Josh and Dane sit down with Steve Morganstern (Bicycle Ranch) to discuss why mountain bikers might be giving up more than they save when buying from a consumer direct brand.
This episode essentially covers the consumer value proposition of buying from your local bike shop versus buying a bike online.
The local shop value proposition includes... selection, sizing, assembly, setup, fit, troubleshooting, maintenance, repair, upgrade, warranty, socials, group rides, trail advocacy, the ability to physically touch and see before you buy, advise on where to ride, a place to meet other riders… and much more.
It’s worth a listen.
And it’s definitely worth taking a minute to consider what you might be giving up before you click “buy now” on a consumer direct brand’s website.
Links
Steve’s shop… Bicycle Ranch Tucson: https://www.bicycleranchtucson.com/
Dane’s shop… Guru Bikes: https://guru-bikes.com/
Listen to Mountain Cog
Apple Podcasts
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Instagram
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Email
mountaincog@gmail.com
Josh and Dane sit down with Steve Morganstern (Bicycle Ranch) to discuss why mountain bikers might be giving up more than they save when buying from a consumer direct brand.
This episode essentially covers the consumer value proposition of buying from your local bike shop versus buying a bike online.
The local shop value proposition includes... selection, sizing, assembly, setup, fit, troubleshooting, maintenance, repair, upgrade, warranty, socials, group rides, trail advocacy, the ability to physically touch and see before you buy, advise on where to ride, a place to meet other riders… and much more.
It’s worth a listen.
And it’s definitely worth taking a minute to consider what you might be giving up before you click “buy now” on a consumer direct brand’s website.
Links
Steve’s shop… Bicycle Ranch Tucson: https://www.bicycleranchtucson.com/
Dane’s shop… Guru Bikes: https://guru-bikes.com/
Listen to Mountain Cog
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Other Podcast Sites
Socials
Instagram
Facebook
Email
mountaincog@gmail.com
All right, today's Thursday, do you know? Do you guys happen to know, like, what the strongest day of the week is, or what the strongest days of the week are?
Dane:Oh man, I'm going to memorize all the dad jokes, so I can maybe call you on one, but no, I don't.
Josh:It's Saturday and Sunday. The rest are weekdays.
Steve Morganstern:Oh, God and thank you for coming, yeah.
Josh:We have some special effects, but I lost my little sheet that tells you.
Dane:Tells you which one.
Josh:Yeah, I can't remember which one is the.
Dane:Oh, there we go, there we go, is that good?
Josh:Is one. Yeah, I can't remember which one is the. Oh, there we go. Yeah, that's awesome. So, all right, thursday night on the mcp, we're uh, sitting in guru bikes. It's been a while since we recorded here actually yeah, I keep coming out to your place and riding. Yeah, you were out of my place.
Dane:We're at a pivot, we were at uh jesus place ride tucson.
Josh:So it's been a minute since we've been here, so it's I kind of feel like this is home, yeah yeah, yeah, you rearranged the chairs.
Dane:Yes, there's going to be shoes in this area soon.
Josh:Oh, where are we going to record?
Dane:it Same place. We'll still have the chairs. We just have to smell the shoes Wall of shoes. She will be on the other foot, yeah.
Josh:The shoes will be on the other wall and we've got Dane. Obviously, you guys know Dane and Dane runs Guru, everything, guru Bikes, guru, suspension, guru Travel, guru, guru, guru. And we also have Steve runs another shop here in Tucson.
Dane:The infamous, the infamous.
Josh:Yes, the infamous Bicycle Ranch. Would you like to introduce yourself, sir?
Steve Morganstern:Sure, steve Morgenstern, bicycle Ranch Tucson, long-time friend and fan of Dane's and happy to be here. Where did you guys first meet?
Dane:I don't know. That's a good question. Oh you know, somebody I worked with started working with Steve. That's how I met him.
Steve Morganstern:Okay.
Dane:And she was awesome and we would hang out. This is like back in the 80s. No, not quite that long. It feels like it. There's a running joke about Dane's age.
Steve Morganstern:Yeah, yeah, I'm older, so it's okay, you're older than Dane.
Dane:You look way younger than Dane. Yeah, it's because he rides his bike more Is that it?
Steve Morganstern:It's a roadie thing, you wouldn't get it. It's true.
Josh:So we got a great topic and it's really about consumer direct bike brands and I thought it'd be interesting to get together with a couple bike shop owners and get a different perspective as a consumer. And I'll start out by kind of giving my perspective, but maybe before we get into that, you could tell us a little bit about Bicycle Ranch.
Steve Morganstern:Yes, sure, we opened in 2013 after years of doing different careers sales, marketing, customer service. I was friends with all the bike shops in town. I've been riding my whole life.
Josh:Yep.
Steve Morganstern:And my father actually retired in 2012, moved to Arizona full-time. My folks and he said, well, what do you want to do if you're not happy? And I said, well, maybe I want to open a bike shop Little did you know?
Dane:Little did I know.
Steve Morganstern:So I was friends with the guys who actually own the bicycle ranch in Scottsdale, okay, and so we tossed it around with them, talked about what it looks like, and I went around to every shop in Tucson at the time that I knew and said, can Tucson support another bike shop?
Josh:Oh, that's cool.
Steve Morganstern:In what area? What does it look like? And we started small, yeah, opened up, we partnered with Giant and Cannondale as our two brands and been with them for 10 years still carry giant still carry giant candel. We do. Bmc is our nichey brand. But everything I could want. They've been super supportive through covid, through everything. We were in one location for seven and a half years and because of COVID, a space opened in our shopping center and I went down and said, well, what would it look like?
Steve Morganstern:if we maybe moved into this bigger space Because we were so full of service during the COVID boom that we had outgrown and one thing led to another. Now we're in a new space just over three years, and there are days when it's not big enough uh, yeah, dade knows the feeling and yeah, I'm looking around.
Josh:It looks pretty busy in here. You guys are gonna have to expand soon, right we?
Steve Morganstern:did and then as soon as you do, the business stops and you go. Why do I have all? This space but, uh, yeah, it's been going great, or? You know, I love being involved in the community. I love that that the whole bike shop community is very small, yeah, um you guys all know each other, we know each other. We work together. There's very few animosities between shops. Uh, dane and I've been sending people back and forth.
Steve Morganstern:That's cool For specifics or working on brand specific or item things that we one can't do for the whole 10 years.
Dane:Yeah, I love it. I'll drop off suspension at Steve's shop and just hang out for like an hour just chatting with everybody, you know that's cool. Yeah it's. We've got a good relationship, so it's very nice, that's awesome you carry giant.
Josh:I was telling you earlier that I did. I've been like researching stuff and in addition to like researching the bike shops in Tucson, I've also been researching like all the brands and where they're actually the factories that the bikes are made in. And I was. It was surprised to learn that, like giant, makes 86% of all bikes a lot of the bikes in the world.
Dane:Every giant dealer will tell you that Right.
Steve Morganstern:We tell you that, right, oh yeah, we know it's well, you know goes down to and I'm sure we'll get to this why there's such a good value and they are a leader in innovation. That didn't get recognized for a long time, especially here in the states, right until they said you know, this is stupid, we should be putting our name on this stuff that everybody else is riding. Yeah, and they still for the bike brands, even that they don't actually assemble. Yes, you know, don't confuse that.
Steve Morganstern:They don't design everything, yep yeah, they just manufacture, they manufacture, yeah, they get, they get the plans and uh, but they do tube shaping and aluminum tubes for some brands that they don't assemble because they actually own the aluminum foundries and extrude the aluminum and do the tubes. And it's pretty amazing what that whole bike world is, and it's now not just Taiwan, it's Philippines and Netherlands and Germany and everywhere.
Josh:Yeah, I was watching, I think, the release of their new road bike from the Taipei Bike Show or whatever, and they were talking about how they actually source like they do their own carbon fibers, Like holy shit. Only a couple places in the world do that. That's interesting to hear that.
Dane:Yeah, they even have their own mine to get the aluminum.
