I work in one of a chain of bikes shops in the UK and we are being told it should take us only 23mins to fully build a bike, including assembly. setting gears, brakes, truing wheels etc.... Just want to ask bike shop guys roughly how long does it take you to properly build a bike? Takes us from about 35mins for ok stuff and up to an hour for the really crap stuff.
How long does it take you to build a bike?
thomasali
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I work in one of a chain of bikes shops in the UK and we are being told it should take us only 23mins to fully build a bike, including assembly. setting gears, brakes, truing wheels etc.... Just want to ask bike shop guys roughly how long does it take you to properly build a bike? Takes us from about 35mins for ok stuff and up to an hour for the really crap stuff.
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What brand of bike are you talking in specific. Those times may be alright for a Specialized or Trek which are almost fully assembled before going in the box. Try to build a Cervelo in 23 minutes and see how far you get. It also depends on the quality of the build, a bike built in 23 minutes hasn't had a good test ride, or the BB checked fo trueness, and those wheels never saw a truing stand. I'm saying this as some one who's built 10s of thousands of bikes. In general I tell my mechanics that an average bike will take an hour, some will take 30 minutes and some 1.5 hours.
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Yeah the bikes we are building range from £80 rubbish to £1400 quality bikes, pretty much everything still needs the wheels trued, and many need the frames/forks facing. Its nice to see that your view on how long its takes matches up with our shop! We have some great staff and they are being put under pressure knock bikes out quickly rather than build them properly, these guys have built bikes for Eurobike and worked in bike industry for years, one of them raced for Czech national team! We sell the most - around 120 bikes a week at the mo' and we also sell highest value bikes in our area, but mysteriously the longest build times.....
i work in a shop that sells jamis and specialized, and basically none of the bikes from either company could be built with any kind of quality in 23 mins. the lower end stuff is usually a faster build as it's more assembled in the box, but with that adjustments often take longer, wheels need some truing, etc, etc. for all of specialized's road bikes the builder has to install the bars, front brake, and run all 4 cables and housing and then tune everything, check tightness of everything(torque wrench is a must obviously), true wheels, if shifting is hard to dial in you'll have to check and align the derailluer hanger, etc etc. an hour is probably about average. the bent hanger is becoming a more common problem, which sucks as it can take a bit of time to fix, and unless obvious might not be noticed until some tuning has already been done. the packing doesn't seem to be any worse than it used to be, but the guys in shipping and especially those working for the trucking companies must be beating the crap out of the bike boxes.
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It took me 3 hours and 8 beers to build my SS up from scratch.
Anyway, most of the bigger companies' bikes that are under $1000 are usually pretty easy to assemble. But when you get to the nicer stuff, some of it will take an hour to properly set everything up. But since you work for a "large chain" bike shop, they probably have your day planned out minute by minute.
Anyway, most of the bigger companies' bikes that are under $1000 are usually pretty easy to assemble. But when you get to the nicer stuff, some of it will take an hour to properly set everything up. But since you work for a "large chain" bike shop, they probably have your day planned out minute by minute.
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Yeah we have this little computer program where you type in how many bikes to be built for the week, number of predicted repairs how long I take serving, communicating (!) etc and it normally calculates that I have just over the amount of people to comfortably get everything done! Never works out tho we only just about about scrape through the week normally..... we sell a lot of stuff to be fitted to the bikes plus we take as long as it takes to sort the customer out (could be 2 mins or 2hrs) which totally renders the hour calculator useless. We have a dedicated bike builder from 9-4 every day, a mechanic 9-5.30, 2 guys serving/shop floor 1 on an early shift 9-5.30 another on 11.30-8pm. Sell about 80 bikes a week climbing up to 130+ a week in the summer and upto 170 at xmas!
