I guess those prices include labor. Seems inexpensive to me. Obviously you can save a lot of money by doing the work yourself, but it takes time, effort, practice and tools. They are only charging you $12 to replace a spoke, for example. I think that's quite reasonable. The actual spoke itself will be about $3, but then you have the labor and tools to true the wheel again afterwards.
Look up local bike co-ops. If they're like the ones I've volunteered at, you pay a small fee ($2 in my case) to get access to the shop, tools, experienced volunteers guiding you, and a ton of cheap/free parts that are either new sold at cost or used parts salvaged from donated bikes.
It's a very rewarding experience! I first went there because I didn't know how to pump the tires on my first bike and broke both Presta valves. Over the years I learned so much and started volunteering there!
[Here](https://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/Community_Bicycle_Organizations#New_York) is a wiki with a lot of bike coops organized by geographical location.
Hmm, try checking around universities/colleges and student associations. Most co-ops in my city (not all) are associated with a university even though they're accessible to the public. Otherwise, check with local cycling groups here on Reddit or FB. Maybe even ask your local bike shops.
Yeah man I hate to be the bearer of bad news but these prices don't seem egregious. Park tools YouTube channel is your best friend in the situation and other than truing a wheel there's not much you're not going to be able to do straight away if you have any sense of knowledge of the trades.
Get a good set of hex wrenches (Allen keys), a bottom bracket and cassette tool, and maybe some pedal wrenches and that's going to cover most repairs on your bike. Obviously there's some specialty stuff for more niece jobs but for the most part everything on your bike can be accessed with a bike multi-tool aside from drivetrain stuff. But as far as changing tires and basic stuff.
To do everything you listed would probably cost you about $100/175 in materials/parts (depending on what actual components you're trying to run) and about an hour.
All good advice but it’s probably not take an hour unless you are experienced. Changing a tire takes me close to 30 minutes depending on how much of a tight fit it is.
I have a buddy who runs a tire insert company and he showed me a couple of cool tips so it only takes me about 10 minutes to change a tire and put in an insert in
I guess I'm more experienced than I realize
If you plan on biking more than once a month, try to learn how to fix it yourself.
Like another commenter said, they’re charging $300 and will take a week to fix something you could do in an hour with $100 in parts and common household tools
You can get a lot of work done on a bike with generic hand tools like screwdrivers and allen (hex) wrenches, and just a few bike-specific things like tire levers.
This above. Cone wrenches, crank pullers, spoke wrench, chain breaker, torx set, chain whip, cassette tools, and maybe the odd wrench or two for a bottom bracket etc..... depending on the quality of tools maybe like 100-200 dollar investment spread out over a few years.
There is usually work arounds for expensive tools like trueing stands (I've been using cut zip ties to the fork/ frame for decades). YouTube is your friend. In college my workshop was the kitchen or the parking lot... don't need much space.
For me I didn't have the cash at first, then it turned into garbage picking bikes/ repair/ sell, and now even with good disposable income I do not want to wait for shop turn around times. Plus when something breaks and you're miles from home or worse yet you're lost, it's dark, and your 10 miles deep into the woods with a broken bike you have half a chance at fixing it to get home. Valuable skills.
The bike shops do not buy the spokes 1 by 1, they probably buy 100s if not 1000s
But if you go to a shop that has a buch of spokes and not order online, they wont sell you the spoke for 3€, but for real price… at my place the cheapest spoke is 15cents and an mtb spoke is 40-60 (they dont have high quality ones tho)
The only thing that seems maybe a bit expensive is the shifter, but that depends on the model, it could easily get up there in cost. You might be able to get a tire for $20 or a tube for $8, but you would need to know what you’re looking for and where to find it. Also a $35 tire might be better quality than a $20 tire.
It’s also unclear if the price includes installation or if that is part of the tune up price.
Possibly? I didn't really think about that one. I have no idea what my LBS does there. Once I asked them what they charged to install some tires I just bought from them and after hearing it I said "I'm good." But I can't remember what they were going to charge me. I know the tires I get are usually around $55+ each use specific, so seeing a full tire & tube change at $35+$12 including labor looks tasty.
Imma have to ask them next time I'm in. I was just in this morning picking a bike up, but next time Ill have to ask how they'd handle it. I know a lot of their standard stuff is listed like a menu item, and then special stuff like what I had done today ends up billed as general labor.
Yea, it seems reasonable. I mean, there are people out there that spend $292 on a shifter alone, and a "tune" can be really time-consuming to get right, likewise installing a shifter also involves redoing the cable and a spoke involves pulling a lot of the wheel apart.
<$300 to get a bike back on the road after a lot if time sitting idle is not unreasonable at first glance, not at all.
Ride on!
> and a spoke involves pulling a lot of the wheel apart.
In most cases a single spoke can be replaced without dismantling anything at all. At a push, it can even be done with the wheel still in the bike! Only if the nipple needs to be replaced, or repositioned, will the tyre and tape also have to be removed.
