[Closed] CycleSurgery - CVA

Sad indeed.

We should all be worried by the number of CVAs being sought. It is having a devastating impact on the value of commercial property.

Now, I know that's hardly likely to generate a wave of sympathy, but the unfortunate truth is that many of the landlords having to write down their property values and cash inflows are our pension funds.

This fashion for CVAs is slowly screwing us all over.

Truth is, the value of retail property has probably been too high for too long, but the crunch is going to devastate pension funds at some point.

In the meantime, the piss poor management that signed up to 25 year leases with no breaks and upwards only rent increases, whilst funding expansion by expensive debt and PE buy outs continue tilting at windmills.

To$$ers.

Grrr. Rant over.

Bastads selling me used stock as new and not cheap items neither.

Sod those buggers!

There’s one near me...

“I need some cheap flat pedals, £25 max”
“OK, these are £45, and these are £65. Which do you want?”
“Nothing cheaper? They’re only going on my daughters bike for Uni, nothing flash so it’s not a thief magnet”
“These are £45 and these are £65..., oh, are you leaving?”

I wouldn’t say they were overpriced, but seems like they were very bad at selling what people might actually buy.

I went to one late last year,asked to see a bike the computer said they had in stock. “ no,it’s in a box”.
I bought the bike elsewhere.

Not surprised. Been trying to spend a £40 Christmas gift voucher, literally nothing available that I wanted which wasn’t significantly cheaper at merlin, Crc or wiggle. Luckily voucher also works with Cotswolds, so it’ll get spent on camping stuff

Sad news. Many years ago I used to work for Snow & Rock and it was a genuinely nice place to work, as the original owners were still there and actually cared about the company and the staff. Same story with CS and Runners Need by all accounts. Once they all went down the venture capitalist route, it just became an exercise in cost cutting (less staff, less stock), coupled with the rise of online shopping it basically became a big click and collect store. The last few times I've been in it's been like a wasteland, feel sorry for the guys I know who still work there and may be losing their jobs. Just hoping Mike Ashley doesn't get involved...

We should all be worried by the number of CVAs being sought. It is having a devastating impact on the value of commercial property.

Now, I know that’s hardly likely to generate a wave of sympathy, but the unfortunate truth is that many of the landlords having to write down their property values and cash inflows are our pension funds.

This fashion for CVAs is slowly screwing us all over.

I'll disagree that CVAs are the issue. What's the other option? Insolvency? At least something is paid to unsecured creditors and there is the possibility the business will recover.

Surely the issue is underlying business management and/or sector changes that led to the initial problem. Not an insolvency option.

Unfortunately, it is what it is for the pension fund managers to try and manage their funds.

Re: OP. Never heard of cycle surgery... probably more to do with where I live though!

drew27, I don't disagree.

Surely the issue is underlying business management and/or sector changes that led to the initial problem.

In the meantime, the piss poor management that signed up to 25 year leases with no breaks and upwards only rent increases, whilst funding expansion by expensive debt and PE buy outs continue tilting at windmills.

Too many failing retailers and restaurant chains have been bought out, had cash stripped out, debt loaded on then expanded through overpriced units and excessively long leases.

I know there are exceptions, but there are so many where the above is true, it's unreal.

I worked at Cycle Surgery in the Ben Cater days for some years and was in the West Hampstead branch yesterday where the manager is once again the same one who managed the store when it was Yellow Jersey almost 20 years ago...

...and he said the rates has gone up by nearly 200% in the last couple of years and that the lease was being hiked by a similar amount.

The cost of commercial rates in London are staggering. You actually wouldn't believe it until you start looking into renting a shop. They are totally eye watering.

The report in Grough contains this gem:

“O&CC is owned by Retail Concepts NV, a Belgium-based company registered in the Netherlands. It in turn is owned by Dutch outfit AS Adventure Coöpertief UA, which is an asset of French private-equity group PAI Partners.”

I never really understood how there are Snow and Rocks which also have Cycle Surgery's in them. I always thought they were one and the same but appears not from this.

I worked in cycle surgery Camden too some time ago. It was always expensive but was convenient for lots of people and think that was CS good point. Really good prime locations. Over expansion didn't help IMO.

I went to one late last year,asked to see a bike the computer said they had in stock. “ no,it’s in a box”.
I bought the bike elsewhere.

Are you for real.... do you have any idea [how a bike shop works?] You do realise that shops typically have orders of magnitude of stuff boxed in stock than built up on the showroom floor?

Where do you expect them to store all these fully built bikes in your eutopian bike shop universe? How do you expect them not to get damaged etc

Goodness

Years ago Snow and Rock bought Cycle Surgery and Runners Need, they kept the standalone stores as they were but also put CS and RN departments in some of the bigger S&R stores. I guess along with Cotswold they are all under the same ownership now.

I worked in cycle surgery Camden too some time ago. It was always expensive but was convenient for lots of people

I used to work in Camden, and didn't know there was a CS, so wasn't that convenient 😉

I think it's a shame, I always quite liked them and used them through choice over Evans.

Shame that, there's a shop within riding distance of work, quite convenient for picking up sale items. They were always overpriced though... oh and that time my [url= https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/sarcasm-thanks-cycle-surgery/ ]chain broke[/url] and they wouldn't lend me a tool... yeah, sod 'em.

Are you for real…. do you have any idea [how a bike shop works?] You do realise that shops typically have orders of magnitude of stuff boxed in stock than built up on the showroom floor?

Where do you expect them to store all these fully built bikes in your eutopian bike shop universe? How do you expect them not to get damaged etc

Goodness

To be fair if the justification for buying specialized, trek, santa cruz, etc over Bird, airdrop, Canyon, Rose etc is that you can go into a real bricks and mortar shop and see the bike first, then yes that is the expectation.

Otherwise you're just mail ordering it to somewhere where you have to collect it rather than the convenience of it arriving at your house!

To be fair if the justification for buying specialized, trek, santa cruz, etc over Bird, airdrop, Canyon, Rose etc is that you can go into a real bricks and mortar shop and see the bike first, then yes that is the expectation.

This is true but you have to accept that the model you want mY not be ready to view and you may have to check and arrange to get the bike built for you to test. A bit like buying a car you tend to have to arrange and see what is available and ready to test. The car dealership may have a car but it might not be available to test deive without arranging. A bike can be in-stock bit without checking is it available to test view etc without arrangement as it may nee to built or someone else viewing etc.

they wouldn’t lend me a tool…

I think not lending out tools is perfectly reasonable. They are not cheap easily stolen and broken.

The cost of commercial rates in London are staggering. You actually wouldn’t believe it until you start looking into renting a shop. They are totally eye watering.

This.

I just looked at this out of curiosity and it is amazing. I looked at a small shop on Ealing Broadway (nice area, picked only as my sister used to live there). An 86Ssqm shop with some storage upstairs. £65k pa rent and around £30k pa business rates. Wow. You have to sell a lot of bikes before you have even thought about drawing a salary. How can that even be possible?

I think not lending out tools is perfectly reasonable. They are not cheap easily stolen and broken.

It was an old discussion and you obviously haven't read it.

Thegeneralist:

general rant and diss after not properly reading what was posted

Sorry, to be clear, was the problem that you hadn't phoned ahead to ask if the bike was built up/ get them to build it up.
OR
Did CS just refuse to build the bike up full stop?