Supporting your local bike shop during COVID-19

During these challenging times it is wonderful to see more folks and families returning to cycling to support their physical and mental wellbeing.  We are also seeing an uptake in active transport as cycling provides a fun, cheap and healthy alternative to public transport. 

With community safety in mind, bike stores are changing the way they work to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and to keep the cycling community pedalling. We recommend contacting your local store to ensure you are aware of what process and procedures they have in place.

Find below some changes your local bike shop might be adopting to ensure the safety of their staff and customers. 

• taking extra precautions and using disinfectant on all contact surfaces.
• reducing the daily number of employees to minimise the number of people in the shop at once.
• employees are practicing social distancing other safety precautions.
• encouraging customers to visit their webstore for parts, and to call or email if they have any questions.
• if they are accepting bike for services, an appointment only system may apply.
• new services like customer pick up and drop off services, car park handovers and over the phone payments may be in place.
• customers will be asked to remove personal items from their bike prior to services e.g. water bottles, bike computers etc.
• during this time, they may not be offering bike fitting or set up services.
• prohibiting customers from trying on clothing and helmets, or using a “loan” helmet.
• if customers purchase items and need to return them, that item will be placed in quarantine for a period. There is not specific data on how long the virus can survive on clothes.  It depends largely on the environment conditions – temperature and humidity.
• employ the use of face masks for washing bikes to reduce the risk to staff of inhaling vaporised virus particles.
• place hand sensitisers facilities at the entry to the shop and encourage everyone entering to wash their hands.
• queue control maybe in place outside of shops to manage social distance guidelines.

Tag your local bike shop to let them know you value their commitment and effort in assisting us to all to #ridewell through COVID-19. Posts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Please see our Coronavirus Q&A for cyclists and Coronavirus update for Cyclists stories for our recommendations to stay safe.