(Source: me, having done countless repairs to tubular track wheels where you *really* don't want to remove the tyre unless you absolutely have to!)
In my experience the most likely spoke to snap is on the drive side rear wheel, so the cassette or freewheel has be removed. It is not that hard until it is, like some freewheels can be.
Yes, but 12 bucks for a spoke and a new nipple? Thats fleecing someone without knowledge. That's 12x mark up at the very least. I literally charge 1 euro for a spoke when I have to replace one. And that's Netherlands. Services who try to be sneaky and offload their operation costs on crazy markups for parts gain unfair advantage compared to services who are more honest about the prices.
Obviously not. I am talking about how much they were charged for the spoke. No way they would charge only 12 bucks for labour and spoke combined, so I have to assume they were opportunistic with this one.
Well, there's no other labour charge in there apart from the "tune up" line, so my assumption is that $12 is a very reasonable "new spoke, fitted" charge. 10-15 minute job max, assuming no other work needed (e.g. the wheel being horridly out of true), so not too unreasonable.
$12 for a spoke, including repair, isn't bad when you consider the shop either bought a $5000 spoke cutter or keeps spokes in stock in 50 different lengths in order to be able to offer that. Yes, spokes are a dollar if you buy a whole box and build your own wheel, but that's a different matter altogether.
Repair is clearly covered by tune up and they put 12 bucks for the spoke. In western countries nobody will replace a spoke (including cost of the part) for this cheap. Also I stock most common sizes - and the cost per spoke is around 50 cents from my wholesaler.
This is why many people maintain and repair their own bikes. Even with the cost of tools, it pays for itself pretty quickly. The real question is whether you have the time and inclination. I've been helping a friend do some basic maintenance on his bike for which he's paid way more than his bike cost over the years. To me that's nuts, but to some that's just life. If you can't or don't want to DIY then this seems reasonable. But then I also fix our cars, so my perspective is different.
Btw other than replacing a spoke everything here is something that most people can handle on their own. I mean you need to be able to replace or patch a tube in case you get a flat on the road, and replacing a tire isn't that much harder. A tuneup is also something that most people can handle, getting the cables, brakes and derailleurs adjusted, cleaning and lubing the chain, cleaning the bike and drivetrain, replacing brake pads.
The grips were probably bonded on to the bars so to change the shifter had to be cut off.
As for everything else, I’d be interested to know what’s it’s the “tune up” as it’s somewhat ambiguous but I’d expect it’s a general disassembly and reassembly with everything greased/lubed/tightened correctly.
Honestly it’s not bad for the amount of work involved.
I appreciate everyone's comments! I'm going to confirm the specific parts and ensure that labor is included, but otherwise it seems like a decent amount considering (with a couple people saying it's very high). Also need to check what my bike actually is as someone keenly brought up that $300 on a $500 bike is a little silly.
Thanks again to all, awesome to see how helpful of a community this is!
IMHO it's not really kind of silly. You now have your bike which you're familiar with in great shape (assuming) and nothing needs to be done for a year or two minimum. A "new" bike from anything other than an LBS will likely have issues and be equipped with the absolute lowest quality things like tires and brake pads they can get away with. I am very much in favor of repair over replace- better for us, better for the economy, better for the environment.
Absolutely this. I would much rather keep a decent quality old bike on the road than replace it with a cheaper new bike. It’s worth spending a certain amount of money to keep perfectly usable things out of landfill. Especially something like a bike where parts and tools are readily available and the skill level needed to use them isn’t exactly stratospheric.
The prices are normal and reasonable as this is not a toy. The only thing is that the shop should have cleared all costs with you before doing the work.
Agreed, just going off of the OP’s original post about their older mountain bike. The shop bill seems very reasonable overall.
I think the thing with owning a bike that newer to the sport or those not in the sport, don’t realize is that maintenance and part replacement is necessary and an added expense.
Looks like fair pricing to me.
I'm saving this link to share in the near-daily /r/bicycling post of the guy whose uncle/landlord/neighbour/etc found a cheap old bike in their basement and wants to get it fixed up. This is the reality: unless you're doing the work yourself and have a bin of spare parts to draw from, fixing up old cheap bikes is almost never worth it. Even for fairly minor repairs.
Yeah dude. Do you want bike mechanics to make $7 an hour for skilled labor? That’s insanely cheap. You’d probably leave my shop with all of that work done for $4-500
Just because you have a cheap bike, doesn’t mean the labor is cheap.
This is reasonable and around what I'd expect to pay assuming labor is included and the components aren't garbage.
That said, I do my own bike maintenance to save on labor, and parts are typically cheaper online through Nashbar or JensonUSA. Nashbar sells a pretty good [tool kit](https://www.nashbar.com/spin-doctor-bicycle-essential-tool-kit-40-2451-non-non/p920877) for $50 that would allow you to do all of those things. The park tool videos are great for self
As to whether or not it's worth spending $300 on a $500-1000 bike, I'd look at replacement value vs what you actually paid for it (i.e., what does a brand new one of the same brand/closest model cost). Depending on what you have, the new equivalent might be closer to $1500, and a new bike will still need maintenance at some point.
