mural on a wall, see how many signatures you can recognize.
Chris Holmes owns Bicycle World and Fitness in metro Houston. He’s got a gaggle of F.I.S.T. certified fitters on staff, and he just bought an expensive fit bike to bring into the store. Chris started his own tri club, the store offers monthly clinics in open water, and in how to transition to those club members ($100 a year dues). You’ll find hospitality tents at local races for his customers. The store sponsors a spitload of multisport races, he’s got “pro night” much like Mark Rouse does in Chicagoland. Emanating from the store are weekly runs, and proximate to the store are supported brick workouts and training rides. The store also carries the sorts of brands triathletes want, like Cervelo and Felt. I was just sent a set of Profile Design Altair wheels to road test. Got an early shipment of wheels, thought I. Then I had occasion to migrate to Chris’ website and there, featured, are these wheels (for what it’s worth, I also noted that Chris’ price on these wheels beats Amazon’s lowest price).
Topanga Creek Bicycles is not a tri shop. Rather, it’s nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains, some of the most ardently ridden and oft-enjoyed mountain biking anywhere. (Road cycling too, and I’ll be there for three days beginning this afternoon for just that.) First, you just have to visit this shop. It’s other specialty is touring, so, a wall of Brooks leather saddles is like, well, stepping into a saddle shop. I mean a saddle shop, where lots of leather sits in between you and your horse. The shop is steeped in culture. It is the local cycling culture. Rather than send you to this shop’s website, here’s its blog, click it, just pan down the photos and tell me you don’t want to join this shop’s employees and customers on their weekly rides.
When your bike shop is part of that, or even incepts that, I think it’s our job, as consumers of the experience, not just to enjoy it, but to honor it.
Sniff it / Taste it
I’ll be speaking at a symposium in a couple of weeks, and the theme is how to bridge the gap between a shop that is in every way prepared to sell tri, and that same shop fully invested in selling tri. Yes, of course, I’ll talk about education in how to fit, and wrench on, tri bikes. And I’ll talk a bit about the paragraphs above, where knitting yourself into the culture of tri — making the culture of tri — is just huge. But my thesis during this symposium is on see it, touch it, sniff it, taste it. I’ll be bringing along some show and tell, in the form of tooling and fixtures built for the purpose.
One of the items I’ll be bringing is a tool called the SwitchIt (Paul Swift makes this). I mount this on most of the fit bikes I own, and it allows the fit bike to be more than a fit bike. It’s also a saddle testing area. In 10 minutes I can test a half-dozen saddles underneath you, while you're riding, in your tri position, to which my fit bike can adjust in about 3 minutes. People who complain that a fit session they paid for only lasted 45 minutes should realize that a properly equipped fitter can test you on a half-dozen saddles in 10 minutes instead of an hour. I’ll charge you $250 and fit you in 45 minutes. Then I’ll rub your feet for another 45 minutes. You’ll enjoy every minute of the “90 minute fit session.” But I’ll fit you better in 45 minutes than someone else who fits you aboard your own bike, on a trainer, over a 2 hour time span, because I’ve got the tools and the knowledge and your fitter doesn’t. Plus, if you really need a 90-minute fit session in order to feel you got your money’s work, you’ll have gotten a nice 45-minute foot massage.
Your LBS now will be your LBS in the future when he adopts, absorbs, invests in, the knowledge and the tooling to do a job Amazon cannot do. Yes, some mail order shops will send out a half-dozen saddles and you can send 5 back, paying for and keeping the one you like. After a half-dozen blown training rides on saddles that just would not work for you, is that paradigm better or worse that you testing saddles aboard fixtures and tooling in a so-designated area, just for that intended purpose?
So far, Slowtwitchers have chosen that saddle and aerobar testing area as the favorite upgrade they’d like to see their LBS incorporate. Above is a chart showing, by percentage, what “culture” and “touch it / feel it” changes they’d like their LBS to offer. My guess is that this 44 percent of our readers who want a saddle/aerobar testing area is going to shoot up to 75 or 80 percent once they actually see the proper tooling in action. This is what they’ll want at their LBS. This is what the LBS of the future will have. This is why the LBS of the future will prevail.
Tri it / Buy it
I finally broke down a couple of years ago and bought a monthly subscription to NPR. I’d been abusing the privilege for years. Decades, really. I’m now not just Slowman (my handle on our reader forum). I’m also Subscriptionman, buying subs to NPR, the New York Times, and the L.A. Times. Of course, their paywalls may have had something to do with that. Hey, guess what? Feels good.
My message is: if you’re a shop, be a part of the culture. Amazon can never do that. Invest in being part of the “palpation solution.” Amazon can never do that.
If you’re a consumer, honor the culture. Don’t use the culture, “showrooming” the effort your bike shop makes, only to source an item elsewhere. This is the only preachy thing I’m going to write to you in this series. I do not think that mail order is bad, and, in a future installment, I’m going to advocate for mail order. I’ll advocate that mail order become every shop’s metier, along with curbside pick up, just like California Pizza Kitchen. Will call, Lockers, local delivery, courier delivery, I’m all over it. We’ll talk about that.
I don’t think any delivery system is dishonorable or unethical. Except showrooming. Now, this can work both ways. You can showroom online. Have you ever “showroomed” Travelocity, going there to get the lie of the land, and then migrating to your favorite airline and buying the ticket there? I have. I don’t feel all that great about it. But I have. I think there’s one thing worth mentioning: the burden of getting showroomed, if you’re a local bike shop, is financially orders of magnitude higher than if you’re Travelocity and you get showroomed. You can’t showroom Travelocity clean out of business, but when you do that to your local LBS, it’s another nail in the coffin of that shop, if indeed this practice puts that shop out of business.
Of course, it would be the height of irony if you showroomed your local LBS, went online, bought the product, and it turns out your LBS was the eventual vendor, shipping you the product short haul. Reminds me of the Pina Colada Song, which I encourage all you of a younger generation to listen to. Perhaps you can showroom iTunes for a snippet.
[Note: I do not actually provide bike fits, footbeds, fit sessions, and the like, as a business. We own a fit school here, and we teach fitters how to fit, and we'll fit the occasional pro. That's it. Search our Bike Shop dbase and I would suggest power searching for "F.I.S.T. Equipped" fitters in your area.]
