Bike shop that loves BTI and J&B Importers.

FAQ’s

What is Standard Bike Repair?

  • We fix bikes.
  • We fix it together via Watch/Help/Learn or you can drop it off.
  • We have new and used to parts to go with the repairs.
  • Sometimes, when customers and friends donate bikes, we have a used bike to sell.
  • Once in a blue moon, we will build a custom bike.
Watch/Help/Learn is a Methodology
  • It is way more fun for all parties to fix a bike together.
  • Watch/Help/Learn is a more efficient way to fix your bike, thus cheaper.
  • Why is Watch/Help/Learn more efficient? Many people call up and ask for a “tune-up.” Usually, that means there is a thing or two that is wrong with it. In W/H/L, we go after the most pressing issue first and work towards refinement. Generally, it is back to working in order within moments.
Who owns the bike shop?

Ryan Kelley

Standard Bike Repair is Run out of a Unique Cottage Home in central Boulder
Bike Shop at Night: Lots of Work to Do
  • Customers storm the bike by day.
  • By night, Ryan does real estate. And weekends. And mornings. And in between repairs/customers.
 What is a 42 Point Tune-up?
  • We consider all tune-ups to be “42 Point Tune-ups”; whether you approach the bike repair from a Drop-off standpoint or participate in a Watch/Help/Learn, we inspect 42 points on your bike. The list is here.
Are bikes “fixed on the spot”?
  • If you make an appointment for a Watch/Help/Learn, then yes, your bike will be fixed “on-the-spot”.
  • If you choose to “wing-it” and see if Ryan is around and “not busy”, then there is the risk that he will be “too busy”. For a full explanation of how Ryan runs the shop in terms of open hours told in the humorous voice of “a sign on a surf shop’s window“.
What is the best way to find Ryan immediately?
  • Most of the time, the answer is phone: (720) 837 – 8984
  • Between the facts that Ryan has a high frequency hearing loss and the phone is sometimes left on the “other side of the bike shop”, reaching Ryan by phone during daylight hours is not 100% guaranteed.
How quickly does Ryan respond to email?
  • On a good day: within an hour or three; on a “normal day,” about 5-6 hours; on a “lost day”: 24 hours; on busy weeks (sometimes more than a day).
  • ryan@standardbikerepair.com
What are the hours in a nutshell?

Winter:

  • Monday through Friday 11am to 5pm.
  • Saturdays from 11am to 3pm. Closed on Sundays.

Summer:

  • Monday through Friday: 9/10am till dark.
  • Saturday: 10 to 3pm

***For more on the hours, click here.

What is an example of an “innovative recent risk” taken by Standard Bike Repair:
  • Case in Point: Ryan promised Avery Brewing that he could build an “employee bike repair station” for a budget of $1000. Ryan spent more than that on tools, prototyping, research and development.
  • A blog post on “Standard Bike Repair Work Stand Design, Problems, and Functionality” details some of the story:

Building the first Standard Bike Repair Work Stand

We want to sell "Standard Bike Repair Stations" to the public for home-use and business applications.
Avery Brewing employee area: near the beer.

 Why does Standard Bike Repair continue to exist?

Two Major Reasons:

          1. Low Overhead
          2. Referrals from customers to their friends and family
          3. Google Rating of 5.0
          4. Ryan’s tenacity
Instagram Photo of Standard Bike Repair:

Caption is an attempt “to be funny” and also the “real-ness” of the story of Standard Bike Repair.

Reason #83 that Standard Bike Repair “continues to exist”: the bike shop sits between dumpsters.

A photo posted by Standard Bike Repair (@standardbikerepair) on

Google Rating:
  • We score high, SEO-wise. for search terms like “bike repair in Boulder”.
  • When people see Standard’s rating and that we are going into our seventh summer, the “online trust factor” is high.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
  • This is a “Big Boast.”
  • Consistent delivery is difficult.
  • Sometimes maintaing this “near perfect rating on Google” it feels like the “weight of the world”: Ryan is human; attempts to act like a “machine,” whose “competitive advantage” trait is marked as “consistency”.
  • He makes every attempt to “have compassion” and “attempts to be in your shoes” as a customer in order to deliver the “best possible bike repair service”.
  • He uses mechanical skills for the unified purpose of fixing your bike. You gain by a fixed bike. He gains by charging $60 per hour to fix the bike via Watch/Help/Learn.
Does Ryan have a daughter?
  • Yes. She is eight and has three bikes, one at her mom’s, her Grammy’s and my house which double as the bike shop. She understands which way to turns bolts and screws. She can apply tubeless sealant into a tubeless setup. Knows the difference between Presta and Schrader valves. And how to install chains and pedals.
Does Sophia live at the bike shop?

She splits time between her mom’s and dad’s house.