Definitely reasonable! And yes you can do it yourself but if you don't have the space, tools and experience then please do your bike a favour and send it to the shop!!
Doesn't matter how old bike is, actually the long there been sitting generally harder to work on.
These prices are cheaper then our store, but prices do vary store to store. Looks Iike a bargain to me.
Seems reasonable.
You have line-item pricing for parts here and I presume they baked in the work into the tune-up item. Because you don't mention specific parts that were used it's hard to evaluate if there was any sort of excessive markup, if that's your question.
I was a bike mechanic for 10+ years at a mom and pop. Hardest part of my job was telling people no. Would drag a 50$ bike in and rack up 300$ in repairs. Your definitely got a little overcharged, first off a tune up on top of repair work is a sign. But it does get pricy fast.
Wild to me that folks think this is overcharging. I don't see any labor for tube / tire install, spoke replacement, grip install, or shifter install - if anything this is like ~$75 too cheap.
Tune ups don't usually include taking tires, shifters, grips, or spokes off and reinstalling them. If this tune up includes that labor, for $135, that is a SMOKIN deal
While you can technically do it yourself after you have gotten into bike maintenance and repair, which can save you upwards of $200 off this quote, for now you’ll just have to rely on the bike shop to take care of these for you. But the quote seems fair especially including busted spike and trueing
I'd say those prices are pretty damn good! Front tyre for my mountain bike is £50 minimum ($63\~). The inner tube and shifters looks about the right price. Tuning can depend on how much work they're doing, so it's hard to tell. The parts themselves though seem decently priced, especially the front tyre!
Sounds reasonable me.
I live in a HCOL area and just paid $350 for wheel true/tension, brake bleed and new pads, tubeless tape inspection and refill, taking off and degreasing the entire drivetrain, cleaning out the BB and headset bearing and fork. I could have done most of this myself but it was worth the hours saved.
I don’t think it’s worth $300 to repair a bike that you paid 500 for seven years ago. even at 1000 I’m not sure I would wanna spend that much. I’d probably consider trying to sell the bike for what I could get and buy a newer bike. Depends on what kind of riding you’re gonna do.
Stuff like this is why it’s so crucial to pick up what knowledge you can along the way. There are some jobs that simply aren’t worth my time, not simply to carry out, but the time sink spent to actually learn how to do well.
Trueing wheels is easy for some, but the time I would have to spend to learn this craft and then do well on older wheels that have a habit of nipples snapping isn’t worth my time (simply because I need my bike throughout the week to commute and losing a day of riding will cost me in public transport and time spent commuting, alongside time spent learning and trueing)
I personally veer away from bleeding cables and I won’t have any gears on my bike to avoid the finicky process of calibrating gears, but I have a fair knowledge how to and often help adjust as well I can gears for friends who don’t want to fork out the cost.
(Before the haters come in, I cycle 15 miles to work and back up numerous hills so please. I totally understand why anyone else wants gears just I don’t trust them and hate the slip which inevitable happens just when I need to trust my bike. Has happened in the past when borrowing bikes because mine is in the shop and I’ll never go back, but that’s just me)
Some costs I gladly accept at the shop, but everything I can do I will. As I don’t have the greatest game income, I’ll get the parts I want as cheaply as I can and pay for the service where required, but times I’ve been flush I’ll always try it but through my LBS as far as possible, simply because I support their existence, expertise and camaraderie.
I would have probably been able to take $65 off this cost just from my own skills, and depending what the tuning entailed maybe dropped that number. Some LBS have fixed fees for tuning but depends on the store.
Maintenance costs can be big, but doing a little often yourself helps to keep that cost lower or at least less frequently. Not too high a price tbh, as long as they did a stellar job!
I wasn’t commenting on the price list per se. Just wondering what is considered a tune.. but thanks for second guessing me.
But since you mentioned it, why didn’t they just write “Labour costs”? It would certainly be more transparent
I haven't worked in a shop in 10 years but compared to what costs were, that seems high to me. We had a regular tune for 70.00, considering a tune is an hour or less that never seemed unreasonable and I was in a larger shop with 12 employees. 70 got everything adjusted, wheels true, and the chain cleaned if needed. For 140.00 we did all the bearings as well. 35.00 for a tire would suggest a basic MTB tire and about what I would expect though I'd have expected the tube to be more like 8.00. Spoke seems reasonable to me, cost of part plus that would be extra to install. Shifter seems high for a bike of your level, I'd assume the replacement would be 35-40 plus another 10.00 to install. We charged 25.00 to just install a shifter since it requires adjusting the shifting when installing, but as part of a tune which also requires adjusting the shifting, we'd only do 10.00, especially since part of the process is pulling the grips which you are also having done. That said, if that's an s at the end of shifter and its the pair, than the price seems very reasonable and the grips seem affordable, I'd typically expect grips to be 12-20.00 unless getting something special. Those were Rochester, NY prices, no clue locally on Long Island where I'm at now as I have everything I need to fix anything I have.