Josh:Do they really? Yeah, they're fully integrated.
Steve Morganstern:Wow, totally vertically integrated Vertically integrated yeah, well, good on you, giant. So yeah, that's cool.
Dane:Yeah, they said. I forgot who told me this, but somebody said that if they wanted during COVID to just shut every bike company down, they could. They could have. Yeah, they could have just said nope, we're not making your bikes. They were future thinking, which is nice, you know yeah, they wanted.
Josh:Yeah, they win wins. They got to keep their, so they got to keep their customers. They got to keep their customers viable as well, and so they meter their own so that they could put out I've heard that they in the grand scheme of production.
Steve Morganstern:Yeah, they're number three in terms of hierarchy of what bikes get built who's number one and two?
Josh:do you know specialized?
Steve Morganstern:no, they don't specialize. Isn't made by them actually?
Josh:whoa interesting they're they're made by them actually.
Steve Morganstern:Oh interesting, they're made by Merida. Okay, Merida's the other big manufacturer Right which is why you'll never see a Merida bike sold in the States, because Specialized says no. Well, that's interesting.
Josh:I didn't know that.
Steve Morganstern:That makes sense, though, yeah but I don't know which is the front layers but the front layers. But it's Canyon and Felt and Cervelo, not Cervelo, but there's quite a few.
Josh:Interesting. Now I've got to try to figure that out.
Steve Morganstern:Right, what are their number one and two? A lot of it's secret.
Josh:I do like to try to figure that stuff out.
Dane:So there's an interesting thing about Giant that I learned If you take a cow and you trade it for some magic beans, you can actually grow a vine. I don't know if you guys have heard this, uh, but grow a vine and get two giants, uh, factory, that's how you get there.
Josh:So you could have given me 700 guesses. I would. I love it too, because you guys were like on the edge.
Dane:You're like what the hell are you talking about? Where are you going? Did you just make that up on the spot? Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, I didn't deliver it as good as in my head, but I tried.
Josh:You know, if you don't try, All right, so let's get to the topic here. So thank you for the overview of your shop.
Steve Morganstern:Sure, that's pretty cool.
Josh:I there because I live in Vail and it's like you know it's in.
Steve Morganstern:India basically compared to where I live. Hour and a half you have to pack a lunch. South Phoenix, south Phoenix.
Josh:Yeah, you're in South Phoenix and I'm in Safford in the Gila Valley.
Dane:Anyways.
Josh:All right. So the topic of today as a consumer, you know, I own a Gorilla Gravity. I own a Lightspeed. I own a light speed, yep. I own a specialized Yep. And I own that Rocky mountain that's sitting right behind you, right there, dane, just put a coil on. Yes, I can't wait till you ride it.
Josh:And uh, when I was going through like the purchasing, like process right Of, of buying those bikes, I just said kind of set out like this is what I want. You know, like I want a big, burly bike that can handle my I'm a big guy, so they can handle my weight. I wanted a titanium gravel bike, the specialized. I just I don't know, I got from a friend that was cheap, so it was used. I wasn't looking for specialized, it just said test rode it and it was awesome. And then you talked me into buying that, that Rocky mountain one day, just randomly, on a whim, yep. But I never thought about anything other than these are the specs that I want. This is kind of the suspension design that I want, this is the material that I want it made of and this is my price point yeah, that's like all I thought about, uh I do a lot of my own maintenance, which you know, um, and so I'm not as dependent, I think, on a bike shop for maintenance.
Josh:Um, but I never one time considered the implications of where I was spending my money, and I really love the Tucson bike scene and I really love all the shops here, and I never thought for a for a second that I, that my purchases were like causing any, could cause any kind of harm, or or I was taking business away from the shops, until I met with Dane and Dane Dane just constantly was like talking about consumer direct and how much he loves it Right.
Dane:Well, so that I don't think any consumer should feel bad about doing. I think what you did was normal and I feel bad, you shouldn't, you shouldn't, but uh, I've had a lot of conversations with people and what I realized is they don't know. Just like you, they have no idea that there's kind of this struggle in our industry. Anyway, yeah, between you know our survival, you know bike shop survival. Uh, what we see is like the future, it which is you know what you get from our shops, which is a place to go for advice, for help.
Dane:We can work on your bike, or we can help you figure out how to work on your bike. We can help you get the right parts. We can help you figure out where the trails are. We can take you to the trail. We can go riding with you. We can get you fit. We can work on your suspension. We can do all of that stuff and a lot of consumers don't know that that's in jeopardy and because there's this kind of shift. Yeah, steve, steve, what are your?
Josh:thoughts man.
Steve Morganstern:Well, the consumer direct, obviously Amazon. Everything coming in the big scare we were going to lose everything for bike shops. You know, when Canyon came in to the States, everyone started quaking because the prices were low.
Josh:Were they the first big brand? First?
Dane:big consumer. I don't know if they or YT were the first two, but YT is still pretty small, isn't it?
Josh:I mean, it seems to me like it's pretty small.
Steve Morganstern:I'd say, canyon is the biggest in terms of the impact globally and coming into the market.
Dane:Because one of the first that I ever saw was Iron Horse. Iron Horse stopped doing bike shops and they went consumer direct and within a couple years they went out of business right. So a lot of us in the industry were like we saw why it didn't work? Yeah, it didn't work. And then, like steve said, amazon was becoming a thing yeah, what we?
Josh:we cut you off what were you saying you were going down?
Steve Morganstern:yeah, the I mean the path was that that canyon was going to be, this big, scary animal was going to take all the business, all the bikes, and the reality is they fill a void for those maybe looking for the right price point or maybe not as picky A consumer or someone like you who's very, very comfortable working on own bike.
Steve Morganstern:Yep, they can. They can assemble, they're not worried about it. But for the general consumer, you know, you get this box with a bike and like, oh, it's assembled, well, that doesn't mean it's not actually it's fully assembled the gears aren't going to be doweled in.
Steve Morganstern:The rotor may not be straight, the wheel's not true. As good a bike as anyone is, they need a touch and uh. So yeah, coming into the business and seeing that start with them and and other brands was a little scary. Uh, I'd say the bigger fear for me, or the bigger challenge, is people show showcasing where they come in. Oh, I saw this helmet online. Yep, really like it, try it. Well, I'm going to go think about it and then go buy it on Amazon.
Josh:Yeah that's shitty Right.
Dane:Well, so we see it as shitty. But again, I'm learning from you that it's not necessarily the intent for people to be shitty, they're just like hey, I want to buy a good example. I'll give you a good example I think steve may agree is uh, we do a lot of downhilling in the shop and people want pads and armor for their downhill, but shops in town don't stock a lot because we don't yeah, we don't have a big downhill scene here we don't.
Dane:And also you can get a lot on, I mean you go online and you find it on sale for pennies compared to what we have to pay for it. And that's another thing that the consumers don't know is that we buy stuff at a different rate and when it goes on sale, we don't often get, we just make less.
Steve Morganstern:Right, and so if we don't, nobody gives us money back from the sale price?
Dane:Yeah, exactly, and so stocking a ton of stuff that's regularly on sale is kind of scary. You don't tend to do it anyway. Customers are like hey, do you carry any pads? I want to come and see what size you know, or what size shoes or what have you, and so they're just trying to try this stuff on. And then they're, you know, on a budget, you know, dealing with inflation or whatever their, their constraints are money-wise and they're like I want to find my best price, you know. So that's, that's not a bad intent, you know. I think the the biggest thing that happens is that the bike shops see that as aggressive and like harmful and it's meant to be done to us and it's not.
Dane:it's just a consumer just being a person yeah and what we're was the whole point of this and our conversation is to realize that you know there is some harm that people are doing without knowing. You know when they show room or showcase, right, uh, which is they buy. They go into a retail place anywhere, try out something to figure out what they want, then get on their phone and order it.
Steve Morganstern:While still in the store, while still in the store.
Josh:Yeah, have you guys seen that? Oh, yes, for sure. Absolutely, absolutely yeah.
