Written by Hello from the workstand once again! I feel like I’ve written more blog posts in the last few weeks than I have in all the years of the shop being open.
We’re still here, still open, working as hard as we can to keep everyone riding. I have to be candid though, it hasn’t been easy; there are two big challenges and we’ve had to change the way we work to adapt to them. If you’re short on time, please scroll to the break for what it means for you. If not, here’s a longer explanation:
The first problem is, of course, COVID-19. We’re keeping the door locked most of the time so that we and you can keep our distance, and when dropping a bike off or picking it up we’ll be setting it in the stand outside the front door and disinfecting contact points like the saddle, grips and levers. We’re wearing gloves practically all the time and disinfecting those gloves, our tools, work surfaces, the phone, the card machine, the iPad… that’s all to protect both you and ourselves and minimise transmission as much as we can.
The second struggle, however, has been coping with how busy we’ve become! Obviously, it’s a great problem to have; we’re very glad to see so many people getting on their bikes (and we’re especially grateful for all the messages of support and encouragement we’ve been getting, thank you!). But this busy-ness, combined with the new ways of working we’ve had to adopt for COVID-19, means that at times we’ve been so busy answering enquiries at the door, answering the phone and trying to reply to emails and messages in a timely manner that we’ve had very little time to actually work on people’s bikes! It’s a perfect storm.
Although we’re all experienced and methodical mechanics, there’s a certain lag that comes from breaking off in the middle of a service to answer the door or the phone, and then coming back to the bike and getting back to whatever you were working on before. It’s not a lot, but it starts adding up when it happens many times over and a 20-minute job stays in the workstand for two hours because there have been so many interruptions. It also means the bikes that customers have booked in aren’t getting our undivided attention, which doesn’t seem very fair.
We’ve always had a policy of trying to fix people’s bikes on the spot if it’s a minor task – you’d usually only have to wait a few minutes if you have a puncture, for example, and we try and do most small jobs as quickly as possible to avoid booking bikes in and filling up the shop. But unfortunately, we have to change that, at least for now.
From Monday 20th April we’ll only work on walk-in jobs before 10am. If you’ve got a puncture, if your wheel needs truing, if your brake pads need replacing, that sort of thing, please get down to us as early as possible and we’ll try and fit you in that morning.
Otherwise, our workshop will be appointment only. From 10am onwards, to make sure we can give booked-in bikes our full attention, we won’t be taking in any un-booked jobs. Not even punctures – sorry! To minimise interruptions, we’ll also be letting the phone go to voicemail, and calling people back regularly throughout the day.
We’re very sorry for any hassle this might cause you, but we hope you understand that we’re trying to be fair to as many people as possible, and making sure we can focus on getting as many bikes properly serviced as we can.
Rat Race Cycles 