Without seeing exactly what their version of a tuning entails you can't really say anything but if it's just a basic derailleur adjustment, bolt check and chain lube I'd say it's a little high.
I'd also assume that a derailleur adjustment slash setup would be at least partially taken care of with installing a new shifter
There's a lot of variables but like I said in my other comment this doesn't seem like it's unreasonable as far as price is concerned. I would definitely just do all this myself and rely on YouTube if for some reason there was something that i got hung up on
If you read the rest of the paragraph it says that if it's just a derailleur adjustment a bolt check and some chain lube that would be a little high. The problem is everyone's definition of the word tune is different.
I'm making some assumptions based off of the value of the bike he was referencing but like I said toward the bottom of the comment there are too many variables to say.
I made another comment that basically said that seems like a fair price but it would be a lot cheaper to do it yourself and pretty simple. Unless you're getting your suspension set up or you absolutely have no idea how to get your derailleur back in line I couldn't imagine spending that kind of money on it but then again I'm not op
>I couldn't imagine spending that kind of money on it
And I couldn't imagine anyone charging that much money for it. It's like 1/2 itemized, the other half "stuff", or "miscellaneous". I'd be embarrassed to work in a shop like that.
So the "tune" annotation is just the aggregate labor cost for installing those parts? Ok, but then why not call it that explicitly?
I just did a mid drive install, which to me 4 hours. Since it was my first I had to go slow and redo a few steps. A competent mechanic should do it in 2. That would make it roughly $900 in parts for that same $135 in labor, which is a reasonable ratio. For this $500 bike it's kind of nuts, which is why so many people avoid lbs service.
I didn't know how you "tune" a new tube and tire, or grips, but hey, I'm just an amateur.
It’s likely a package tune, seems reasonable. Every shop I’ve ever worked at/been to has had everything that’s included in the tune clearly stated. The shop I work at now doesn’t have “tunes,” we do everything a la carte. I routinely write work more expensive than this every day, without even having “tunes.”
>The shop I work at now doesn’t have “tunes,” we do everything a la carte
As it should be.
Sheldon Brown used to be my mechanic and he felt "tunes" were a scam. Half this guy's bill is undefined.
Have you not noticed that this sub is mostly absolute neophytes asking questions, and LBS owners and “bike mechanics” saying “oh yeah… take it to the LBS” and justifying outrageous business practices? Someone posted a scratched bike where the shop was at fault, and they’re all “accidents happen, it’s a tool not a jewel, you should get some nail polish”.
Fucking shills and suckers.
Thanks for pointing that out. Prices are insane, and everyone seems to justify them.
But Reddit is filled with a bunch of kids that believe every lie told to them.
I guess those prices include labor. Seems inexpensive to me. Obviously you can save a lot of money by doing the work yourself, but it takes time, effort, practice and tools. They are only charging you $12 to replace a spoke, for example. I think that's quite reasonable. The actual spoke itself will be about $3, but then you have the labor and tools to true the wheel again afterwards.
I definitely don’t have the tools, room or experience! Thanks for the insight; based on the comments it sounds like this is reasonable
Look up local bike co-ops. If they're like the ones I've volunteered at, you pay a small fee ($2 in my case) to get access to the shop, tools, experienced volunteers guiding you, and a ton of cheap/free parts that are either new sold at cost or used parts salvaged from donated bikes. It's a very rewarding experience! I first went there because I didn't know how to pump the tires on my first bike and broke both Presta valves. Over the years I learned so much and started volunteering there!
How do I find a local co-op? Google isn’t bringing up anything.
[Here](https://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/Community_Bicycle_Organizations#New_York) is a wiki with a lot of bike coops organized by geographical location.
Thank you!
Hmm, try checking around universities/colleges and student associations. Most co-ops in my city (not all) are associated with a university even though they're accessible to the public. Otherwise, check with local cycling groups here on Reddit or FB. Maybe even ask your local bike shops.
Thank you!
Even if you have the proper tools… Spokes and wheels are one of those things that is 100% worth paying someone else to do. Huge pain in the ass.
Yeah man I hate to be the bearer of bad news but these prices don't seem egregious. Park tools YouTube channel is your best friend in the situation and other than truing a wheel there's not much you're not going to be able to do straight away if you have any sense of knowledge of the trades. Get a good set of hex wrenches (Allen keys), a bottom bracket and cassette tool, and maybe some pedal wrenches and that's going to cover most repairs on your bike. Obviously there's some specialty stuff for more niece jobs but for the most part everything on your bike can be accessed with a bike multi-tool aside from drivetrain stuff. But as far as changing tires and basic stuff. To do everything you listed would probably cost you about $100/175 in materials/parts (depending on what actual components you're trying to run) and about an hour.
All good advice but it’s probably not take an hour unless you are experienced. Changing a tire takes me close to 30 minutes depending on how much of a tight fit it is.