Dane:And you know they don't understand that it's one, I just saved six bucks. It's kind of rude. Yeah, it's kind of rude, but they don't see the value in the establishment. They don't understand that we have to pay for this stuff and it has to be here and there's a cost to that, and that if we all went away, that wouldn't be around you know, and they don't know that they're in, unintentionally, maybe, causing the demise of something that they need. Yeah, you know so go ahead, I was gonna say the.
Steve Morganstern:You know, the biggest thing like Dan was talking about is the community infrastructure right. If? If there's no local bike shops to support things, like happened last night, the right of silence. If there's no one supporting El Toro to Tucson, there's no one supporting local races, yeah, then you know cycling as the community a community diminishes, which means there's not as much safety yeah your kids aren't as safe riding on the streets. The the bike lanes. Don't get expanded.
Josh:There's no the trail development.
Steve Morganstern:Trail development is gone because all that support comes from you know the shops who are. I always tell people we're not just a shop, you know, and Dane, I know, is the same way. He doesn't want someone to come in buy something and never come back.
Dane:Right.
Steve Morganstern:We are a resource when people walk into our shop. Oh, I just moved to Tucson. Great, here's a great place to ride. You need a vet. You need a dentist.
Dane:You need a vet, you need a dentist, you need a great. Yeah, like a great restaurant.
Steve Morganstern:What kind of food you want? Yeah, and I'll spend more time talking about tucson and the cycling culture and the rest of the culture, rather than trying to sell something, because, if you establish that relationship, I've had people we talk about like that and they're just here on vacation. They just want to walk in a bike shop because, like all of us, they geek out on that.
Josh:Check it out.
Steve Morganstern:You talk to them for 20 minutes and like, well, well shit, I gotta buy something now yeah, I mean I feel like I gotta buy something right, give me some gatorade, whatever it's but that's the culture, right? That? That's you won't get that from amazon, like amazon is not going to fix your bike.
Josh:Nope.
Steve Morganstern:Um, and as Kenyon you know, I'll use them just cause they are the big animal. Um, yes, you can get a bike from them, but I've had four or five instances where there's a warranty issue.
Josh:Yeah.
Steve Morganstern:And the customer goes ah, you know my oh my bike's cracked, can you call and get it fixed? And I'm like no, I'm not spending three hours on customer support calls, wasting my time to get warranty that I get nothing out of.
Dane:Yeah.
Steve Morganstern:Right, you call them, get them to send you the part. We'll install it and charge you for it.
Josh:So let's think through. If we think through, like the total, like life cycle of ownership of a bike, would you guys be cool if we like walk through the value proposition Sure that the bike shops bring to, uh, to me the consumer.
Steve Morganstern:Yeah.
Josh:Right. So if we start with like I'm trying to figure out what to buy, like what's the value proposition that that the bike shops?
Dane:what do you?
Josh:guys bring to me as the consumer and I'm trying to figure. You guys know my trails, right or roads. I'm a mountain biker. My clothes don't match my bike. What's the value proposition? Maybe start with steve sure.
Steve Morganstern:So we have people come in and we try and find or help them determine which direction, what kind of bike. So, as a mountain biker, someone comes in and says I want to start mountain biking. Great, you want to do cross country, you want to do trail, you want to do enduro, you want to do all mountain like it in the 80s it was easy yeah, here's a bike knobby tires no suspension it's a mountain bike, right. So now we have this diversification, specialization of of bikes, so helping someone pinpoint what's the right bike.
Josh:And you guys have unique knowledge of the local trails.
Steve Morganstern:Right.
Josh:Let's talk about, because this is a mountain bike podcast. The bike that you would buy for Tucson might be different than the bike that you would buy for the Pacific Northwest.
Steve Morganstern:Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And you'll see, as Dave was talking about that whole consumer, well, I see it, I want to buy it. The bike brands, I think, are pushing it a little bit. You see people out on Honeybee riding 150 suspensions.
Dane:That was probably me Right, because that's what's cool, that's what the market is, but it's totally over-biked.
Steve Morganstern:It's the wrong bike for what they're doing. Yeah, so our value is we're going to help you find the right bike Right, pinpoint you in the right direction, make sure you're spending the right amount of money. You know, I tell people all the time it's if you're really getting into biking and you're planning 1500, you might want to look at 2000,. Right, you want to buy a bike that you can grow into, not out of, in six months, because you're not getting your money back.
Josh:So you're not just upselling, no, no, no, that was a joke, but yeah, but that's how it feels, right. Yeah, you're trying to find that that good balance between value, you know, long-term use and the amount of money that the saving the consumer money in the long in the long run, that we're talking total life cycle. What do you think?
Dane:we battle that. So, so I totally agree with steve. That's that's really our function is. We're a center for people to come to learn, you know, and to find out about the stuff. We want to help them do it the best. And because our uh, our motivation is to make them a part of our community and to see them on a regular basis and to to be friends with them, to go on rides with them. We don't try and upsell, you know, and a lot of people don't know that, because there's a lot of culture out there that does upsell. Do you want fries with that? That you know. Whatever, whatever you think about it, there's a new term that I just learned uh, spaving. Have you heard of this? No, so spending to save, so like, for instance, uh like, buy one, get one free but you only need one, two, two conas.
Dane:Yes, exactly, yeah um, but you know I mean so like it's these, these uh things that that uh marketing does to try and get you to spend more. It's very rare in bike shops that they're really doing that. What they're most of the time doing is trying to help you spend less, and people have a hard time with that because they don't understand that. You know, if you buy two bikes it is more expensive than if you buy one. So if you buy a little bit better bike now, you won't outgrow it. You won't feel like you need a new bike right away.
Josh:Okay, so that's helping me select which model, which bike I want. What about what size I need?
Dane:Yeah, absolutely Same. Thing.
Steve Morganstern:Whether we have different sizes of bikes. So the lines that we carry and what Dan carries, you can't have all of them, right? You're not going to have a small, medium and large in?
Josh:every, every model spec, yeah, but you can order them.
Steve Morganstern:We can order them, but so we'll have a small, medium, large, different levels, yep. So yeah, you can get on. We have a fit bike where we can do the stack and reach and and try that. You know, I've been in business long enough now dane's been in business. So if someone walks in says I'm, I'm 5 10, well, two people 5 10 may be on different size bikes because one has a longer torso one has longer legs and so you really have to look at those things.
Steve Morganstern:People don't want to ride a bike on the road. I'll put it on the trainer and let them sit on it and check that. So the sizing is important. And then what we do because I do a lot of road bikes, I do a lot of hybrids every bike is offered a complete fit.
Josh:So when a?
Steve Morganstern:consumer comes in, it's like buying a dress. I tell them, you know or a suit you know your size, but you might need to have it tailored yeah and you know, growing up there was a lot of times. Oh yeah, we'll set the seat height and go out.
Steve Morganstern:Oh, you want to fit, that's going to cost you more yeah and I always thought why, what you know why am I buying a bike by $500 or $15,000? That isn't dialed into me. So for me, that huge value proposition is we do a fit with every bike. We do the static fit. You go ride it If you feel funny. After a couple of rides you come back in until we dial you in. So there's so much more that is needed than getting the right bike at a right price.
Dane:It's, it's crazy. I've seen nice bikes at Costco.
Josh:Yeah, they did. They have an intense nine five one Yep, yeah, for three grand.
Dane:And they come in sizes. Imagine you don't know anything about bikes and you go and spend three grand on a bike at Costco. Like, imagine you don't know anything about bikes and you go and spend three grand on a bike at Costco. Like, what are you? What are you getting? Like, I mean, I I cannot figure that out. Somebody is, somebody is using different criteria to make that purchase. They're they're thinking one. This is what I hear all the time from Costco. Oh well, I can always return it to Costco.
Steve Morganstern:That's what I hear. You can or.
Dane:REI. So their mindsets are different. And so when you're dealing with Consumer Direct and these companies that have the disadvantage of not being there and not being able to do a fit on you and what Steve was talking about with the fit is, I really want people to sink in you can get, if you're a medium, that's awesome. You can get a medium. It's still not fit to you.
