A post about why I don't shop at my local bike shop

Published by Lyn on 20 January 2015

If I said I always supported my local bike shop, I'd be lying. Here's why.

Bicycle repair shop photo by Grégory Tonon

Now, why isn't this repair shop near me? Photo: Gregory Tonon

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I posted in this Reader Q&A yesterday about how we often shop at Decathlon here in France for our bike basics.

I'd love to say that we always support our small local bike shop but, well, we don't actually have one. The nearest decent one is a 45-minute drive from our village, so it's not really ideal if you just need to duck in for an inner tube or a quick repair. My nearest 'shop of choice' is around an hour away (by car).

There is a car-shop-come-bike-shop in the next town with a half-decent (and I'm being generous) range of bikes, but accessories are limited to one stand in one corner with a few tubes and a pump.

The other thing (warning: gross generalisation alert) is that bike shops in France tend to be expensive compared many other countries – certainly compared to the UK – but of course it all depends what you'r after.

But these are the basic reasons we usually either use Decathlon (nearest one is 20 minutes by car), or shop online at the places listed here. For bike, of course it's always try-before-you-buy, but even then it can work out cheaper to look in-store and then buy online for delivery. Most shops these days send to France and elsewhere around the world (often for free if you buy over a set limit), and the ranges are wide and varied.

I always shop around and compare prices, though. When we bought our trailer, we saved more than €100 by ordering it from the Netherlands rather than getting the same trailer in France or in the UK. See more here for the full story.

I often post store deals on the Facebook page, so keep an eye on that, but I'll also try (when I remember) to post more of these on the blog for those of you not on Facebook.

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