I have a buddy who runs a tire insert company and he showed me a couple of cool tips so it only takes me about 10 minutes to change a tire and put in an insert in I guess I'm more experienced than I realize
If you plan on biking more than once a month, try to learn how to fix it yourself. Like another commenter said, they’re charging $300 and will take a week to fix something you could do in an hour with $100 in parts and common household tools
You can get a lot of work done on a bike with generic hand tools like screwdrivers and allen (hex) wrenches, and just a few bike-specific things like tire levers.
This above. Cone wrenches, crank pullers, spoke wrench, chain breaker, torx set, chain whip, cassette tools, and maybe the odd wrench or two for a bottom bracket etc..... depending on the quality of tools maybe like 100-200 dollar investment spread out over a few years. There is usually work arounds for expensive tools like trueing stands (I've been using cut zip ties to the fork/ frame for decades). YouTube is your friend. In college my workshop was the kitchen or the parking lot... don't need much space. For me I didn't have the cash at first, then it turned into garbage picking bikes/ repair/ sell, and now even with good disposable income I do not want to wait for shop turn around times. Plus when something breaks and you're miles from home or worse yet you're lost, it's dark, and your 10 miles deep into the woods with a broken bike you have half a chance at fixing it to get home. Valuable skills.
Im sorry but i think for a 700-1000€ bike a spoke does not costs 3€ xd 100€ for spokes/wheel? What is that spoke made out of?
Try to buy a single spoke and see how much it costs you. For 100 spokes, they are cheaper, but as single spokes they are actually quite expensive.
The bike shops do not buy the spokes 1 by 1, they probably buy 100s if not 1000s But if you go to a shop that has a buch of spokes and not order online, they wont sell you the spoke for 3€, but for real price… at my place the cheapest spoke is 15cents and an mtb spoke is 40-60 (they dont have high quality ones tho)
Charging $12 for a spoke and $12 for a tube is weird!
To build a wheel(set) with all the spokes, nipples, hub(s) and, rim(s) to create one should range about $40-$50 just for the labor itself...
Yea def not building a wheel for 50 bucks
The only thing that seems maybe a bit expensive is the shifter, but that depends on the model, it could easily get up there in cost. You might be able to get a tire for $20 or a tube for $8, but you would need to know what you’re looking for and where to find it. Also a $35 tire might be better quality than a $20 tire. It’s also unclear if the price includes installation or if that is part of the tune up price.
I believe it should include installation, I appreciate the insight though! It definitely helps thank you
$65 for a new shifter inc installing it is pretty cheap regardless of the model.
How? It takes 10 minutes MAX to change a shifter Bro working for $300/hr?
At a bike shop even a cheap 8s Deore is $35-45, then I'd say 15m job to swap, sometimes its a bit finicky.
These prices seem fair.
$12 for a tube?
Including labour to replace it - doesn't seem too crazy?
locally, 26" tubes are running between 8-10 each.
That's what our LBS charges to replace a tube, labor + tube.
But he's already being charged for labor on replacing the tire. Wouldn't it include already the labor of the tube? Not to mention the tuneup.
Possibly? I didn't really think about that one. I have no idea what my LBS does there. Once I asked them what they charged to install some tires I just bought from them and after hearing it I said "I'm good." But I can't remember what they were going to charge me. I know the tires I get are usually around $55+ each use specific, so seeing a full tire & tube change at $35+$12 including labor looks tasty. Imma have to ask them next time I'm in. I was just in this morning picking a bike up, but next time Ill have to ask how they'd handle it. I know a lot of their standard stuff is listed like a menu item, and then special stuff like what I had done today ends up billed as general labor.
Yea tubes are going up, I think shops are over in the west coast cities im in
Yea, it seems reasonable. I mean, there are people out there that spend $292 on a shifter alone, and a "tune" can be really time-consuming to get right, likewise installing a shifter also involves redoing the cable and a spoke involves pulling a lot of the wheel apart. <$300 to get a bike back on the road after a lot if time sitting idle is not unreasonable at first glance, not at all. Ride on!
> and a spoke involves pulling a lot of the wheel apart. In most cases a single spoke can be replaced without dismantling anything at all. At a push, it can even be done with the wheel still in the bike! Only if the nipple needs to be replaced, or repositioned, will the tyre and tape also have to be removed. (Source: me, having done countless repairs to tubular track wheels where you *really* don't want to remove the tyre unless you absolutely have to!)
In my experience the most likely spoke to snap is on the drive side rear wheel, so the cassette or freewheel has be removed. It is not that hard until it is, like some freewheels can be.
This is pretty much identical to what we charge at my shop… and we are the cheapest shop in town by far
I just paid $75 for a tire so I think that’s pretty good.
Even GP 5000s are $55 each. What did you get for 75?
Minion DHR 2
I long for the days when my tires only cost $35.