Dane:And people don't quite understand that the seat has to be set at a certain height, at a certain four and a half. Yeah, the stem can be variable on how long it needs to be. The bar width can be changed. We're talking about mountain bikes, you know, let alone when you get into road or you're riding four hours in the same position, right, so? So these fits are are integral to being able to ride better, have more power, more comfort and ride longer. But you walk into Costco, you get none of that, and so how much money are you really saving when you get something from Costco?
Steve Morganstern:Because if you buy up, I get it all the time the Canyon Road bikes, whatever, it is Okay, I bought it online. Now I do a fit. Well, okay, so there's a minimum.
Josh:It's the wrong size bike. Well, it's a minimum of $120 to get the fit yeah.
Steve Morganstern:And we have something that does pro like pro aero fitting and it's $600, right.
Dane:Right.
Steve Morganstern:And if you look in town, you're going to range from $120 to $300 to start, or you know, I know what you guys charge, but yeah, that person may go. You know what you bought the wrong size bike.
Dane:Yeah, and that happens.
Josh:And there's really nothing a fitter can do. I mean, they can fit it as best as they can to you, but if it's the wrong size bike, you can't change the tube length.
Dane:That's the worst thing to hear you just bought a bike and then you find out it's the wrong one. And then what do you do?
Josh:And if you're, if you're interested in this whole topic of fits, you can go back episode 62. We had Frank Hazer on Frank Frank the fitter from Ben's, and then episode 65, we had your fitter, tyler, tyler Vandruff here with guru. We go into a lot of details about bike fits, what it means and why it's important. All right, so so you help them pick the bike. So then the bike shows up either at my house or in the shop. What do you guys do different when the bike shows up in a box, like the boxes I'm looking back there compared to what I do as a consumer at home.
Dane:So I do know that some consumer direct bikes do get assembled beyond what we normally get Okay. So they take more care in trying to put the bike together for the consumer, so they don't do as much, but it still has a lot of stuff that needs to be done to it.
Josh:So for instance, some examples of the things like.
Dane:So, like in the bike shop side, we may be doing cutting and measuring brake lines, cutting and measuring derailleur and cable lines. We may be aligning, we may be installing chains. We may be installing a lot of the parts Some of the high end bikes, because they're so modular and we do customization. They're just pieces, so we're assembling the entire thing right. Um, a consumer direct will come 80, 90 done. You turn the bars, you put some pedals on, put the fork on and maybe you know, and that's about it as far as in their mind. Yeah, the problem is the brakes are going to rub, uh, the headset may not be tight. What?
Dane:about the wheels the wheels may not be usually not true.
Steve Morganstern:I mean, you know, it doesn't matter how good the wheels are.
Josh:Machine-built wheels, yeah, and then they travel and shit happens and temperature changes.
Dane:And let's talk about this Everything we tell every customer, everything on the bike is going to settle and need a little attention and most bike shops will offer what they call a 30-day check or an after-purchase check or something like that. Where we're going in, where it's not a tune up, you know, that's one thing that that customers misunderstand sometimes. What we're going in is retightening, rechecking torques, rechecking bearing adjustments, rechecking spoke tension, making sure everything is to the right tolerance because it'll make it last longer. If you take a Walmart bike and do these same things, that bike will last much longer.
Josh:I mean and people don't know that you know, have a bike professionally set up.
Dane:Yep, and to have it, have it set intention properly. The bike's life will be extended and you don't get that with consumer direct. You have to go pay for it, all right.
Josh:So let's keep going on this. So like uh, I got the bike, I got it fit, I got it sized up, it's tweaked, it's all like running smooth do I need just a bike to ride, or are there other things I need to?
Dane:no, you need all the accessories. One you want to be safe. So I have three main things. So three main things, for you need to be able to hydrate, you need to have safety, so helmet, and it's a good idea, especially mountain bikers, to have some sort of flat protection or flat repair so we ours are the same, but we call it being hip hydration inflation protection. There you go. Yeah, I like it, I like it. So, yeah, could I use that? I could probably use that in my bedroom as well.
Steve Morganstern:Oh, yes, Hydration, inflation, inflation protection. There you go, there you go, let's work on the bike. That's a whole nother podcast. You went there, my poor wife.
Josh:My poor wife. All right, so you're helping them, and the type of hydration I need is different depending on where I live in the world. Yeah, how much you're going to?
Dane:drink. How long you're going to ride all of that, whether or not you need nutrition? If that's going to enhance your ride or not. You need where you're going to carry it.
Josh:If it's going to be on the bike or off the bike. Yeah, hip, now is really big right.
Dane:Yeah, and that has a lot to do with the flat protection, how you're going to protect your tires, whether they're tubed or tubeless, if you're going to have plugs, or if you're going to have an inflator, if it's going to be a CO2 or hand pump.
Steve Morganstern:And to take it a step further with that buying process is, besides the necessities, where to spend your money and where to go on Amazon. I tell people don't buy cheap shorts because you're going to regret it.
Josh:That's very true. I know I've had plenty of saddle sores with cheap shorts you can buy a cheap jersey.
Steve Morganstern:Go on Amazon and buy a $30 jersey. Is it going to look any better than a $100 jersey? Probably not. It may not fit the same, but you're not going to buy 30 shorts yeah right shoes, a good, fitting, supportive pair of shoes. Um, and people start looking at shoes and like, oh, hundred dollars, 200, 500, you know for a pair of cycling shoes when you're talking road. But it's easy to convince someone who used to be a runner right.
Josh:Shoes are super important.
Steve Morganstern:Runners replace shoes every six months and they're $200. Don't even bat an eye. You spend $500 on a pair of cycling shoes and you do it right. They're going to last you five, six years For road, shoes For road yeah.
Dane:Mountain you don't have to spend that much, but they won't last as long, right um well, and what? Kind of shoes, what kind of pedals, what kind of exactly all of that stuff, clips, flats, flats, clips. Yeah, toe cages, power grips. I just rode power grips.
Josh:Oh, you're showing your age now. Those were big in the 80s. Yeah, yeah, I rode them in the 80s and we did a retro ride and the bike I was riding had power grips and I was you know, you should probably explain what power grips are for our demographic that's less than 70 years old. Yes, that's true.
Dane:So power grips back in the 90s thank you very much was a strap that went diagonal across your pedal and you would put your foot in diagonal and then, as you straightened it, they would tighten.
Josh:All right. So so I own the bike, I've got my accessories, I got my helmet, my hydration, I got my flat protection and, you know, repair kit or whatever. You know basic tools that you carry.
Dane:Now, now, where are you going to ride?
Josh:Where am I going to ride? Who are you going to ride with? Yeah, who am I going to ride with?
Dane:How do all over the place. One we all ride the trails so we can help you with which trails. I'm not going to send a guy who just bought a you know a, you know a front travel hard tail, you know yeah, and tell him hey you need to go shuttle bug Springs.
Josh:That's a big downhill course, exactly.
Dane:Yeah, and so I'm not going to send them that way. I'm going to send them to more team.
Dane:you know, get used to it somewhere where they can just get used to the bike you know, and then, uh, you know knowledge of local clubs, uh, local groups that go out and ride and and those uh organizations, whether or not you're having clinics to help them with basic maintenance. They need to know how to change a flat. You know Canyon doesn't tell you how to change a flat. Maybe they do do. Maybe they have some video that you probably a canyon video, and maybe they do.
Dane:But I'll tell you from somebody who has to touch the stuff you can't get there and touch it and feel it and really know what you're doing. So yeah and uh.
Dane:So we, we go that extra mile to do all of that, have that knowledge, have that um, that, uh, that help right at their fingertips. You know, yeah, for no charge, like it's not like we're charging for this stuff, right, it's all part of the experience. So there's a lot that you're getting and then you get to buy something from somebody in a place and feel secure about it. It's not over the internet. You're not sending your money into cyberspace.
Josh:Okay, so that's a great point. We should have talked about that.
Dane:So, like you are confident that what you're buying is actually what you want to buy, you get to touch it and not not a chinese knockoff right, which I'm sure is.
