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Self-confessed bike shop monkey tours Cycle Surgery’s new Waterloo store

This morning I popped along to the opening of Cycle Surgery’s newest store near Waterloo Bridge; their 17th in London and only two weeks after their previous store opening. As someone who grew up working in an independent shop, I used to look on these chain stores only as the source of most of our workshop business, fixing what the larger shops had broken.

It may not look much but this is a mechanic's dream

But having met with Cycle Surgery’s Jon Sharpe my views were instantly transformed. Cycle Surgery put in a great deal of time and investment into making sure each of their stores is up to a high level of service. Indeed, at their new mountain bike-specific store in Spitalfields, staff are trained by MOJO to be suspension service experts – training I was certainly never offered, although I know that sometimes shops will offer to pay for Cytech qualifications.

Cycle Surgery believe it’s important to retain an independent identity while still having the resources of a large chain. The workshop offers a great deal of flexibility; if it’s busy their numerous stores are able to absorb surplus bookings and jobs are moved to another shop to be completed if there is no room where you dropped it off.

The workshop space is what really impressed me – natural lighting! For most of the day a lot of hard working and stressed mechanics are banished to the back of bike stores to evolve into some hermit-like creature, losing interest in their passion as the hours tick by. Cycle Surgery’s Waterloo workshop is light, spacious and offers customers clear vision into what is going on in the workshop.

Freshly-brewed coffee to celebrate the opening of Cycle Surgery's new store

What Cycle Surgery have done here is to bring the independent vibe of a small bike shop to a large chain, which as a long-serving bike shop monkey brought me to writing this article. Retailers need to keep up with these developments, cycling is booming and it’s not always about who can sell something cheapest – these guys certainly don’t, preferring to provide a better service.

I am sure that everyone has a story of walking into a chain store and having incredibly poor service – and I am no different – but it is great to see when companies appreciate the need for a high level of knowledge and training to try to prevent those moments.