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If I have all the parts in one pile
it can take 5 hours and it still needs lots of tweeking and tuning. It is pretty much the same in anything I do; take what a pro does, multiply it by about 3 and there you have it. It works for house painting, fence building, electrical and plumbing, dry wall, landscaping. All I can say is that I work cheap and things end up pretty nicely.
it can take 5 hours and it still needs lots of tweeking and tuning. It is pretty much the same in anything I do; take what a pro does, multiply it by about 3 and there you have it. It works for house painting, fence building, electrical and plumbing, dry wall, landscaping. All I can say is that I work cheap and things end up pretty nicely.
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The more expensive a bike is, the longer it takes
I always thought it was the exact opposite. To me, it seems like the high end stuff just goes together alot easier.Random Drivel said:The more expensive a bike is, the longer it takes
23 minutes for an out-of-box bike...maybe if he is talking about just having it slapped together, but you'll have alot of issues trying to sell those bikes.
Sounds to me like...
Anyway, I feel your pain! Sounds like somebody needs to get their head out of their fourth point of contact and wake up to reality! I can build a low to mid level bike in 23 minutes or less. But I wouldn't want to buy it! The only bikes I can consistantly turn out that fast and still turn out a good build are the little kids 12 to 18" sindle speed coaster brake bikes. :thumbsup:
Good Dirt
the boss man needs to get off his/her ass and out of the office and into the shop and build some bikes!!!! That is absolute BS!!! Yes it can take that short of a time if the bike goes together perfectly and comes primarily assembled. At the shop I work at we look at it this way, our reputation as mechanics is on the line. Not only that, but if we send some rush built bike out with something critical wrong with it, someone could get hurt! We build good bikes period! So how long it takes depends on how long it takes to GET IT RIGHT! The lower to mid level bikes come pretty much assembled so they can take less time, but often they take just as much because they require more tweaking. The higher end stuff comes pretty much unassembled so they can take longer. But it usually comes out to a horse a piece. The lower end needs more adjustment the high end stuff needs more assembly but goes together better. Our average build time is 35 minutes if all goes well. Longer if we have a "problem child" or a high end build where nearly everything requires assembly. The only things that come installed on your high end road bikes is the rear wheel, crankset and headset. Everything else from cables to grip tape has to be installed. They deffinately take a bit longer.thomasali said:
Anyway, I feel your pain! Sounds like somebody needs to get their head out of their fourth point of contact and wake up to reality! I can build a low to mid level bike in 23 minutes or less. But I wouldn't want to buy it!
The only bikes I can consistantly turn out that fast and still turn out a good build are the little kids 12 to 18" sindle speed coaster brake bikes. :thumbsup:Good Dirt
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Same here. On the more expensive bikes, the wheels are often good to go. I worked at a Rocky Mountain dealer, and they hand build most of their wheels, which usually turn out very well. Take a $250 Norco, and the hubs are in need of adjustment, and the wheels require minor (sometimes significant) truing. Sometimes cable housing comes at an appropriate length, and sometimes it needs serious trimming. There are many variables that can add time to a build.mopartodd said:
I would typically build around 4 bikes in a shift - sometimes more sometimes less. 8 hours - half hour lunch - distractions from customers and other general inefficiencies. Sometimes a bike was good to go in an hour, sometimes it was around 2. And sometimes, I was building adult trikes... Those things were quite the job...
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When I worked at a shop, I was sales/assembly, so I'd start a build, go help a customer, come back to my build, go help another customer, and etc. Some days, it'd take me 3hrs for a straightforward build that didn't need a lot of extras because I'd have to keep re-checking things I'd already done because I couldn't remember exactly where I left off. Don't want to end up skipping an important step in a situation like that.
If I didn't get interrupted during my build, most bikes could be done in about an hour or so. Like rkj__, I'd end up building a few bikes per 8hr shift. I REALLY hated building $200 comfort bikes, though. Adjustments on those were such a pain.
If I didn't get interrupted during my build, most bikes could be done in about an hour or so. Like rkj__, I'd end up building a few bikes per 8hr shift. I REALLY hated building $200 comfort bikes, though. Adjustments on those were such a pain.
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