Josh:I mean, I know for sure it's proliferant yeah, proliferant yeah so what's that word?
Dane:prolific, prolific. Thank you, you're welcome.
Josh:Prolific prolific, I bought a set of. Not to be confused with prophylactic.
Steve Morganstern:Oh well, you went there. That time.
Josh:You opened the door. I opened the door.
Dane:It's that kind of podcast. You're good.
Josh:But uh, dane, I don't even know if you know his story, but I bought a set of um SLX cranks off of uh eBay or something Super cheap like 50 bucks, brand new, yep, and I got them, I put them on. I went on a big group ride. We were way out in the middle of the desert like way, way out there.
Josh:Cranks are kind of set 180 degrees from each other. Right, I got on a hill and all of a sudden my cranks, like the spindle, completely shredded, yeah, and both my pedals were pointed towards the ground and I'm like 10 miles in the middle of nowhere right that happened about six months ago. I was like all right, that's the last time I buy a set of cranks from some unknown source on eBay.
Dane:Oh yeah, that happens. I had a guy who was really into lightweight stuff and he bought something on eBay lightweight handlebars, carbon handlebars. Please don't do that.
Josh:You stab yourself in the chest.
Dane:He was riding the Tour of the White Mountains and racing.
Josh:That's a rough trail to ride too right, and he's riding in it.
Dane:They snapped off on him and luckily he's okay. But, man, that's one of my worst nightmares having my handlebars break. If I get a scratch or a you know a scar on my handlebar, boom, it goes into the bin. I'm gonna, I'm gonna toss that bar so and get a new bar. I just can't imagine having some unknown company making something that my teeth are really relying on.
Josh:so I know what you guys do in your relationships with SDMB and how you guys handle you guys do social rides. What do you guys do, Steve?
Steve Morganstern:So our mainly road.
Josh:So shootout? No, they have their own shootout. Oh, you have the anti-shootout.
Steve Morganstern:It's called the roundup. It's a little shorter than the shootout, but we stay northwest. I like to tout it as a much safer ride. It's a little smaller, but the roads are safer.
Josh:Okay.
Steve Morganstern:Does it go on Saturday? As well, it goes Saturday. So, it's totally opposite the shootout, and we have people go back and forth and do both. Yeah, Ours has more like punchier sort of sprint points and surges, whereas the shootouts you know just a long sustained with one or two climbs. But we do that ride and we'll get 80 people, oh wow. And then we do a shorter version called the little roundup, which is usually led by someone for newer riders.
Josh:Yeah.
Steve Morganstern:They haven't ridden in groups much, they've mainly been on the loop. They don't know, not comfortable on newer riders.
Josh:Yeah, they haven't ridden in groups much, they've mainly been on the loop. They're not comfortable on the road. Yeah, more comfortable riding a Peloton or a group of people than you used to ride by yourself, Right and learning. You know what the hand signals, the dynamics of a group.
Steve Morganstern:We all start together so that they see what it's like to be in that big group. Yeah, and then it spreads out, it spreads out. It spreads out after the warm-up sort of over, and we, you know, the big group takes off fast, guys go yeah, um.
Steve Morganstern:So you know, it differentiates from a 20 plus mile an hour average and the little group is more like a 16 mile an hour average on the road okay, um, we, we do a few off-trail or gravel rides, but you know I found that a hard thing to do and you know, kudos for Dane for getting those big groups and doing the group rides. But you know the culture of mountain bike group rides is very different than the culture of a road bike group ride 100%. And I appreciate both, but I'm more comfortable personally.
Josh:Yeah.
Steve Morganstern:On the roads. I want to go out, I want to ride, and they don't always have to be you know.
Josh:So you guys don't stop to take weed breaks.
Dane:Yeah, how many beers do you take? Yeah?
Steve Morganstern:We stop for water at the gas station.
Dane:How many beers do you fit in your baggy shorts?
Steve Morganstern:Yeah right, it's a little different, but we do like you know, that's really our only organized group ride.
Josh:Cause.
Steve Morganstern:I only have so much bandwidth to to organize.
Josh:Yeah, but that's a big deal that you get. I mean, that's that's, you know, 80 people or more, right yeah?
Steve Morganstern:I mean, I'd say, average is probably 45, 50 a week, but it's a big group, it's fun.
Dane:Barely smaller than the shootout.
Josh:So how can people learn about that? So on our website bicycleranchtucsoncom.
Steve Morganstern:We have a Strava group, brt Bicycle Ranch Tucson Strava group and we've got, I don't know, 700, 800 followers on the Strava group and people will be in town for vacation and say oh, I saw this ride. We just had three guys that flew out from Jersey. Um, they did lemon one day, they did Swarovski one day and they did our ride.
Josh:Yeah, that's cool. Just a seven. It's a lot of spandex 700. Yes, road cyclists. Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of Lycra going on how many times do you guys stop? In session on the road bikes.
Steve Morganstern:Uh, I mean, occasionally we gotta skirt some uh dirt and all that, but uh, there's a few endos, you know, every once in a while I gotta tell you, the most exciting about road bikes is the crashes they're.
Dane:We used to joke that, uh people, you know I race downhill. And uh, people joke and say, you know I race downhill. And people would joke and say, oh, you're crazy, crazy downhillers. And I'm like no, no, I wear full armor, full face, and I careen down the mountain and the only thing that can happen is I have to make a mistake. The trees and the rocks don't jump out in front of me. The crazy guys are the guys in underwear out and mixing it up with the road, with the cars.
Steve Morganstern:Jumping out of your car at 35 miles an hour.
Dane:Barely have a helmet on, you know, and barely are covered, you know, and they're doing 40, you know, it's a different world. It's a different world.
Josh:So as I come back to the value proposition. So I've got my bike, I've got my stuff, I've got all my accessories. I now know where to ride. I've got people to ride, I've got. I can ride with the shop rides or I've hooked up with the local groups. I know a little bit more about my trails or my local roads and my bike breaks. Uh, how do you guys help?
Dane:Uh well, one, we're right here, you know I mean. What do you do with the consumer direct? They don't even encourage you to just box it up and send it back to them to fix. They'll tell you to take it to a shop. They don't have an answer for that. So your answer is to go back to a shop, and so if you bought the shop there, you've already got the relationship. Those people are happy to see you come in and they're looking to do anything to make your experience better. But when you roll in with a broken consumer direct, now you need our help and it's a little bit of a knee jerk. That happens and we actually force ourselves here and I'm sure Steve does too to not have that attitude with the customer.
Steve Morganstern:Still a customer, Well absolutely, and the same thing happens with you know non-consumer direct when you're talking about another brand that bought stores here in town right. It's corporate now. It's not local. They're not supporting. I mean, they are some they're giving jobs to people, but it's not the same. Yeah, not a local you're talking about specialized.
Dane:Maybe you don't want to say that, but I can say that, well, there there's, there's a few of them, actually there's more.
Josh:There's more than just specialized there's but trek, trek and specialize both, right, yeah they're yeah trek, I think is well, they're still personally owned personally owned, but that's a whole nother story.
Dane:Okay, um, but they're actually in it, and just to say this just to be clear, because I do business with both of them yep and they're good people, they really are um, but you know, uh, what I think steve's trying to say is that sometimes you get that attitude no matter what you bring in, if it wasn't bought at that shop well, especially if it's someone who's been in uh and, for example, the the bus branch in Scottsdale.
Steve Morganstern:They used to have ABC rides every Saturday.
Josh:Okay, hundreds of people what does that stand for? Abc like fast oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
Steve Morganstern:Uh, different, different levels and then, you know, with COVID they kind of stopped and all that, and it got to the point where up there they were tired of getting hundreds of people coming out for their ride and showing up on a new bike from some other shop or Consumer Direct every week and not giving back to them. So my philosophy is look, I'm not going to sell everybody a bike.
Dane:No, you just can't Not even my friends, right?
Steve Morganstern:I've been a Cannondale rider since 1987.
Dane:A long time.
