I’ve been to a few bike shops that don’t have any bike racks outside. It’s bizarre. Like, you have to bring your bike in the shop just to pick something up or to have a look around.
I’m not even talking about one place that does this, I have at least three in the area where there are no bike racks at all.
Is this normal? Why???
I don’t know where you are located geographically but where I am a bike shop would usually rent a shop front but then the pavement and everything outside the shop itself is council run land. They can’t just go and dig up a pavement to add in bike racks.
Personally I would rather walk into the shop with my bike anyway, I want to leave with a bike too and I don’t really trust locks even if I could see the bike through the window.
I feel like most people that go to a bike shop will usually have something specific they are looking for too, having your bike on hand if you don’t know bikes well is again a plus. If you are taking it in to have work done on it then you are going to hand it over and they’ll have a secure area for the bikes they are working on.
Outside a bike shop is actually where I would least expect to see bike racks to be perfectly honest. My city has bike racks all over anyway so if you really wanted to leave your bike somewhere and not take it in it isn’t really much of a walk to the nearest bike rack.
So really I think the answer is shitty public infrastructure, I’d never expect to find them outside but there would always be some within a couple minutes walking where I am from.
If it’s about ownership of the shop, that shouldn’t really be an issue either, since they can contact the property manager of that space, especially if they’re in some kind of plaza, and then racks will be installed at their request.
I’ve had to do this as a customer, and it works better when businesses contact their property manager to make that request.
And yes, I can understand that just bringing your bike in might be the easiest for some people, but it doesn’t really seem to be a viable excuse.
For example, if I’m running errands and I need to make a stop at a bike shop, I might have a cargo trailer with me, or I might be hauling kids around in a kid trailer. It just seems silly that I’d have to bring all that shit into the store. to give them money.