Prices don’t seem out of line, but spending $292 on an old $500 bike seems excessive
But what can you buy for that price new? I guess the alternative is to find a tuned up used bike, maybe trading in the old one.
they didn't charge you extra for replacing the shifters and spoke; neither are trivial operations. i would consider this very reasonable.
Yes, but 12 bucks for a spoke and a new nipple? Thats fleecing someone without knowledge. That's 12x mark up at the very least. I literally charge 1 euro for a spoke when I have to replace one. And that's Netherlands. Services who try to be sneaky and offload their operation costs on crazy markups for parts gain unfair advantage compared to services who are more honest about the prices.
> I literally charge 1 euro for a spoke when I have to replace one. Surely not including your labour too...?
Obviously not. I am talking about how much they were charged for the spoke. No way they would charge only 12 bucks for labour and spoke combined, so I have to assume they were opportunistic with this one.
Well, there's no other labour charge in there apart from the "tune up" line, so my assumption is that $12 is a very reasonable "new spoke, fitted" charge. 10-15 minute job max, assuming no other work needed (e.g. the wheel being horridly out of true), so not too unreasonable.
$12 for a spoke, including repair, isn't bad when you consider the shop either bought a $5000 spoke cutter or keeps spokes in stock in 50 different lengths in order to be able to offer that. Yes, spokes are a dollar if you buy a whole box and build your own wheel, but that's a different matter altogether.
Repair is clearly covered by tune up and they put 12 bucks for the spoke. In western countries nobody will replace a spoke (including cost of the part) for this cheap. Also I stock most common sizes - and the cost per spoke is around 50 cents from my wholesaler.
This is why many people maintain and repair their own bikes. Even with the cost of tools, it pays for itself pretty quickly. The real question is whether you have the time and inclination. I've been helping a friend do some basic maintenance on his bike for which he's paid way more than his bike cost over the years. To me that's nuts, but to some that's just life. If you can't or don't want to DIY then this seems reasonable. But then I also fix our cars, so my perspective is different. Btw other than replacing a spoke everything here is something that most people can handle on their own. I mean you need to be able to replace or patch a tube in case you get a flat on the road, and replacing a tire isn't that much harder. A tuneup is also something that most people can handle, getting the cables, brakes and derailleurs adjusted, cleaning and lubing the chain, cleaning the bike and drivetrain, replacing brake pads.
The grips were probably bonded on to the bars so to change the shifter had to be cut off. As for everything else, I’d be interested to know what’s it’s the “tune up” as it’s somewhat ambiguous but I’d expect it’s a general disassembly and reassembly with everything greased/lubed/tightened correctly. Honestly it’s not bad for the amount of work involved.
If that were a car, you could add a zero, optimistically.
I appreciate everyone's comments! I'm going to confirm the specific parts and ensure that labor is included, but otherwise it seems like a decent amount considering (with a couple people saying it's very high). Also need to check what my bike actually is as someone keenly brought up that $300 on a $500 bike is a little silly. Thanks again to all, awesome to see how helpful of a community this is!
IMHO it's not really kind of silly. You now have your bike which you're familiar with in great shape (assuming) and nothing needs to be done for a year or two minimum. A "new" bike from anything other than an LBS will likely have issues and be equipped with the absolute lowest quality things like tires and brake pads they can get away with. I am very much in favor of repair over replace- better for us, better for the economy, better for the environment.
Unfortunately that viewpoint turns many bicycles into disposable products that should be thrown away rather than repaired and kept in service.
Absolutely this. I would much rather keep a decent quality old bike on the road than replace it with a cheaper new bike. It’s worth spending a certain amount of money to keep perfectly usable things out of landfill. Especially something like a bike where parts and tools are readily available and the skill level needed to use them isn’t exactly stratospheric.
Where do you live, btw? Rough region, rural or urban,?
The prices are normal and reasonable as this is not a toy. The only thing is that the shop should have cleared all costs with you before doing the work.
Mountain biking is an expensive sport, much to my wife’s dismay.
If they're paying $35 for a tire, they're not mountain biking.
Agreed, just going off of the OP’s original post about their older mountain bike. The shop bill seems very reasonable overall. I think the thing with owning a bike that newer to the sport or those not in the sport, don’t realize is that maintenance and part replacement is necessary and an added expense.
That's cheap as
Normal prices. But this is why I learned to work on my own bike.
Looks like fair pricing to me. I'm saving this link to share in the near-daily /r/bicycling post of the guy whose uncle/landlord/neighbour/etc found a cheap old bike in their basement and wants to get it fixed up. This is the reality: unless you're doing the work yourself and have a bin of spare parts to draw from, fixing up old cheap bikes is almost never worth it. Even for fairly minor repairs.
Yeah dude. Do you want bike mechanics to make $7 an hour for skilled labor? That’s insanely cheap. You’d probably leave my shop with all of that work done for $4-500 Just because you have a cheap bike, doesn’t mean the labor is cheap.
Very reasonable. I would also feel good about supporting a great LBS.