Steve Morganstern:That has always been my brand. It's in my blood. I'm kind of brand loyal.
Josh:Very innovative company for sure.
Steve Morganstern:Thank goodness that Giant gets it. They know I love Giant and all they've done for me. Someone puts a gun to my head, like I have to pick one of the bikes. It's probably going to be Cannondale because that in my mind I've got the history, it always feels like it fits me better. But it's probably just mental. But so I know there are people who I really want this Cervelo. I really want this truck.
Steve Morganstern:I really want this Specialized. I get it. But at the same time, you know, part of me is like you know, the National Bicycle Dealer Association. Their big tagline is buy where you ride right. They've been pushing that for years. Buy where you ride yeah, and it's not always going to be that way. Right, you're going to buy. You know something may come down here and buy a sweet rocky mountain from dave yeah, great, you know. But they live near me, so they may come in for service.
Dane:As we all know, the service is what keeps us going more so than the bikes services, where the people get the connections right you know, you know, I mean you know we, you know we keep saying this. We want people to come back. Well, they kind of need to at some time. They need little things and stuff. We have people that come in this shop and they just want to hang out. I had like three that came in today and they just want to hang out. They didn't buy anything.
Steve Morganstern:It doesn't bug me at all. You know um cause, eventually they will buy something. Well, yeah, they're part of the culture and that's what we're building as a culture, Part of the family.
Dane:Yeah, exactly, it's absolutely a family and and so when somebody shows up, you know to the family that wasn't invited I don't know if that's the right analogy, but you know it's just basically when you know when that happens, you get this kind of knee-jerk, want to respond in a certain way, and I think one of the things that drives people to consumer direct is that kind of attitude is to run wild in some shops. I think some people get that feeling. They go to the shop, they go to that first initial shop to get that first initial look at a bike and the guys have attitude. And the guys have, or the girls or whoever they are, they them, I don't care, but whoever they, they give them the attitude that they really shouldn't, they don't have that welcoming, and then that person now doesn't have any investment in that shop, and so then they see an ad on, you know, YouTube or Facebook or whatever, and they get more connection from that than they did from the people in the bike show, and a lot of it.
Steve Morganstern:Is that um instant gratification right? So I've had plenty of people walk into other shops, look around. No one says boo to them they're ready to spend money. Yeah, they walk out, they come to my shop and we talk and and sometimes they wind up buying them from us and sometimes they don't.
Steve Morganstern:But there is that instant gratification of well, they don't have what I want, they didn't seem interested because there are plenty shops that have that elitist attitude yeah especially, you know, admittedly, road, you know, oh, you're not a racer, I don't want to talk to you yeah you know, there was a shop in town that is no longer in business that said we don't work on cheap bikes, take it across the street. Well, guess what? The shop across the street is still in business Still there. Right. The other shop is not so for me. I came from the auto industry a lot many years in service.
Steve Morganstern:So the person driving the clunker $500 bike is just as important as the person riding a $15,000 bike, because it's their bike right. It doesn't care if you're buying, driving a Chevette or a. Lamborghini. That's their car right. So that attitude does get conveyed when the person first walks in.
Josh:Yeah, I mean, you heard my story. It was a couple months ago. I walked into a very popular shop in town and I really just wanted to see what happened and I stood there for 20 minutes. I don't look like a cyclist. I got thousands of dollars in my pocket and I don't look like a cyclist, but they didn't say a word to me for 20 minutes. I turned around and walked out.
Dane:And.
Josh:I'll never go back in that shop.
Dane:And it's frustrating because it's so easy to just say hi to somebody.
Josh:Oh yeah, how can I help you or?
Dane:if I'm busy, I'll be right with you.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And that's one of the things about this Consumer Direct. I think you know I do a lot, of, you know, online just monitoring forums and groups and stuff and the the gist that I get from a lot of those groups is that they're frustrated with that.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And that why wouldn't they just get a bike cheaper somewhere else and they don't have to deal with that? You know, and I don't know if Steve and I are just anomalies. You know, I don't think we are.
Steve Morganstern:I know a lot of it can't be more than two of us.
Dane:I know there's a lot of good bike shops. I have a saying this is about mechanics. Every mechanic has a bad day. You've heard me say this before but if you can count on your mechanic having a bad day, then you need a new mechanic, and that goes for bike shops, that goes for just about anything Everybody can have a bad day you go to a restaurant. They just screw it up one day that happens If you go.
Josh:Every time they screw it up, stop going, right For sure. Okay, so I, I, you guys, come in, you guys fix, fix the bikes, do the maintenance, and these bikes are expensive.
Dane:Yeah.
Josh:What if I break my frame and I need a warranty or something? Well, so that works.
Dane:So in the bike shop you're going to get somebody who's an advocate for you. They they're looking at it, they're seeing you, they're figuring out how to help you out, they're figuring out what happened and they're going to bat for you with that manufacturer. When I've been doing this a long time, manufacturers are not always on your side when it comes to a warranty. The first thing they do in a lot of cases is sometimes assume that you what did you do, yeah? What did you do?
Dane:Yeah, and that is frustrating, frustrating you know for somebody who doesn't know, and sometimes people do things to their stuff and they, you know they need to try to pawn it off as a defect. But when you have an advocate, you have somebody who can help you through that and then, when you have invested your time and money in that shop, they're going to invest their energy, knowledge into helping you.
Josh:So you guys have relationships with the manufacturers that you sell.
Dane:Yep.
Josh:And so there's a level of trust that gets developed between you and that manufacturer. And when I come in, you guys can look at a bike and I think probably I don't know seven times out of 10, you could look at a bike and be like that's a defect.
Dane:Or you drove your with your car.
Josh:You know, know, your garage with the car still on the top, you ran it over something, you guys can tell that, yeah, and you're not going to call the manufacturer and say, hey, this guy is a defect when he ran over his bike I had a guy come in with a pair of shimano shoes the other day that he's like, uh, what's the warranty on these?
Steve Morganstern:and literally it looked like he had dragged it across the tarmac. It was down to the metal, like all the lugs were down to the metal Gone and I'm like this is not a defect. You wore him out.
Josh:I don't know if we did this intentionally but, sorry Like kudos, yeah, kudos, good job.
Dane:If you did this under normal riding, you're a chief man.
Steve Morganstern:I want to go ride with you, so you know and I'll touch upon this because I am a giant dealer and they have. I would go out on a limb and say the best warranty bar none in the industry they have-.
Josh:What makes you say that? Like what are the attributes that make the best warranty?
Steve Morganstern:They have what's called composite confidence warranty. So anything carbon on a bike, so be it the frame, seat, post, bars, wheels. If you buy a bike that's got a giant carbon component, the first two years, as long as you don't run it over with your car or run into the garage, if it's broken, they'll replace it for free. Wow, so in the years that they've been doing this, I've had couples who, on their brand new bikes, were out riding. She knocked him off.
Josh:Why has it got to be her knocking him off? Could have been the other way too. He lost control, he couldn't do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve Morganstern:They both broke their frames. Brand new frames.
Josh:Wow.
Steve Morganstern:So you pay for the labor to swap it over, but $300 is better than $3,500. Yeah, for sure I had. One guy bought a I don't know, it was probably $79,000 road bike. In those two years he wound up with two frames and four wheels from getting hit by a car crashing in a race.
Josh:Oh, wow.
Steve Morganstern:Just pothole blew, the wheel Doesn't matter, they will replace it for two years. And it's absolutely amazing. You drop your chain and you try and get it back and it just gets stuck and it grinds and tears out the bottom bracket. You know, probably because you shouldn't have put that much power right. Whatever, it is New frame.
Josh:So if I'm buying consumer direct, I'm basically on my own then to like work with and I've got no trust established, no relationship established with that company and I'm on my own to convince them that this is actually a warranty that they should take care of.
Steve Morganstern:And a lot of times you do have to send it back. So now you're out your bike weeks For a long time. Yeah, so now you're out your bike for a long time.
Dane:Yeah, you have to ship it. You know, sometimes they'll send a call tag. You know, again trying to be fair.
