Why buy a Bike from Aaron's Bicycle Repair?

Bicycle Assembly starts at $200 for a good quality Regular Bicycle*.

If you have a cheap bike from a department store and are just looking to have it put together, we do offer a no-frills assembly starting at $125 for an adult bike and $65 for a kids coaster brake bike. You will not get any of the extra care described below.
Many companies like Raleigh, Diamondback, Public, Brooklyn and hundreds of other online sellers partner with bike shops for assembly. The gig is, after you buy the bike online, they ship it to us and then offer to pay us a measly $75 to assemble a bike for you. As you can see below that does not even come close to doing a proper job! We used to participate but have since declined because we cannot lower our standards that much and frankly, a bike assembled for so little just would not be safe!

*A Regular Bicycle is defined as: Not electric, having a Mountain or City-type handlebar, 2 Regular Derailleurs, a Freewheel-type Rear Hub, Caliper Brakes, 2 wheels and a regular men's or women's frame.

Here's why:

    What makes a bicycle last and work well is how it is assembled. It is more important than the brand in today's homogonized bicycle marketplace. A bicycle assembled from us will last longer and work better than the exact same bike assembled elsewhere. We are not kidding, READ ON.........

    Unlike a VCR or TV, where price and brand may be the deciding factors in a purchase, a bicycle's integrity and durability come from the place purchased. A bicycle comes out of the box only partially assembled by the manufacturer. They arrive in a box about 80% assembled (if you can call it that! really parts are just hung on the bike and my or may not be adjusted). Most shops just finish the job in as little time as possible and often by the lowest skilled/paid employee. We actually dissassemble the bike and reassemble it to our demanding specifications. Examples: The individual components only come with enough grease for San Diego weather, we put enough in for Seattle weather! Wheels bearings come adjusted too tight. Spokes are often too loose. Cables are not stressed (often known as stretched). And cables, pivots and threads are not lubricated. Correcting these things well make your bike trouble-free and last longer!

    Each bolt and nut (threaded part example: pedal) is lubricated (oil for bolts 5mm and smaller, grease for bolts 6mm and larger) to allow the proper torque to be reached and prevent corrosion. Counterintuitively, lube allows a bolt to be torqued easier and stay tight better than a dry bolt. All the places where your body connects to the bike are of particular importance (stem, bars, seat, pedals, cranks, wheels). We can't even count the number of times a customer has come in with a loose seat bolt. Properly greased, and torqued, a seat bolt will NEVER come loose!

    The spoke tension of the factory built wheels is always too loose. We tension each spoke to 200 pounds tension each, then stress relieve the entire wheel. This will make the wheels stay true longer and break fewer spokes We also lubricate each spoke nipple with a special blend of Anti-Seize and Phil Wood Oil to make sure they will always turn.

    We add grease to the wheel (hub), steering (headset) and crank (bottom braket) threads and bearings. We remove the fork and crank, spray the inside of the frame with Boeshield T-9 rustproofing. We grease the inside of the frame at the headset and bottom bracket areas to prevent rust and catch crap (rust or sand) from contaminating the bearings. We replace the lower stack headset bearings with loose balls. This triples the life of the headset and makes the steering smoother. We also add a bottom braket sleeve if one is missing/needed and they ususally are!

Below is a list of just a few of the extras things we do to make your bike last and last and last:
Approximate individual shop labor charges in (Red).

We also offer this service on bikes purchased at other shops or online.

The below table adjusts the base labor for the myriad of bicycle types and equiptment options.
Non-standard equipmentMechanic'$ Judgement  
Belt Drive + $20  
Brakes: Cantilever or V-Brake + $10 each  
Brakes: Cable Disc + $20 per brake  
Brakes: Hydraulic Disc Brakes + $30 each  
Brakes: Coaster Only - $30  
Derailleur not present - $15 each (Fixed Gear / Single Speed Bike / 1x Drivetrain)
Dropper Seatpost + $20  
Dynamo Hub / Lighting System + $30  
Electronic Shifting + $40  
Eccenteric Bottom Bracket +$20  
Freehub (aka Cassette Hub) +$20  
Full Suspension Frame + $20 each Torque all blots to specifications.
Handlebar Tape / Road Handlebars + $20  
Internally Geared Hub No Change  
Internal Routing + $20 minimum per cable Weatherizing + $40
Sliding Rear Drop-outs + $20  
Truing Wheels with Non-Standard Spokes + Shop Rate  
Tire Removal / Replace + $5 each If you want different tires.
Extras:    
Tire Sealant + $8 We use Slime®, Your choice, extra
Kickstand + $15 US-Made Greenfield®
Rust Proofing + $15 Coat the inside of a steel frame with Boeshield T-9
Fitting + $50 Measure you and your bike to make sure it fits right.

If you still want us to assemble your bike like most bike shops do, what we call the Factory Assembly, we would be happy to do so. Cost is $75 for a bike with mountian-type handlebars and $100 for a road-type bike. Quick-N-Dirty, no warranty, basic adjustments only, no extras.




Pictorial examples of things we do:


Frame Preparation

Cleaning the paint out of the Bottom Bracket threads

We remove the retainer to add more bearings.
This triples the life of the headset!
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Adding grease to XTR bottom bracket bearings.
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Adding grease to the wheel bearings
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Greasing the freewheel threads
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Greasing the Bottom Bracket threads

To prevent this:

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Adding grease to the Headset
and greasing the steer tube & star-fangled nut
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Adding grease to the headset (steering) bearings.
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Adding grease to the rear
suspension pivot bearings.
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Adding grease to Speedplay Frog Pedal bearings.
On the left is how they look purged before we remove the outboard bearing bearing shields. The shields keep the grease from reaching the inboard bearing. On the right is how they should look. We have contacted Speedplay about this problem, but they do not seem to think it is one! These are the kind of things we look for to make your bike last longer. Note: one half of the pedal has been removed for the picture
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Often the rim strips that come with your bike do not work!
Tape (white) stays put better than strips (black), but most manufactuers use strips because they are faster to install but may or may not cover all the spokes!
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*These pictures are of actual bikes disassembled by us directly from the factory. No clean-up was done before hand! We see this lack of lube all the time. Hub makers save money on grease oil and they are concerned about it leaking out during shipment. It really is up to the shop/mechanic that assembles your bike to ensure it has enough grease for the weather. We like to say that bikes come with the San Diego amount but we add the Seattle amount.