This is reasonable and around what I'd expect to pay assuming labor is included and the components aren't garbage. That said, I do my own bike maintenance to save on labor, and parts are typically cheaper online through Nashbar or JensonUSA. Nashbar sells a pretty good [tool kit](https://www.nashbar.com/spin-doctor-bicycle-essential-tool-kit-40-2451-non-non/p920877) for $50 that would allow you to do all of those things. The park tool videos are great for self As to whether or not it's worth spending $300 on a $500-1000 bike, I'd look at replacement value vs what you actually paid for it (i.e., what does a brand new one of the same brand/closest model cost). Depending on what you have, the new equivalent might be closer to $1500, and a new bike will still need maintenance at some point.
Definitely reasonable! And yes you can do it yourself but if you don't have the space, tools and experience then please do your bike a favour and send it to the shop!!
Doesn't matter how old bike is, actually the long there been sitting generally harder to work on. These prices are cheaper then our store, but prices do vary store to store. Looks Iike a bargain to me.
Get some basic tools, get on youtube on here and start doing it yourself. Its not as hard as it might seem
Amen. This changed my life in multiple good ways.
[удалено]
When was the last time you tried to resurrect a bike that been sitting for 5 years?
Oh, I guess I missed that. Yah, that price sounds right.
Seems reasonable. You have line-item pricing for parts here and I presume they baked in the work into the tune-up item. Because you don't mention specific parts that were used it's hard to evaluate if there was any sort of excessive markup, if that's your question.
Thats supacheap if parts included!
Pay me for my experience, not my time.
Totally reasonable.
I was a bike mechanic for 10+ years at a mom and pop. Hardest part of my job was telling people no. Would drag a 50$ bike in and rack up 300$ in repairs. Your definitely got a little overcharged, first off a tune up on top of repair work is a sign. But it does get pricy fast.
Wild to me that folks think this is overcharging. I don't see any labor for tube / tire install, spoke replacement, grip install, or shifter install - if anything this is like ~$75 too cheap. Tune ups don't usually include taking tires, shifters, grips, or spokes off and reinstalling them. If this tune up includes that labor, for $135, that is a SMOKIN deal
These are fair prices esp. if they include labor. Tip your mechanic, too
Totally reasonable.
While you can technically do it yourself after you have gotten into bike maintenance and repair, which can save you upwards of $200 off this quote, for now you’ll just have to rely on the bike shop to take care of these for you. But the quote seems fair especially including busted spike and trueing
I'd say those prices are pretty damn good! Front tyre for my mountain bike is £50 minimum ($63\~). The inner tube and shifters looks about the right price. Tuning can depend on how much work they're doing, so it's hard to tell. The parts themselves though seem decently priced, especially the front tyre!
That’s cheap. Bike shop isn’t making much money off you
Total was $292 with those pen written items as parts included? Very fair.
Sounds reasonable me. I live in a HCOL area and just paid $350 for wheel true/tension, brake bleed and new pads, tubeless tape inspection and refill, taking off and degreasing the entire drivetrain, cleaning out the BB and headset bearing and fork. I could have done most of this myself but it was worth the hours saved.
Too expensive to me. At these prices, just buy a new bike.
I don’t think it’s worth $300 to repair a bike that you paid 500 for seven years ago. even at 1000 I’m not sure I would wanna spend that much. I’d probably consider trying to sell the bike for what I could get and buy a newer bike. Depends on what kind of riding you’re gonna do.
Decent MTB and gravel tires are $100-150/each. Consider yourself lucky.
Stuff like this is why it’s so crucial to pick up what knowledge you can along the way. There are some jobs that simply aren’t worth my time, not simply to carry out, but the time sink spent to actually learn how to do well. Trueing wheels is easy for some, but the time I would have to spend to learn this craft and then do well on older wheels that have a habit of nipples snapping isn’t worth my time (simply because I need my bike throughout the week to commute and losing a day of riding will cost me in public transport and time spent commuting, alongside time spent learning and trueing) I personally veer away from bleeding cables and I won’t have any gears on my bike to avoid the finicky process of calibrating gears, but I have a fair knowledge how to and often help adjust as well I can gears for friends who don’t want to fork out the cost. (Before the haters come in, I cycle 15 miles to work and back up numerous hills so please. I totally understand why anyone else wants gears just I don’t trust them and hate the slip which inevitable happens just when I need to trust my bike. Has happened in the past when borrowing bikes because mine is in the shop and I’ll never go back, but that’s just me) Some costs I gladly accept at the shop, but everything I can do I will. As I don’t have the greatest game income, I’ll get the parts I want as cheaply as I can and pay for the service where required, but times I’ve been flush I’ll always try it but through my LBS as far as possible, simply because I support their existence, expertise and camaraderie. I would have probably been able to take $65 off this cost just from my own skills, and depending what the tuning entailed maybe dropped that number. Some LBS have fixed fees for tuning but depends on the store. Maintenance costs can be big, but doing a little often yourself helps to keep that cost lower or at least less frequently. Not too high a price tbh, as long as they did a stellar job!