Josh:What's a?
Dane:call tag. Call tag is sometimes when the manufacturer will send you pay for the shipping, prepaid shipping label yeah Right on it so um, so, yeah, it's downtime, yeah, it's it's downtime.
Dane:You don't have that advocate when you come into a shop and you have a problem and something happened. We never see pivots getting warrantied. It's crazy, but we had one come in last year on one of their new bikes. We've never seen it and pivot is like we've never seen that happen. I don't know what happened. What happened, you know, and I'm like this girl's 120 pounds maybe, so it's a junior rider, you know, on a $10,000 bike, so it's not a cheap bike and this is in a place that it shouldn't happen and they're like, well, they, you know, I'm like I built the bike. I know it. You know that's fine. I'm like you know where we delivered the bike to pivot.
Dane:You drove up there, we drove it, dropped it off as a whole bike and they actually swapped the frame out, no charge for this customer, because they were just. They wanted to see the whole bike.
Steve Morganstern:They're like what's going on A lot of times. I want to see so they can figure out how to avoid that in the future.
Dane:get to the root cause and they're like you know, I, I heard you know cause my my guy inside put me on hold. But he's got me on hold. And then there's another cause. I call him on my cell phone and on his cell phone and he's talking to the warranty. He's like well, this is Dane, so we just need to do it, you know, and that happens.
Josh:Yeah, so your relationship drove that for the, for the, for the consumer, for the end consumer.
Dane:And they, they trust us, they look at us to screen you know, to make sure that it's not some guy who just took it off a loading dock and landed sideways, you know.
Josh:And the truth of the matter is is that if more and more people go and buy consumer direct bikes, less and less people are buying bikes from you guys your profitability goes down and a certain percentage of the shops will close.
Josh:yeah, yeah and then all those values that we just talked about, from finding the right bike, to getting the right gear, to getting it fit, to learning how to ride, to having places to ride or groups to ride in, to getting your frame warrantied well, sponsoring the groups, sponsoring the trail day you guys do that, going out and being at events you know, supporting events.
Dane:The events will leave, like all of this structure that I've called it before, the ecosphere the ecosphere of the bike ecosphere is like it's a the local, the local ecosystem.
Dane:Everything goes away yeah, and so everything starts to taper off and go away. The then the sports shrinks and gets smaller and smaller and then you just have just a few people and then, all of a sudden, the sport starts to get, you know, stagnant and goes away. And that that's a real thing, that can really happen. It happened, remember, when baseball had their strike and everybody stopped watching baseball for a while and it took them a while to get back.
Steve Morganstern:To get back. I don't think it ever fully recovered.
Dane:They're messing with the rules to try and get that fan base back so that stuff does happen.
Josh:All right, so we've covered the consumer direct stuff. But there's, you know, in addition to the model, that's, you know, dealer model, like buying from you guys, from the bike shops, there's also this click and collect model. So what are your perspectives on that, like how you I think you guys both have brands that have that kind of model. How's that working out?
Steve Morganstern:for you.
Dane:So so. So, if I can interrupt real quick and give you different types of consumer direct, because that's something that definitely is a definition that needs to be out there there are consumer directs that do not support the bike shops. They don't have any, and those are the ones that we're talking about.
Josh:Yeah, previously.
Dane:But it's important that people understand that there are other consumer directs that do support the bike shops. We talked about PNW, yeah, and sometimes consumer direct is a jumping off point, so we were talking about outbound lights.
Dane:You know, outbound is doing consumer direct because they want to build their dealer network. They're trying to create revenue, they're trying to get their name out there, but their intent is to build their dealer network and to support their dealers and and so it's a jumping off point and that's a very useful tool, and so there's nothing wrong with that. And when we purchase, you know, when we buy, I look at that.
Josh:You know and you still get. I mean, you still get dealer pricing from them so that you can make a markup.
Dane:I do, yeah, and their goal is to set their structure up so that they include us in that one, because they see value in the bike shop too. They see value in us being their Salesforce. You know, imagine one company, small company, two or three guys no joke, you know making lights and they are trying to sell to the country and they have to field a call from every, every, every person that has a question, every person that has a question, but every single sale is a different person, every person that has a question, every person that has a question, but every single sale is a different person.
Josh:If they build a dealer network, then those calls can be fielded by those people at the retail. So you got consumer direct that works.
Dane:That will not work with shops. You got consumer direct.
Josh:That does work with shops, and then you've got this click and collect, which is the working with shops.
Steve Morganstern:That's how they work with shops. So how's that working out for you guys? Yeah, so Giants started doing it just pre-COVID, and we were unsure what it was going to look like. Yeah, and it wound up being one of the best things that ever happened to me. Really Is it just drove additional business to your shop. It drives additional business, but it's also well step back just a little bit, because in this consumer direct or click and collect world, when you buy on their website and you pick it up from the bike shop.
Steve Morganstern:There's different levels, so there's some manufacturers that will pay a flat fee to a shop and say, okay, they, you didn't do anything. They came to us, they bought it, you build it, you'll get a customer out of it and you'll get X dollars. Yeah, and that's a less of a percentage. Yeah.
Dane:Far less Right. Smaller margin yeah.
Steve Morganstern:So giant actually. They've for years been saying we are not going direct to consumer. We are supporting our retailers and their model is I get 100% of the margin I would have gotten.
Steve Morganstern:No matter where, no matter what. So a lot of times, especially during COVID and even now that we are on the other side of adjustments of availability, there are very limited bikes out there, right so very popular, like a new road bike very popular or a new mountain bike and the there are limited amounts. In the country there are bike shops, like you know. Just throw big names out, like Mike's bike. They have millions of dollars. So if there are 10 of these highly sought-after bikes available for dealers to order, they could buy them all and sit on them. That means everybody else is out.
Josh:Yep.
Steve Morganstern:What Giant does is they have a thing called WebLink and they may have bikes that are available to the consumers to order that I, as a shop, can't order, and what they're doing is protecting the consumer everywhere.
Dane:So someone in.
Josh:New York can order that bike and have it shipped to their local bike shop, so it gives you access to stock that you normally wouldn't have access to.
Steve Morganstern:Correct. So if you go on, we can show and the pricing is fixed, fixed in the means of it's the same not?
Dane:it's fixed.
Steve Morganstern:But it's $5,200 on Giant's website. You come to my store, it's $5,200, right, so you pay that amount. Wherever you send the bike, you're paying that tax rate. So if there's a store in city limits of Tucson at 8.6 or 9.1% sales tax I'm in the county you're going to pay 6.1% sales tax, whether you order it online or not. So you pay that sales tax. The bike as soon as a consumer orders, it goes into hold for shipping, I get an email the same time the consumer does saying confirm your order. I click ship. We're very lucky if it's in the California warehouse. We have literally seen it in less than 24 hours.
Steve Morganstern:Sometimes, sometimes it's three days, whatever.
Josh:Yeah.
Steve Morganstern:But it it comes pretty quick it comes, quick the bike comes, we assemble, we do all all the things we talked about for the value proposition and sometimes there's warranty things. We have some hardtails that came with the dropper post and the cable's not routed, but the housing was routed and the housing was stuck in the bottom bracket. So now you can't get a cable through unless you pull the bottom bracket.
Josh:It's a lot of work.
Steve Morganstern:It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And we got a warranty service credit for repairing the bike before we deliver it to the customer. So okay, because consumer gets that at home. They're out of luck because now you got to buy all the bottom bracket tools and figure out how to use it yeah, or send it back or take it to a bike shop, or you know.
Steve Morganstern:So with that model we go on. We have a TV touchscreen kiosk, that's a shop. You can go on and we look at the models. I can't order. It's not as, oh look, it's unstocked here and they don't ever leave, they just go through and do the purchase on screen.
Josh:It comes to your shop and none of the difference to the consumer.
Steve Morganstern:So our other ring with Cannondale. They don't do 100% margin, but it's a pretty good margin, right, and we've gotten. We don't even talk to these people, we don't know who they are.
