I strongly advise not to take on being a repair space. be ever skeptical of people leaving their bikes or bike projects in the space. By creating a space for learning and DIY comradery you will in return repair more bikes and accomidate more people within your cooperative/ collective / community.

Geoffrey B Bike Pirates Toronto

On 7/27/10, Gervase Gallant gervasegallant@yahoo.com wrote:

Andrew, we started doing doing repairs here in Des Moines, but eventually had to advise people we were too busy to take any more. First thing you should know is that drop-off repairs eat up a lot of shop space. We found that it was a very tight squeeze between bikes coming in and repair bikes. Also, there's a subtle difference between repairing someone's bike and refurbishing a donation. If a volunteer might completely ruin a part on a donation, we can usually find something to replace it. On a customer repair, we might have to order in a part and eat the cost.  Also, you need to store repair bikes cautiously so that they don't get scratched or otherwise damaged. On the other hand, I don't think competition with LBSes in the area was a problem. In fact, most LBSes are so swamped early in the year, they would probably welcome some competition. Our shop is situated in an area of town where there's no competing LBS. You may also be fortunate in that you have someone who understands repairs and is willing to do what it takes to move the business along. Our co-op was so swamped with repairs that we had no resources for getting donations out... which is our primary focus. We'd like to someday get back to doing repairs, as there is a real need for it in the area. Please let us know how it goes for you. Gervase Gallant  Des Moines Bike Collective: Commuter Corner http://dsmcommutercorner.wordpress.com/

--- On Tue, 7/27/10, Davis, Andrew ADavis@akronohio.gov wrote:

From: Davis, Andrew ADavis@akronohio.gov Subject: [TheThinkTank] Drop-off repairs To: "'The Think Tank'" thethinktank@bikecollectives.org Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 10:46 AM

Do any of the co-ops do “drop-off repairs”? If so, how is this set-up? One of our founding members is a former bike repair shop owner (retired – with a lot of wrench knowledge), and wants to gravitate to doing this as part of service offered – his experience was repairs was main business with retail an add-on. I have some reservations – it wasn’t our intent to directly compete with local bike shops on repairs, the other is maintaining the educational focus. Anyone with experience on this issue?

Andy  - Akron , OH

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Interesting experiences, here is ours:

We offer repairs and it represents a sizeable part of our income. Our model, granted, is much more commercial than most of the collectives out there: we have a ''real'' retail operation, pay staff and pay the rent to go along with it. Our idea is to get to the point, when we run out of our start-up grants in 2012, to have our commercial operation support our community programming. That's the goal, and we seem to be on track. We don't not try to compete against LBSs, we are an LBS, and we believe that ther is such growth in bicycles right now that there is plenty of room for everyone.

A few things we're learning about running an operation with two heads: the heads must be kept reasonably seperate. Paid mechanics wiork only for the commercial operation - or handle specific activities related to outside repair stands or earn-a-bike or classes, depending on their mandate. Most mechanics who we hired seasonaly only worked on getting bikes ready for sale and repairs for customers. The line between the two sectors has been blurry at times, we re-started community programming in late June, and the commercial operation was still very busy. Lesson for next year - when there is community programming going on, there is nothing else going on in the shop and we have at least one sales - custiomer service person in the front handling customers who walk in.

Volunteers do not ever work on customers bikes. NEVER! Even if they are incredible mechanics. We actually ended up hiring a few of our volunteers as mechanics for the season. Which was sometimes difficult as the performance expectations on volunteers is obviously different than on paid staff.

We keep bikes seperate. Customers bikes are protected and community program participants easily see it by our layout. The bikes for community programming are kept in another room and brought back there when the participant is done for the day. New parts are kept in anotehr room so that particiapnts cannot access them, they are not allowed tio go there unless they work for us.

There are some issues with used parts storage. We have bins and participatns can search as they please and use the parts. We also sell used parts, the nice ones are kept in cbinets in the front (at least in theory) and the ordinary ones in teh bins. A customer can search throguh bins and may buy used parts, prices are very low.

Repairs are a good source of revenue, and it is part of how we hope to stay in business a long time without relying completely on government grants. So far so good, but we definitely have issues keeping things seperated. At some point, we will likely seek out other, more affordable spaces to offer our communiy programming and keep our storefront high rent space strictly for commercial operations.... That's the ultimate way of keeping things seperated

Good day!

Richard - Vélogik www.velogik.org

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 10:17 PM, Gervase Gallant gervasegallant@yahoo.comwrote:

Andrew, we started doing doing repairs here in Des Moines, but eventually had to advise people we were too busy to take any more.

First thing you should know is that drop-off repairs eat up a lot of shop space. We found that it was a very tight squeeze between bikes coming in and repair bikes.

Also, there's a subtle difference between repairing someone's bike and refurbishing a donation. If a volunteer might completely ruin a part on a donation, we can usually find something to replace it. On a customer repair, we might have to order in a part and eat the cost. Also, you need to store repair bikes cautiously so that they don't get scratched or otherwise damaged.

On the other hand, I don't think competition with LBSes in the area was a problem. In fact, most LBSes are so swamped early in the year, they would probably welcome some competition. Our shop is situated in an area of town where there's no competing LBS.

You may also be fortunate in that you have someone who understands repairs and is willing to do what it takes to move the business along. Our co-op was so swamped with repairs that we had no resources for getting donations out... which is our primary focus.

We'd like to someday get back to doing repairs, as there is a real need for it in the area. Please let us know how it goes for you.

Gervase Gallant Des Moines Bike Collective: Commuter Corner http://dsmcommutercorner.wordpress.com/

--- On *Tue, 7/27/10, Davis, Andrew ADavis@akronohio.gov* wrote:

From: Davis, Andrew ADavis@akronohio.gov Subject: [TheThinkTank] Drop-off repairs To: "'The Think Tank'" thethinktank@bikecollectives.org Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 10:46 AM

Do any of the co-ops do “drop-off repairs”? If so, how is this set-up? One of our founding members is a former bike repair shop owner (retired – with a lot of wrench knowledge), and wants to gravitate to doing this as part of service offered – his experience was repairs was main business with retail an add-on. I have some reservations – it wasn’t our intent to directly compete with local bike shops on repairs, the other is maintaining the educational focus. Anyone with experience on this issue?

*Andy - Akron , OH*

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