Cheshire UK Bicycle Shop | Running a bicycle shop with Paul Bonner of Bikes N’ Gear

How do you know when it’s time to quit your day job and go after your dream? How did working with Harley Davidson help shape your approach to owning and running a bike shop? What’s the one thing you wish you would’ve known before starting?

Check out Paul’s shop on Bunity: https://www.bunity.com/bikes-n-gear

Music provided by Peter Kuli – Midnight & OfficialJayden – Mos’ Finest.

GET IN TOUCH:
business@bunity.com

I’m Paul this is my business I was always interested in putting things apart mechanically and I was always interested in motorcycles so I ended up very young having lots of different motorcycles and some of them were pulled apart and never quite kind of put back together correctly and there was a lot of learning that kind of took place with all that so I ended up going into the motorcycle trade first of all I used to work Farley Davidson and so it was quite interesting to get an American perspective on selling things and they were very clear that people will never buy a motorbike for fifteen thousand pounds the bike was for free what they were paying fifteen thousand pounds for was the experience that Harley Davidson experienced in fact the only thing that stopped me riding motorcycles was when my son came along and then I instantly became aware of my mortality and that was the point really that I got back into cycling and then I realized very quickly that going 30 miles an hour on the road on a road bike was equivalent to doing 160 miles an hour on a motorcycle I started simple things like commuting in-and-out work on my push bike which was ten miles each way and then kind of got like most people in see you know a lighter faster road bikes what happened when I was working in the motorcycle industry I’m slowly but surely worked in every department of that business and so I was used to dealing with customers used to dealing with staff least in dealing with grumpy staff which was kind of guys working in the workshop used to dealing with you know kind of clothing experts and and actually it suddenly dawned upon me when I was about 38 39 that actually I was running all aspects of the business and boss was nowhere to be seen and so at that point I thought actually I could do this for myself but I didn’t want to do in the motorcycle industry because at that point I was very much into bicycles not motorcycles and I was aware that I had no enough experience of dealing with all elements of a retail business that actually we could make this work so we’ve had it for six years the shops been here 26 years so in that time obviously biking has become very very popular but at the same time competition has become fierce we focus on what we can be well which is the customer service side of things and we make sure that we’ve got the best quality products in it’s about listening to the individual needs first of all and then of course we want to gain some trust from that customer that we’ve already done a lot of hard work in working out which brands are best and which brands would work therefore best for our customers then we can start to look at all the options from the few brands because we don’t do masses of brands we do for brands very very well by focusing on slightly less brands we can offer a better service which is not confusing for the customer but ultimately what the Bryke is allowing the person to do is get out and enjoy themselves and maybe you know forget work or whatever it is that they need to kind of get a few hours away from generally either preparing the bike that’s already in-house because after all they come to carpal box so we build them PD item which is the pre delivery inspection make sure that they’re pretty safe and then make sure at that point it’s ready for the customer so the handover after the initial consultation is equally as important as finding the right bike at the beginning so at this point we make sure that customers understand how they clean their bike how they prepare their bike before we try how they prepare their bike after six or seven rides how it’s important to get it back in to us to make sure that we can service it correctly it’s more than just buying a bike it’s about knowing that we are there for the customer afterwards too so it’s a really exciting time to be riding a full suspension mountain bike and those guys that come in and buy a bike who maybe had their last bike 10 years ago have really seen that it really is hardly related to the buy that they were previously on so what does that mean in terms of ride well I see it makes everything much more easy and much more fun road bikes well have become much much more Aero the latest innovation on the road bikes has been the disc brakes which you know is still relatively new although we’ve seen it in the last couple of years it’s now just started to appear on the Aero bikes and for us that’s where most of the innovation is taking place more aerodynamics better braking which ultimately makes for everybody to be more efficient on a bike and I guess efficiency is the key word for any style of biking whether you’re a mountain biker or whether you’re a road biker probably to strike out and do for myself much earlier it didn’t even occur to me till I was about 38 39 that I could be doing all of this for myself and so you could argue of course that it was only the experience that I’d gained up until that point that allow me to strike out on my own and was confident enough to do so but in reality I think kind of also have struck out that a little bit earlier so let me think I don’t know what finding wolves is probably a good one I’m Paula Bonner and this is my Buena tea business follow see ya again okay I’m Paul Bonner and that was my business be unity brilliant fantastic well I’d be really interested to see if we can muscle anything out