In what way? I doubt your local LBS has any interest in repairing or servicing some wahoo Kickr bike. Wahoo just sends out a new part or a new bike if required. There’s almost no reason for the LBS to be a middle man in that scenario.
For a real bike that of course your LBS can repair or deal with warranty issues like frame damage or something that makes sense. But for things like trainers I’m not sure that makes sense.
What I meant was the delivery process. For them, and the ‘bike’, it was nearly painless. They dealt with all the packaging and even set it up to my dimensions from a past fitting I had done. They wheeled it in the door, I plugged it in, and was off.
They also offered to intermediate the replacement process too. (I did have them receive one of the replacements as I was out of town)
I mean, come on, the Peloton has, or had(?) their bikes delivered and assembled. If they can do it, why couldn’t Wahoo? (Oh, the WE need the profit more than the bike shops)
It is The Most Expensive Bike Trainer On The Market…
The only parts they sent out, to my knowledge, were things like power supplies, and clamp bolts, and a crank arm or two as there really isn’t much a user can replace.
Sure, there are bad bike shops, but without an established dealer system, for such an expensive device…
Whatever… I’m firmly in to supporting local bike shops. In some areas, they are they only source of support for some people, especially for mundane things that need tweaking or replacing. Not everyone is a gifted amateur bike mechanic and knows their ‘fit’. Wahoo could have done it differently and so much better, IMO… Shrug…
It’s not that I disagree with this. As things get more ‘integrated’ partners tend to get squeezed out. I just don’t see what interest an LBS has in selling and servicing Wahoo Kickr bikes? A Wahoo Kickr bike should not be something that requires often tweaking and repair like a bike, and it’s not something you bring to the shop like a bike. At the very best it would be a low volume business.
Yes, Peloton has delivery and assembly. I don’t know if they have insourced it, but I think they used a logistics company for that. Not a LBS.
Peloton used XPOLogistics, and I experienced them. Not good. For Peloton to use a third party was excusable as they had no relationship with any local bike shops to begin with. Getting shops involved would have been a huge ask for them also, as connecting with a large enough number of local shops would have been time and cost prohibitive. Wahoo doesn’t have that problem as they already have relationships with many local bike shops in one form or another. It would have been fairly easy to ‘activate’ a number of them with distributor sponsored training and perhaps better support to those dealers that pick it up.
The LBS I bought through said they had a deal where if they sold enough of them, they could get a bike for display at a great price, so apparently there was some attempt to involve dealers.
Yes, the bikes aren’t mobile by any stretch, but having local dealers involved could have meant an easier support experience for purchasers and also assistance with returning bikes that needed to be returned.
I see many ways they could have done it better, and ways to do it worse. Having had one (several) and dealt with the support process, I would have felt better having someone somewhat local that could have helped facilitate the whole process. Sending videos across the internet seems so sketchy to me.
But whatever… I had the experience. It is a great idea (the bike) that I think was not ‘exactly executed well’. Crapping on their dealer network when the ‘big names’ are too wasn’t well played either. Yeah, now why would a local bike shop want to ‘partner’ with a vendor on any products. The level of loyalty seems to be only one way and the risk of losing your customers to a corporate goliath that sees only control and profit is so great. The bike business has always been an interesting market, so fickle, but adding the manipulations of the vendors onto the mess and I don’t know why anyone would ever start a bike shop now unless it was a corporate sponsored one, and then it’s them that are starting it, not the person (at least I hope they aren’t on the line for it).
Many categories of business are running into the same problems. Vendors cutting the legs out from under dealers and resellers. It’s a self-destructive impulse. I tried to get bike dealers in the are to join together over 10 years ago. I offered that by working together, the local group could achieve far more for the community and for each other than running along separately. Now three of the shops are gone. One big one was dropped by their number one vendor. I don’t know if anything can stop the carnage, but if it continues, the whole market will suffer. Yeah, maybe getting all the bike shops to work together was a pipe dream, but it has worked for car dealers in many areas. The only way to get corporate attention is to make yourself big enough to be noticed it would seem. But enough…
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, etc… Cheers…
Well, the european bike industry market currently suffers badly…bikes up to 1500 USD are hardly sold, very high priced bikes do sell in low quantities, the customers will always have that money.
Regarding the trainer market, there is a solid european company (elite) with conservative sellling strategies and than there are the us ones…
Garmin trainers were sold wiht major losses and dealer were companesated, just to sell and get market share…Wahoo changed sales teams and strategies, but ignored market and small up to medium dealerships oppiions…the mostly focused on big outlets and all hoped for good sales…
Those sales did not happen and the big outlets needed money back, so they dumped prices below costs…with that behaviour they pi… off a huge volume of retailers, because the stock they had , was all of sudden worthless, sales went down to zero and customers went crazy, because trainers costs 300 euros less than they have payed for…
The whole market does not suffer, the market is already destroyed, there are not many trainer sales, not as many as companies would need to compensate their losses…or at least to get rid of the huge stock they bought…
Wahoo now runs into a couple of problems…after seeing prices drop and after seeing wahoo sell below dealer prices, most of the dealers dropped the brand anyway by just not ordering after the stock was gone (which had to be sold with losses)
this happened in our case…
Wahoo now tries to focuse on flagshipoutlets, maybe they want to control prices with that, problem will be, there is always a certain marketable quantity related to price…of course, low prices cause higher sales…
the european indoor season is going on for 3-4 months, depends on weather…BUT ALL Sales usually are done by now, the following months usually are low trainersales even in normal economic times…
So, even Wahoo reduces their outlets they are not able to manipulate interest or total sales in the market.
