The Dream Service Center

Imagine with me that there is a person out there who wants to make the right investments to create the world's greatest bike shop. A shop featuring the most premium tools and equipment to undertake any bicycle repair imaginable in the most thorough way. Now let's say that person hired me, your humble neighborhood bike blogger, to design it. Below are some of the features that I would implement in that dream shop. All prices are full retail, by the way.

1. Park Master Tool Kit, $7000

This is a basic must-have for every bike shop, but if the shop has more than one mechanic working at a time it will have to supplement it with another $400 worth of tools for each additional mechanic.

1.5 Abbey Tools to supplant the crappy Park Tools, $500

Some, but not all, of the Park tools are junk, especially the derailleur alignment gauge. A professional shop needs the best stuff.


2. Park Power Lift Shop Stand, $1700

A work stand that lifts bikes for you! How cool is that! This sounds dumb, but if you're lugging 70-pound downhill bikes up and down out of your stand to test the shifting over and over you'll be glad to save your arms and back so that you can do some downhilling yourself at the end of the day. Depending on the clientele the shop expects to cater to, you probably only need one of these bad boys. The $500 Park PCS-3 stand will do for most every other repair. Also NO DOUBLE HEADED WORK STANDS!

Do not.

Ever been working on a tricky pair of Y brakes and just when you think you have the perfect amount of toe and the pads are exactly level with the rim the knucklehead on the other head of the stand unclamps a bike and sends the whole thing shaking? Pain in the ass. Every mechanic should always have their own stand. The double header is designed so that one mechanic can check a customer's bike in while working on a longer project on the other side.








3. Industrial Ultrasonic Parts Washer, $9000 (option to lease!)

Every shop needs some kind of parts washer to remove buildup on derailleurs, shifters, hubs, and so on. Most parts washers use heavy degreasers and require an exhaust hood, but you can also get aqueous parts washers that are non-toxic and much preferable. In this dream shop we aren't screwing around with the usual tub of chemicals though, we need something with some kick. Ultrasonic washers send high-frequency sound waves through the washing solution to create little bubbles that work the cleaning solution deep into the part. It's a gentle way to do very thorough cleaning. We want a parts washer that can fit an entire component group and maybe parts of the bike itself, like the bottom bracket. Added points for a machine that can do electrolytic cleaning to remove rust and seized bolts. One big advantage of an Ultrasonic machine is that you don't have to babysit your parts. Just dump them in and work on something else for a half hour until they're done cleaning. Where ever you can save man-power you can save money.

4. Bike Wash, $450

I've written about the wonders of a bike wash before, but it will truly change the world of any bike mechanic who has never had one. It's just a shower with a bike work stand in it and a bucket of suds and sponges. A bike is so much easier to work on when it's clean and the customer will like it too when it gets back.

5. Magnets and stainless steel! $2000-$10,000

Ever seen the kitchen of a famous chef? All his pots are on hooks and all his knives are on magnets. The tables are all stainless steel or some sort of hard wood. A bike shop should be the same. Make the working surfaces as easy to clean as possible and make the tools as easy to organize and put away as you can. The tools should be on the wall and should follow an organization pattern that prioritizes the most used tools -like cone wrenches and allen keys- by putting them near the bench, easy to reach. Less used tools like headset presses should be on the peripheral. Tools that are sensitive to being dropped -like torque wrenches and thread chasers- should have their own shelf in a Craftsman tool box so that they don't fall off the wall. I worked in a shop once whose tool benches were made of marine-grade plywood and bordered with 2x4s so that bearings couldn't roll off. That was a really good idea.

6. Lots of shelves! $1000-$10,000

You can never have too much storage. Every open space that isn't a thoroughfare or work space should have shelves. A Snap-on tool box, with roller bearing shelf action, is the best. We'd use a label maker and a bunch of little boxes so that every spare bearing and bolt would have a home according to its size, thread pitch, use, color, or whatever other metric is important.

7. Good lighting. $500-$50,000

Retail mood lighting is awesome, until you lose that vital spring and have to get down on your hands and knees searching for it with a flashlight. A shop needs light everywhere. If you can have a lighted floor, all the better. Shadows are the enemy.

8. Air compressor, $1100
Filling tires all day with a floor pump is for chumps.

9. Computer with a washable keyboard, $1000-$2000
You can guess why this is vital.

10. Portable phone, $59
Good mechanics spend a lot of time talking to reps.

11. Digital torque wrenches, $250 - $1500

Click-type torque wrenches work fine for regular Joe Jerk mechanics, but this is a dream shop: we need digital.

12. Welding torches, CNC machine, rapid prototyper, $500,000+

Because why not?

13. Anti fatigue floor mats, $300

Your feet get tired when you stand all day for work. This is a must-have for any shop.


There is a maxim in the mechanical and handyman world that holds true in every field: When you buy cheap you buy twice. Or to put it another way: Only a rich man can afford poor tools. What I mean to say is that if you want and expect a bike shop to grow, you should invest right away in the good stuff. Don't try to add on or upgrade down the line or you'll end up paying double in lost time and opportunities. Now the things above may be for a dream shop at full retail, but a real consumer service center for two full-time mechanics can be built at wholesale for about $16,000 or less if you do the building yourself and are creative with your shelving. Feel free to add in your own dream shop suggestions in the comments section.

If you like my ideas, check out these cool shops: http://retaildesignblog.net/category/store-design/bicycle/