Quote:
Originally Posted by November Dave
Because it's a complete pain in the butt as a business, with low margins, no barrier to entry, precious few ways to differentiate no matter how good you are at it, it's labor intensive and physically demanding, no opportunities for scale, access to vendors is marginal, inventory costs are high relative to turns, Chinese wheel brands are doing an awfully good job of competing these days, and customer expectations for sales and service are poorly matched with revenue and margins.
A reasonable selection of hubs would be +/- 10 lines across +/- 7 brands. Among them you have at least 4 different freehub options, 6 bolt/Centerlock/rim, an average of about 6 colors, 4 front drillings and 3 rear drillings, several axle lengths, and different end caps. Keeping hubs in stock is impossible. Rims aren't much easier. Spokes are a little easier but not much - if you have a cutter/threader you can get away with a few hundred spokes each of 3 types in 2 colors in about 8 lengths. Only about $10k of spokes, but at least you should turn them with some regularity.
And your labor price is constantly compared to the customer's buddy who will screw it all up terribly in return for a 6 pack.
It's tough sledding.
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Years ago, there was a very different model and paradigm in place regarding wheels. A few decades ago, rims and spokes, quite frankly, sucked. Mangled rims and broken spokes were just a fact of life that everyone had to deal with on a regular basis. A rider might go through multiple wheel rebuilds on the same set of hubs. So, a rider getting their wheels rebuilt by the local shop was common. Until the 1990s or so, a complete groupset would not only include shifters, derailleurs, cranks, BB (and possible also headset, seatpost and/or pedals), but it would also include a pair of hubs. The groupset purchaser would then have the local shop build up a pair of wheels on the hubs with the rims and spokes of their choice.
Fast forward to today, and wheels are much more reliable. Unless crashed, a set of rims and spokes may last nearly as long as the hubs, so rebuilding wheels is less common. So it usually makes more sense to buy complete wheels, then it does to have wheels built on demand. Also add to that the increase in wheel gimmickry (primarily driven by the need to differentiate wheels), which means that wheels often contain proprietary components, which can make rebuilding wheels less practical.
10-23-2024, 02:16 PM
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