FEATURE
Whether it’s managing myself or managing a team, over the last year, I’ve found a lot of these different roles have been things I’ve taken on. That’s where I’m finding there are lots of ways where I’m using my time to train.
The challenge here being, when you’re training, you’re not bringing in the revenue that you need to run the training and operate the shop. So there’s this fine balance - and I’m sure this happens at a corporate, organisational level as well - between revenue, investment, and training, looking to get that balance right.
Tell us about Cairney Cycles. Give us a sense of who your customer is? I’m quite fortunate. We’ve got Clydesdale Colts and a wide variety of other cycle clubs, both road and mountain bike, pump track racers, BMXers, UCI Flatlanders that I work with. So, I have quite a good variety of customers. Experience from a variety of disciplines is important for mechanics. I love the area we’re from, but it’s quite a poor area, so we get a lot of bread-and-butter bikes - Carrera, Apollo - all these sorts of things. I emphasise that whatever it is, it needs regular maintenance and needs to be looked after. At any price point, it meets a need. Now, we’re seeing customers who are racing, and they have different wants and needs. Here, we’re working to deliver high-quality at an affordable community rate. I’m trying to bring in the partnership model so that we’re providing young mechanics with experience working with high-end equipment and meeting customers with more performance-based needs. My focus is that we’re giving training to the kind of younger techs so that when they go into a bike shop in an area that’s selling these sorts of products, they’ve experience
www.bikebiz.com April 2025 | 47
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