I only know one and he’s awesome. These are the shoes he rides bikes in:
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Sure would be nice to have free storage with in-house mechanics!
In my first bike shop job, I was responsible for calling a guy once a month to remind him to pick up his bike. A chrome Atala track frame that he’d had us overhaul and put modern wheels on. It fit me and it was 2005 so of course I had my fingers crossed that he’d never get it.
After 10 months, we started telling him that we’d sell it after a year. After a year, we still called every month, but told him that we may sell it that month. After like 14 months, they let me buy the frame and we stopped calling him.
I loved that bike. One of the best fitting bikes I ever had. 2 months later, I crashed it and bent some tubes. A month after that, the guy came into the shop and wanted his bike back.
I told him it was sold. Didn’t tell him I was the one who bought it or that it was already dead. I think maybe the owner dealt with him after that.
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“We charge $100 per month for storage. When the accumulated cost approaches the value of the bike, we sell the bike. If there is money left over after the sale, you may collect it in the shop.”
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The owner was very old school. Very “customer is always right”, so he wouldn’t get behind the punitive policies. By the end we had taken off all the new parts and were only going to charge him for like a headset and BB adjustment or something. I paid the shop more than we were going to charge the guy. So maybe I paid the storage fee?
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I’ve become Jones-curious now that I’ve accepted my P-29er and I are not a match.
Lawd knows how far I’d have to travel to sit on one and find out.
I did this to a mechanic (leaving a car on their lot for over a month) but to be fair I was waiting on parts and insurance payments etc plus he refused to work on it unless I supplied the body parts. And all told it was in and out under 7 weeks
Is the guy still in business?
The shop had been the oldest in Atlanta that had been contiguously owned by the same person. He had it from the 70s to like 2010(?). Then he sold it to the long time manager who shuttered it in less than 5 years.
When I worked there we sold mostly $500 Giant hybrids but they had been the biggest Trek dealer in the southeast at some point.
What shop was this? I moved to Atlanta in ~2015 & am curious if I ever visited before its closure.
I have bikes abandoned all the time. We scrap or donate them after a year. It took a while for me to get this point because at my old shop I had the same policy for a bit until I had multiple instances of customers leaving their bikes for 1-2 years because they were in prison. I was a bleeding heart and usually ended up giving them another bike to get back on their feet but eventually just started holding onto abandoned bikes for longer.
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Right near your namesake. Bicycle South. At the corner of N. Decatur and Claremont.
Me and eejay worked there in the mid 2000’s before we both eventually migrated to Peachtree Bikes.
If you did go near the end, would be interested to hear what the shop was like.
The owner was crotchety, a good match for working next to Camera Doctor.
I did meet Kenny there and Kenny is great.
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That must have been Brian. Fred, the original owner, was a Decatur city council member or something and would never have been crotchety around customers.
Can’t believe Kenny was still there. I think I was there when they hired him. Always a cool person.
Kenny and Andrew are both gems. Brian sucked. The less said about the Wagmanns(?) of PTB the better. I wonder what JC is up to these days though.
this is a great way to absolutely ensure that the customer never picks up the bike
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I know I would pick up mine within a few days. Obviously the first hundo would not be charged if the bike is picked up within a reasonable time period after the work is done. After a couple of weeks, it’s fair to start the $ clock with a message that says you can pick up your bike with no storage fee up unil X of Y… and if somebody doesn’t pick up, at least you have clearly communicated in advance what you will be doing.
That’s the issue. If you want someone to pick up the bike, don’t tell them they have to pay hundreds to do it. You’re going to avoid the fee because you’re already someone who is going to pick up your bike soon after it’s ready.
I’d imagine most people pick their bikes up in a timely manner. A small subset do not. I doubt the potential cost looming down the road is going to change that behavior before the punitive fees kick in.
So the only impact this kind of fee schedule has on the situation is to further disincentivize folks who are already unlikely to pick up the bike.
You could take their card and auto charge $100 a month to make this scheme work, but that seems like a REALLY bad idea to me.
I’d be curious to know how often these sorts of extremely late pickups are. After a decade and a half of retail management, I’ve learned that there is a certain type of employee who is eager to create elaborate policies and procedures to address uncommon edge case situations that personally offend them. When the actual best policy is to handle on a case by case basis.
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After you give them notice let them know that you’re going to lock it up. Outside.
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The idea is that you tell them before the $100s start to accumulate.
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Yeah that would be a terrible idea imo. Owner pays the storage fee when they come to pick up the bike along with whatever they were going to pay for labour and parts.
I’d imagine most of the late picker-uppers would be sufficiently motivated by the fee to get their shit together. And if not, who cares? One bike gets left there every few years, you eventually sell or donate it and get on with your day. You waive the storage fee in all but the most egregious cases, you occasionally make an extra hundo on some disorganised customers and keep your storage space from overflowing.