well, my old retro friendly lbs owner has finally retired (admittedly a couple of months ago but i only got down to the shop today for the first time in ages) it was always good going in there, plenty of random old ano bits knocking about from bitd, very useful for finding that missing part or just for a bit of nostalgia!
well, with the retirement comes new ownership, and my 10 minute visit today shows a change. the old disorder of a random, cluttered shop floor, overflowing display cases with nothing in original boxes & plenty of retro stickers on the glass obscuring the view have gone. in their place, a couple of bikes in the windows, space to move and a seating area (still being built). the workshop space has been moved downstairs (always a problem with the old layout was that if 1 person was in the shop on their own they couldn't do any repairs as they needed to be on the shop floor). the old workshop & store room upstairs have been stripped out, cleaned up and are now full of shiny new bikes for sale, with the shops location they have done the sensible thing (imho) of going for a well known name that covers most price points - in this case claud butlers from a couple of hundred quid up to just shy of a grand for an xt/slx equipped bike.
speaking to one of the guys in the shop they said that they are trying to make a social side of the business too & are trying to organise ride-outs on wednesday nights & sunday mornings.
good luck to them I say, they seem pretty enthusiastic about it all & the shop should look pretty good once its all finished. I am now wondering what happened to all the old random stuff they acquired over the years!
well, with the retirement comes new ownership, and my 10 minute visit today shows a change. the old disorder of a random, cluttered shop floor, overflowing display cases with nothing in original boxes & plenty of retro stickers on the glass obscuring the view have gone. in their place, a couple of bikes in the windows, space to move and a seating area (still being built). the workshop space has been moved downstairs (always a problem with the old layout was that if 1 person was in the shop on their own they couldn't do any repairs as they needed to be on the shop floor). the old workshop & store room upstairs have been stripped out, cleaned up and are now full of shiny new bikes for sale, with the shops location they have done the sensible thing (imho) of going for a well known name that covers most price points - in this case claud butlers from a couple of hundred quid up to just shy of a grand for an xt/slx equipped bike.
speaking to one of the guys in the shop they said that they are trying to make a social side of the business too & are trying to organise ride-outs on wednesday nights & sunday mornings.
good luck to them I say, they seem pretty enthusiastic about it all & the shop should look pretty good once its all finished. I am now wondering what happened to all the old random stuff they acquired over the years!
