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???
A lot of times you just take your bike into the shop with you.
This might work fine if you just have a pretty standard regular bike.
However, imagine you’re visiting a bike shop while on some kind of cycling tour and you have an 80 pound fully loaded rig with you.
It just seems silly that you have to haul all that shit inside of a store just to give them business. It’s kind of disrespectful to the patrons.
I’ve had plenty of situations where I might be running errands with a trailer hooked up, and that would even make it difficult to bring into a store. There’s just so many reasons why it’s a bad idea, and almost none for why they shouldn’t have a bike rack outside.
The bike shops around me don’t own their shop. It’s usually some rented space in a car oriented strip mall. No racks is the norm for these car-oriented places.
One local shop solves this with automatic doors and a small inside rack if you don’t have a kickstand. And every LBS around me doesn’t mind customers rolling in with their rides.
If there’s something we can do, it’s to show up to city councils and ask for bike loops/staples for all our downtown businesses. Then we’ll have bike parking for every local shop, including bike shops.
The bike shops around me don’t own their shop. It’s usually some rented space in a car oriented strip mall.
Perfect, all they need to do is contact the property manager for the plaza and bike racks will be installed.
I’ve had to do this myself as a customer and it works.
And as a business, I would imagine these property managers would haul ass at the request.
That’s not true in general. Most cities have ordinances around required side walk space and minimum parking requirements which prevents businesses from installing bike racks on the sidewalk or in a parking space.
I’ve asked and haven’t had luck yet. Still, it’s good advice as asking costs nothing. :)
“I feel bad going elsewhere, but I won’t shop here unless bike racks are installed.”
If your city has mandatory parking minimums you could also try to convince the council to include mandatory minimum bike parking.
I’m super lucky that the cities around me are removing minimum parking laws! Most political drama is around parking meters because, gasp, how dare we charge reasonable fees to keep our limited street parking churning and available!
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.