Swift just did a newsletter with the 499 trainer…so loads of people buy it because they are newbies and like zwift , i am not up to date regarding the law suit wahoo-zwift…so, not clear if wahoo benefits from zwift sales?
In Europe, Wahoo was able to avoid any bad press about their problems…i was not able to find any post or article, no where…i started a thread in another forum and people were not happy, told be names and wahoo still alive…they stated, that they just got a new trainer swapped for a 4 year old one, due to bluetooth issues…
So, i wonder why european press still does not communicate the status wahoo is in ?
We got our money back by the way…so we kicked out all the items from the webshop and will sell our stock on ebay and donate the money to Ukraine 
Merry Christmas everybody…
Well, the interest of a local bike store is earning money, why shoudnt the shop repair stuff for money, normal bikes or trainerbikes…
The question you have to ask is, why should a lbs stock a kickr bike in the store, have people ride it, test it…and then not accepting the price…they will go to cheaper sources, which in this case is wahoo directly which most of the times is the cheapest…they just mailed another boxing days sale to me , by the way!
the same goes for trainers…
So it is also a problem of customers, who do not want to pay for extra service in lbs…they come , test like it, but order is somewhere else…
We have sold a couple of trainers with small discount…the clients still stop by and if we lower prices, they will not be amused, seeing trainers with huge discounts…the margins for lbs are gone anyway…some counts for garmin by the way…
Wahoo probably does not have a choice and just sells as much as they can now…, because sales will increase with every week in europe because of the ending of indoor season…
In Germany they use a forwarder with special service…very expensive for peloton…
In Frankfurt, peloton store is located at the most expensice part where Luis V. has its flag ship store…very, very expensive to have a store there…
I’d be happy if more devices like hometrainers were repaired rather than replaced when they fail outside warranty. And it fits right into the “right to repair” legislation.
I just don’t see how hometrainer repair could become a profitable side-business for local bike shops?
My assumptions are, that volume must be very low compared to the amount of bikes being sold and hometrainers require much less repairs than bikes that are subject to wear and tear through outside riding. There are few opportunities for selling upgrades after the initial sale compared to a bike, and you would probably need to acquire competencies, tools and stock parts in order to service hometrainers.
@Larzi Agreed. From a repair perspective indoor trainer design also isn’t standardized like bikes. They’re different, so you’d have to get training (or access to training resources) on a wide range or specialize. The only way I could imagine actually making money is the manufacturers giving access to manuals and instructions, shipping repair items to a dealer as needed, and then the dealer charging for labor.
It’s ridiculous that bike trainer manufacturers get away with not providing exploded diagrams and complete service parts. I guess WE let them get away with it.
If you buy a $1000 treadmill, you usually get a 2-3 year warranty and you can buy spare parts yourself for 5-10+ years.
Example:
https://www.iconservice.com/model/parts?modelNumber=NTL14129&version=9
3rd party sellers have spare parts too:
At least where I live, the LBS can barely keep up with bike repairs so I’m not sure adding on trainer repair would improve things. From the wahoo Kickr bike facebook and Reddit groups wahoo has been pretty good about sending out replacement parts which are, for the most part, easily replaced by the consumer. Or replace the entire bike. I’m just not sure how repairing the bike would be more efficient than sending out a new part to that consumer that arrives in 2 days
I think some trainers are repaired. When my Elite Volano broke (a bearing went out), I asked my LBS whether they wanted to keep the old unit. They said yes. They had another Volano in their showroom which they use e. g. for bike fit purposes.
I’d really be nice if belts and bearings were user-replaceable. If it weren’t for the bearing, I would have kept the Volano, it worked just fine for me.
Depending on the trainer some are. I had an elite direto that the belt broke and they sent me a new one. Other user’s had the circuit board die and elite sent them a replacement.
My old saris fluid trainer leaked and then sent that replacement part.
I don’t know all the user replaceable parts but obviously the handlebars, cranks, seatpost, bolts, shifters have been replaced by Wahoo.
I’m not familiar with the full details of “right to repair” laws but does it mean every part must be user repairable? I know of it with regards to things like replacing iPhone screens.
I’m just trying to understand how it applies with something like a wahoo Kickr bike when many parts can be replaced.
Well that is no bueno…
That is ouchy.
I love the phrase : “a liquidity-enhancing transaction” !
Reminds me of Cuba Gooding Jr…
I’m sure this was already mentioned, but as the clouds continue to darken… I can’t help but envision a future where Wahoo files for chapter 11/12/? and ends up with Zwift as part or whole owner. Probably crazy and not practical since I have no idea in matters like this, but there’d be a certain irony to it with all that has happened around and between them.
I wonder how much the Speedplay acquisition affected Wahoo’s overall financial situation? It probably also doesn’t help that the company was shipping heavy items like Kickrs back and forth to customers experiencing technical problems for free.