Part of my own motivation to work with a community bike shop is to create a contradiction to capitalism.  Every day we see hundreds of usable bikes that get thrown away or recycles to make room for more 'new' bike that become old bikes.  We don't need capitalism, we need transportation and utility which bicycles provide.  Think about it, if you had to, could you ride a Schwinn Continental every day?  Instead, we cut these up for the scrap that we sell that goes to China to make the metal parts for inflatable lawn ornaments we buy each season and throw away. 

'Diluting' the market is a capitalist concept that has nothing to do with providing bikes for people.  If you want to subscribe to this camp of thinking, all activity at your community bike shop dilutes the 'free market'. 

Perhaps it's time to start questioning these ideas?

Wilbur Ince
Sibley Bike Depot
Saint Paul, MN


On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Wanda Pelegrina <wpelegrina@hotmail.com> wrote:
I think that's a misconception. I don't know of any bike shops that are selling bikes for $75 - $100 even $200. 

The "cheap" bikes at our local bike shops are more in the neighborhood of $300 and their high end bikes upwards of $3K.

Someone looking for that kinda bike is not gonna go get it at your (or our shop)...nor will they suddenly decide that they want a $150 used bike instead of high end bike they originally drooled over.

Many of the people that come into our shop will never be able to afford a brand spankin new bike shop bike. For those who can afford it, I see it more as they're buying a used/refurbished bike, but will eventually go to a bike shop to buy a new bike or they're looking for a beater bike or a project bike.

Unless business is going really bad for your local bike shops or really super great for yours, I'd be really surprised if you're taking business away from them.

We've been really lucky at Community Cycles that our local shops are super supportive. They are happy to send business (and random extra parts to us) especially when someone comes in with a "dinosaur" bike that they don't wanna work on. As far as tune-ups, etc on really high end bikes, i can only think of once when someone actually brought one to us for a tune-up over a "regular" bike shop.

1da

Wanda Pelegrina Caldas
Proud to be on Community Cycles Board!
Sponsor an Earn-A-Biker for $100






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Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 08:13:54 -0700
From: pedals2people@gmail.com
To: thethinktank@bikecollectives.org
Subject: [TheThinkTank] diluting the market


Hey,

I have a question about reselling bikes and what to charge people. We're located in Spokane, WA and the bike "boom" is just starting to hit us. Those great deals on craiglsist and at Goodwill don't exist any more.

We accept some quality bike donations from people, mostly older mtn bikes, and we sell some as-is and some refurbished. We sell these bike for around $75-100. A friend of ours who works at a bike shop in town said that with our low prices, we were diluting the market.

Do you all think this is right? In our defense, we feel these bikes are donated and we want to pass on a good deal. We don't want to squeeze people for every penny.

thanks,
Liza
--
Liza Mattana
president
www.pedals2people.org
Spokane, WA

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