Anyone work for a bicycle store?

Send a PM to CTEV in the Louisiana section. He was president of the Texas AM cycling club and has been working at a bike shop for years.

His name is Charlie Thomas

 

I work in shops through highschool and college. Unless it's a really big shop the mark up on bikes is only 20-25% at best. That's just the markup. Not taking into account that a bike comes in a box and is very labor intensive to sell. Figure it takes a wrench an hour to do a good build an other 15-30 minutes to check it before it leaves the shop, and usually a free 90 day tune-up. The last shop I worked at was the largest shop in Seattle and the 3rd largest in the country and they figured that they were only making 8-10% profit from a bike sale. So $500 off is a pretty good deal. Do you usually support this shop? if you need a bunch of accessories through them a bone when you get the bike.

There's only 1 way to make a million bucks in the bike biz....Start with 10.

 

What about a proform order on the 04's if they're any left. I worked in a shop while I was in school also & this was another way to purchase factory direct with a much better discount. The only problem is I don't have the Cannondale hook up anymore.

 

That's a great hook up, but you have to find some one who is willing to loose a job or a dealer getting a line pulled EPing a bike and then flipping it. Usually the EP terms state you must own the bike for 9mo- a year before you can sell it

 

I'm more familiar with Cannondale's mountainbikes at the moment, I haven't priced out the road series.

the Cannondale Prophet 1000 MSRP is $2599, and my local shop I used to work at offered to order me a new one for $2000 even, that's pretty much their price with shipping (I saw the numbers myself).

Your $2499 R2000 probably costs the shop ~$1900, so I think $2000 is a very fair price for that, I'd go for it. Support your local shops when you can.