How many bikes does Ryan own?
      • One.

Is Ryan a “mountain biker” or a “road biker”?
      • He commutes; he uses the bike primarily for “utilitarian purposes.”
      • He does not own a car.
      • Standard is close to downtown Boulder.
      • The bike shop is a short ride to Rachel and Sophia’s.
Make meaning as opposed to Make Money
            • Guy Kawasaki, in a TEDx talk
              • as said by Deborah Perry Piscione, in Lynda.com’s Risk Taking for Leaders.
            • Ryan believes in entrepreneurship, art, community and the business model ofStandard Bike Repair: when you invest in Standard Bike Repair, you invest in a dream and an opportunity to better your knowledge about bikes.
Ryan answered the phone one day, and John Fitzgerald of Wood Partner’s said: can you build a bike shop for our apartment building in Alta House at Union Station, Denver?
          • Seeing how Ryan was “voluntarily homeless” more than one Denver night in the first few months that he arrived to Colorado.
            • Truth: Ryan could have always called his family and told them “how bad it was” and then perhaps, be wired money, but he “refused”.
                • Result: sleeping bag on a dirt field about a 100 yards from where he built his second bike shop; the first being Standard Bike Repair. Below is a Tweet of the accomplishment:

Does Ryan really let customers fix their own bikes?
          • Yes:
Example 1: Jason and Ryan invented a tool with French threading to pull out an extremely difficult fixed cup on a Peugeot.

Scott, aka the Sheriff, wanted to put bigger tires on his bike. He started by buying “wider hoops” for his hubs.
          • Start to finish:
            • Measured rim and hub
            • Put measurements into prowheelbuilder.com’s spoke calculator
            • Applied measurements to Morizumi spoke machine
              • Ryan is the only one that he knows that owns a spoke machine; meaning, there are very few owners on the Front Range with this $3000 machine. All it does is cut and thread spokes.
                • Allows Ryan to keep a “small sized inventory” in the “small sized bike shop”.
                • Space and time; the use of: extremely critical to a profitable, sustainable bike shop; owning a tool to “reduce space” exemplifies the attempt to be mindful of the “finite supply of space” and “time”.

Example 3: Hannah called and said “I would like to schedule a Watch/Help/Learn”.

          • On Saturday, January 21st, the day of the worldwide Multiple Billions Women’s March, Hannah, a grad student working in a lab during the week, and arming herself with knowledge of her bicycle on the weekend.

#watch/help/learn

A photo posted by Standard Bike Repair (@standardbikerepair) on

Tell me more about this $3000 spoke machine:
          • Seems funny that your small bike shop owns such a “nice machine”.
            • Ryan bought it because he knew no one else had one in Boulder. He wanted to earn the respect of other bike shops and owners in the area. An advanced spoke machine allowed him to provide a service heretofore un-called for: cutting and threading spokes of 12G, 13G, 14G, 15G.
              • For the many D.I.Y. wheel builders coming up with “odd machines” that carry them, their dogs, their stuff… things with wheels can be called for an immense amount of purposes. Having an “infinite supply of spokes” on hand, but in reality having 300, is a “competitive advantage”.

This machine is for cutting and threading spokes. Here we are flipping the dies. Dies last a long time.

A photo posted by Standard Bike Repair (@standardbikerepair) on

Does Ryan do “odd jobs”?
Does Ryan take in Couchsurfers.org requests?
      • On a rare summer’s day.
      • He asks that each one of them donate one hour of work per night. Maximum stay: one night.
      • For more, check about blog about Couchsurfer’s. The couple below is one example of a summer stay. The guy above “exclaiming about the red car looking thing” is also an example of a couchsurfer.
        • If he doesn’t respond to your couchsurfer request, it isn’t about what you look like, but it could be because “you don’t have a lot filled out on your profile” or you found Ryan in his “ornery time period”.
          • It isn’t easy to take strangers into your home; as you probably think (if you haven’t already tried). Sometimes the “moons and planets are aligned” so that Ryan feels the “power and receptivity” of the opportunity and play-acts the “gracious host” inspired by collegiate readings of the Robert Fagles version of Homer’s Illiad.
          • If you are a Boulder-ite, please know that many couchsurfers say that they sent requests to “like 30 people”. I joke that “there aren’t many couches in Boulder”. At Standard Bike Repair, we have one cot.

A photo posted by Standard Bike Repair (@standardbikerepair) on

Does Ryan take couchsurfers.org clients?

  • On a rare summer’s day.

Does Ryan do speaking gigs?
      • Ryan “guest” speaks here for Professor Scott Gwozdz “Business for Non-Business Majors”.
        • Leeds School of Business
        • Actively looking for new opportunities to network, speak and grow Standard Bike Repair.