Hmmm made me wonder so I looked and our local Halfords has all bike's and accessories upstairs with no specific bike parking area. I think I will have a word with the manager and see if I can get an explanation, wish me luck.
Bike Parking
- Thread starter lemmy
- Start date
It appear policy at Halfords to put the bikes on the upper floor and to have no cycle parking. I'd thought it was a quirk in my local one that I'd been moaning about.
So it seems Halfords see cyclists as inferior citizens.
I can see their point of view . If any of us could afford a car, we wouldn't be cycling, right?
In Bristol we have recently had Car Parking places removed and replaced by bike parking facilities in and around the Centre - so not many moans from here
I think it's a matter of profits, there's fat margins to be had from the car mad types who spend small fortunes on in-car entertainment, sat navs, magical potions that vastly increase the mpg and double the performance etc.
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Perhaps Halfords should redirect some of the money they spend on sponsoring the ITV4 Tour De France to bikestands at their stores. Maybe someone on this forum knows how to start a 'Facebook campaign'. (Whatever that is)
ditto...
...yep, same here, Halfords in Colchester has all the bikes upstairs, there is a one person elevator, it is so small i thought it was a dumb waiter, and just 4 of those wall mounted wheel bender spaces for bikes outside, pitifull & unlikely to encourage cyclists.
just hope someone from Halfords is reading this.......
...yep, same here, Halfords in Colchester has all the bikes upstairs, there is a one person elevator, it is so small i thought it was a dumb waiter, and just 4 of those wall mounted wheel bender spaces for bikes outside, pitifull & unlikely to encourage cyclists.
just hope someone from Halfords is reading this.......
I think they have fat margins on their bike consumables, there's some right rubbish at premium prices in there.I think it's a matter of profits, there's fat margins to be had from the car mad types who spend small fortunes on in-car entertainment, sat navs, magical potions that vastly increase the mpg and double the performance etc.
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I agree, but I think it's sheer quantity with car stuff.
I don't know how many regular cyclists there are in the UK, but it's certainly nowhere near the 26 million plus car drivers.
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You have heard of the fuel magnetiser too!magical potions that vastly increase the mpg and double the performance etc.
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i read that as "pitbull" and thought surely you'd need way more than 4 spaces, especially in Colchester?
Halfords management aren't that daft and would use their EPOS computers (tills) to monitor what sells well alongside profit margins.
I think entire bikes are still profitable for them but the accessories market has been conceded to the LBS's and places like Wiggle as the core market is motorists, particularly with the trend of locating Halfords stores away from the town centre. the one in Ipswich is miles away from anywhere - even if you live on the nearer housing estates as you have to go through a entire industrial estate to find it, and would be better off going into the town centre or the LBS on Foxhall Road (or buying your stuff online)...
Many years ago I did used to work for the orange giants. . . . at the time when they released their first pilot Bikhut store, down south. Then when my store got it's orange makeover (when I started they were still Blue!) the reasoning for the mezzanine upstairs section was because all the stores need more space, and Bikehut was the growing sector at the time of the conversions, hence it went upstairs as there was more space. It also gave the Bikehut section a feeling of being almost a stand alone store, which is exactly what they wanted. In fact the pilot store was just that, a stand alone, cycles only store. Another reason was a lot of the bike stock was alreay upstairs in the warehouse, or was easier to carry upstairs than the other cumbersome items, such as roof boxes, alloy wheels etc.
Personally I agree, I think they should be downstairs, but hey ho.
Personally I agree, I think they should be downstairs, but hey ho.
In truth cars and bikes are hardly a happy mix to trade in anyway.Personally I agree, I think they should be downstairs, but hey ho.
A bit like being a cat and dog sales shop!
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If they had a trained pitbull guarding the bikes, that would be customer service. Note, the pitbull doesn't have to be canine - a thick-necked bouncer type would be just the thing.i read that as "pitbull" and thought surely you'd need way more than 4 spaces, especially in Colchester?
I am a bit surprised.
The two Halfords shops out here do have Bike-Racks.
The boucher road one has them (just visible behind the gazebo+car. They are solid bar-type ones.
Boucher Road, Belfast - Google Maps
The other Halfords has them as well. Good solid ones too,
abbey centre, Newtownabbey - Google Maps
Hey, I did not know you can link to these streetview images that easily. Maybe useful.
Come to think of it. Local specialised retailers like Bikedock and McConveys (who have bigger selections of bike-stuff than Halfords) do not have any Parking facilities for bikes.
Halfords beats them hands down on this one. Strange.
The two Halfords shops out here do have Bike-Racks.
The boucher road one has them (just visible behind the gazebo+car. They are solid bar-type ones.
Boucher Road, Belfast - Google Maps
The other Halfords has them as well. Good solid ones too,
abbey centre, Newtownabbey - Google Maps
Hey, I did not know you can link to these streetview images that easily. Maybe useful.
Come to think of it. Local specialised retailers like Bikedock and McConveys (who have bigger selections of bike-stuff than Halfords) do not have any Parking facilities for bikes.
Halfords beats them hands down on this one. Strange.
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Well I'm here to eat humble pie, when asked why they didn't have bike parking my local halfords said we do....*eek*....they are there much to my embarrassment but they were behind a couple of mobile displays so I didn't see them...whoops. So I humbly appologies for disparaging them.
i read that as "pitbull" and thought surely you'd need way more than 4 spaces, especially in Colchester?
....ha..ha, i'm saddened to admit you are spot on with that Alex, i would put the pitbull count at around 3 times the number of cyclists presently... and some of them have dogs too.
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