Josh:You just show up one day and say hey.
Steve Morganstern:I get an email. This customer just bought a $4,000 e-bike and it's coming to your shop and now I have the opportunity to win this customer for long-term customer First impression. Impress them, do all that. Now they're like I'm coming back. So we do get a lot of consumers who we maybe didn't talk to. We get a lot of consumers who I always joke.
Steve Morganstern:Do your comparison. You know. If you're looking between us and a bike that Dane has, you've ridden them both. Go home, think about it. But if you're drinking that bottle of wine or beer tonight and you think I don't want to wait till tomorrow, buy it online. The one thing I will say as a shop it can affect cashflow in that I'm not getting that $4,000 to then have to pay. Whatever my terms are 60, 90 days, the 2000 or whatever the margin is back to them, I get a credit for my margin.
Dane:It goes on your account.
Steve Morganstern:It goes on my account. So there were times during COVID when cash flow was really bad.
Josh:You had tons of credit, no cash.
Steve Morganstern:Well, I had a lot of bills and no cash that I would tell people go online and buy it because I don't have the outlay to get it, and then I could knock down my my due invoices.
Josh:Yeah.
Steve Morganstern:So I think and I was on a national bicycle dealer association podcast and I talked about this because it's a big thing that to me it's been a great piece of business because it draws people to shop. They see it online and they say, oh, I can buy it online, but I it's not coming to me, it's coming to a shop to a professional to a professional to a professional.
Steve Morganstern:Now I'm getting even more value from that online purchase because I now have resources I'm not paying anything more for, but I'm not paying any less for.
Dane:Yeah yeah, we've, you know, we've dealt with, uh, other companies that do similar things. We just dropped one of the companies, uh, when we opened the shop and, uh, it was because they started with that. They started with hey, this will be a way that you know their, their uh argument is like well, there's some guy in a tiny little town without a bike shop that needs our bike and they're like so this is how we're going to do it and this is it's not meant to hurt you. This is what we're doing, you know, to help that guy out. It's, it's not really what they're doing. They're trying to increase, increase.
Dane:They're trying to deal with, you know, getting bikes online, which a lot of us, as consumers, go online and shop and they want that exposure, and then they're figuring out how to pay for all that, and then they're figuring out, how do we, how do we integrate this? And so it sounds like giant has done a great job of including the shop, but there's a lot of companies that don't that. They've set up their whole supply chain to not include the shop.
Josh:How does it work? I mean, can Rocky and pivot? Do they? Do they have click.
Dane:Yeah, so pivot has locally, I think it's called. And so when you can go on pivots website and our shop will pop up and you can see our inventory. We had a couple customers who were shopping for a couple switchblades and they saw that we were a dealer. And then they called us. They were like, hey, you've got one of the bikes and then we need another one. We want to get them at the same place. Can you get the other one? And we said absolutely no problem. Those people came in, bought the bikes and then drove past Pivot on their way out of town, stopped in and told pivot and I got a call from pivot.
Josh:Yeah, I heard this story. Yeah.
Dane:And a pivot there.
Josh:Just you know they're basically cause they started that call with, like we got a bone to pick with you. Yeah, yeah, we have to talk to you about one of your dealers. Yeah, one of your customers my rep calls me.
Dane:And man, I got a call that these people need to talk to us about you and I'm like, oh shit, and I thought I was going to the principal's office.
Dane:What it was was. They were so happy with the service and they were so happy with the experience and they felt it was important to tell Pivot, and so that end result was great for everybody. Everybody involved was great. Then there's Rocky Mountain will have like a click to ship system and we'll never know the person. We'll get a bike that shows up in an email, like you say, and we'll call that person, invite them in. Hey, we've got your bike built, it's ready to go. We don't actually take payments sometimes and then we get a credit on our account, and so that's a great way to earn a customer. Again, they're making the effort to include the shop and and when it comes to consumer direct, those are companies that are thinking about the future. They're thinking about how do I, how do I keep this going? How do I keep this whole ecosphere, this whole bike industry, going? How do we keep these people employed, how do we keep these people telling people about trails and selling bikes and doing all this stuff?
Steve Morganstern:And how do we make them a part of this but include even more people? That's that's. That's a pretty, pretty good way to go about it then there's always. Then there's the other ones. Yeah, you always gotta build that next generation right, yeah, yeah if you think about even like el torre de tucson, you know it started 40 years ago. A lot of those original riders have aged out yeah so how are we building if we're not providing the experience of a local ride, of a local shop, of you know, I mean?
Steve Morganstern:like I'm sure you're all guilty of it. You know before owning or being part of a bike shop, you walk in just to look at all the new stuff yeah, yeah, yeah, just to check out the cool stuff.
Dane:Yeah, you know how many. How often do you guys play badminton? Ever, yeah, yeah, that's the sport that died. Where's all the badminton shops? They're gone, you know.
Josh:All right, so um, so you remind me of something. There's a challenge I want to issue to our listeners, and I'm going to reference this every podcast we have for the next I don't know six months or something. My challenge to you is to go bring a new person into the sport.
Dane:Yeah, to every one of our listeners.
Josh:Yeah To go, bring a new person To help them figure out. Loan them your bike, you know. Point them in the right direction. Help them find a good used bike. Help introduce them to the shop, introduce them to trails, teach them. Yeah, bring a new person into this sport. That's, that's.
Steve Morganstern:That's my challenge to every one of our listeners, and one thing I would add to that, because you know again, there are very specialized shops in terms of you know, levels, right? Yep, and one of the things I have always used as a tagline is all riders of all ages and abilities. So when you're introducing that one person, it could be on a Walmart bike and they're cruising around the neighborhood, it could be whatever. I don't want all of my riders to be cat two racers or downhill bombers.
Steve Morganstern:I want the guys who are cruising the loop, because the loop here is amazing it's amazing. We have a podcast coming out, the next episode we're releasing to talk about, okay, so that wouldn't exist if there was not the support of the local bike shops and the local community. You know, people move here, they move to tucson to ride their bikes.
Josh:So I'm here yeah, yeah, it's true. That's why I'm here. I mean, my house is I out? Wherever I live, is always within a mile of a trail, mountain trail, like I pick my house based on the access to the trails.
Steve Morganstern:Yeah, so in the inclusion of bring somebody new, it's doesn't matter what, think outside the box, just get two just just get them on two wheels or three wheels or one.
Dane:Yeah, adaptive bikes are a big thing, adaptive bikes Ajo down in.
Josh:We talked to Brian, Newberry and Ajo. They do a lot of adaptive bike stuff down there. Hey guys, Steve, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?
Steve Morganstern:Really it would be thinking as a community and we're all guilty of buying on Amazon. It wouldn't be the behemoth it was if it didn't work right, I get two boxes a day.
Steve Morganstern:Right but just semi being conscious of okay, I may get this really good deal on this bike, that's the one I want, it's the one I read about, but I'm going to support my local shop by buying my computer, my helmet, but you know all those things that you know, you, I know for me, I can't buy shoes online because my feet are weird and if I don't try them on, it's not going to happen going in. And if you're taking advantage of consumer direct and some great pricing, make sure you're supporting local and it's. It's the same with restaurants and you know anything else you can think of.
Josh:But yeah, think about your community. Yeah, Thinking by local by local uh support your local bike shops. Pay attention to what you may be given up, right, yeah, and we've talked about the whole value stream here right, the value proposition of the bike shop, that what it gives back to the community, what it gives back to you as a consumer. Um, think about that when you buy your bike. Yep, absolutely, steve. Thank you so much for coming.
Steve Morganstern:Thank you, guys for having me, that's awesome.
Josh:All right, you guys have a good one. Hey, what's up? This is Josh from the Mountain Cog Podcast. You got questions, comments or feedback. Well, we'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email. You can send it to mountaincog at gmailcom, Digging the show. There's a couple things you could do to help us out. First, you could tell your friends about Mountain Cog. And also it would be great if you'd give us a good rating and review over at Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen. We appreciate y'all. Go ride, Keep the rubber side down.