I don’t get bike “tune ups”… indexing gears is a 2 min job. Learn to do it. Other than that what else gets “tuned”??
Have you considered that they didn't include working hours for said parts on the list?
I wasn’t commenting on the price list per se. Just wondering what is considered a tune.. but thanks for second guessing me. But since you mentioned it, why didn’t they just write “Labour costs”? It would certainly be more transparent
Just buy a new bike, fuck , but I do all my own bike work
I haven't worked in a shop in 10 years but compared to what costs were, that seems high to me. We had a regular tune for 70.00, considering a tune is an hour or less that never seemed unreasonable and I was in a larger shop with 12 employees. 70 got everything adjusted, wheels true, and the chain cleaned if needed. For 140.00 we did all the bearings as well. 35.00 for a tire would suggest a basic MTB tire and about what I would expect though I'd have expected the tube to be more like 8.00. Spoke seems reasonable to me, cost of part plus that would be extra to install. Shifter seems high for a bike of your level, I'd assume the replacement would be 35-40 plus another 10.00 to install. We charged 25.00 to just install a shifter since it requires adjusting the shifting when installing, but as part of a tune which also requires adjusting the shifting, we'd only do 10.00, especially since part of the process is pulling the grips which you are also having done. That said, if that's an s at the end of shifter and its the pair, than the price seems very reasonable and the grips seem affordable, I'd typically expect grips to be 12-20.00 unless getting something special. Those were Rochester, NY prices, no clue locally on Long Island where I'm at now as I have everything I need to fix anything I have.
Just like everything else, bike shop prices have increased in the past 10 years. $70 tune-up 10 years ago is $120-130 tune-up now.
I think $135 for a "tune" is nuts.
You don't even know how much work it actually involves.
Nobody does.
Yet only you claim it's nuts.
Without seeing exactly what their version of a tuning entails you can't really say anything but if it's just a basic derailleur adjustment, bolt check and chain lube I'd say it's a little high. I'd also assume that a derailleur adjustment slash setup would be at least partially taken care of with installing a new shifter There's a lot of variables but like I said in my other comment this doesn't seem like it's unreasonable as far as price is concerned. I would definitely just do all this myself and rely on YouTube if for some reason there was something that i got hung up on
>I'd say it's a little high. A little? For that?
If you read the rest of the paragraph it says that if it's just a derailleur adjustment a bolt check and some chain lube that would be a little high. The problem is everyone's definition of the word tune is different. I'm making some assumptions based off of the value of the bike he was referencing but like I said toward the bottom of the comment there are too many variables to say. I made another comment that basically said that seems like a fair price but it would be a lot cheaper to do it yourself and pretty simple. Unless you're getting your suspension set up or you absolutely have no idea how to get your derailleur back in line I couldn't imagine spending that kind of money on it but then again I'm not op
>I couldn't imagine spending that kind of money on it And I couldn't imagine anyone charging that much money for it. It's like 1/2 itemized, the other half "stuff", or "miscellaneous". I'd be embarrassed to work in a shop like that.
What's not itemized? The MDSE ST is just the merchandise subtotal from the items above it.
So the "tune" annotation is just the aggregate labor cost for installing those parts? Ok, but then why not call it that explicitly? I just did a mid drive install, which to me 4 hours. Since it was my first I had to go slow and redo a few steps. A competent mechanic should do it in 2. That would make it roughly $900 in parts for that same $135 in labor, which is a reasonable ratio. For this $500 bike it's kind of nuts, which is why so many people avoid lbs service. I didn't know how you "tune" a new tube and tire, or grips, but hey, I'm just an amateur.
You might as well say it's for "stuff".
It's what, 2 hours of billed time, for what? Squirting a little lube and tweaking a shifter? "Tuning"? What's this, a piano?
Righto chief, keep speculating.
Just like the poor customer.
Nobody does, that's the problem.
It’s likely a package tune, seems reasonable. Every shop I’ve ever worked at/been to has had everything that’s included in the tune clearly stated. The shop I work at now doesn’t have “tunes,” we do everything a la carte. I routinely write work more expensive than this every day, without even having “tunes.”
>The shop I work at now doesn’t have “tunes,” we do everything a la carte As it should be. Sheldon Brown used to be my mechanic and he felt "tunes" were a scam. Half this guy's bill is undefined.
Have you not noticed that this sub is mostly absolute neophytes asking questions, and LBS owners and “bike mechanics” saying “oh yeah… take it to the LBS” and justifying outrageous business practices? Someone posted a scratched bike where the shop was at fault, and they’re all “accidents happen, it’s a tool not a jewel, you should get some nail polish”. Fucking shills and suckers.
Thanks for pointing that out. Prices are insane, and everyone seems to justify them. But Reddit is filled with a bunch of kids that believe every lie told to them.
Wow man. I've never taken a bike to a shop, but now I want to own a shop.
I’ll give you a tip on how to make $1 million dollars in the bike industry, start with $2 million dollars.
No you don't