With our impending workshop move (more on that to come soon) we are looking for a new person to join our team. Could you, or someone that you know, be 'more than just a mechanic'? For full details please see our jobs page.

Happy Pancake Day, spring is on its way..

Seasons Greetings from South Coast Bikes. Here's wishing you all the very best for the festive period, followed by what I hope is an enjoyable and fruitful new year. Please click here to see our christmas card.

2009 was quite a year here in the workshop - We serviced more bikes than ever before, had a great 'free bells and breakfast' promotional weekend and I even appeared on national TV!

Thank you all for your continuing custom and support - we've got big plans underway for 2010 and look forward to being of service to you wherever we can.

We will be available for any bike-related needs on the 29th, 30th and 31st of December and then again from the 4th of January.

Peace, grease and goodwill.

Paul.

It was such a success last year that we're doing it again. 20% off parts and labour for all existing customers during November. There are no catches, all you have to do to get your discount is:

• Have used us before.
• Mention the offer when booking
• Have your bike collected or drop it off during November 2009

And that's it. We'll automatically apply your discount and you'll get the same great levels of service we provide all year round. So if your bike needs a service or maybe you've been thinking about getting your gears, brakes or something else upgraded - there couldn't be a better time.

Here's a picture of Steve - winner of first prize from our 'free bells and breakfast extravaganza' together with his transformed bicycle. Steve had two new wheels, a new chain and freewheel, new gear and brake cables, a new front derailleur, full mudguard set and a full service. What a transformation.
He sent us the following lovely message a few days after getting his bike back.

The power is back on in the workshop and we've just made the draw for our five great prizes from last weeks 'free bells and breakfast extravaganza'. Click on the image to the right to view some excellent photos from the day (thanks Neil).

So without further ado the winners are:

1. Won by steve.henton – A completely free service including collection, delivery, labour and all parts (parts up to value of £100).
2. Won by laura – An hour of our time (at the workshop). Would you like a maintenance lesson, learn how to true a wheel, or just have us work on your bike for an hour?
3. Won by jsimpkin – Two new tyres including fitting. Just turn up at the workshop, choose two new tyres and we'll fit them for you then and there.
4. Won by barrywinchester – One of our best selling bike-care kits - delivered to your home, including a demonstration of how to use the items contained within.
5. Won by sara-sx – Finally number five - The mystery prize. What can it be? Answer - A half price service and up to £50 worth of parts for free.

(Only the first half of each winning email address is shown. If you are one of these lucky people you'll receive a confirmation email shortly.)

For those of you who had never heard of us until we provided you with a free bell - please rest assured, we will NEVER give your email address to anyone else, neither will we bombard you with emails (last year we sent four in total)

We have no power here in the workshop today as EDF are installing a new box at the end of the road. It should be back on by the end of the day. Due to the wonders of technology the phones, emails and booking system are all in operation just routing to a different location. I'm then communicating with to the guys in the workshop via mobile. We can't take card payments or print invoices but can do pretty much everything else - though admittedly with a bit of a communication delay.

Thank you to everyone whos bike we are collecting or delivering today for your patience (if you had to be patient that is, hopefully you won't even notice). It's all good practice for our disaster management plan.

A big thank you to everyone who came along on Friday and Saturday to our 'free bells and breakfast extravaganza'. The sun shined down on us, it was a great success and a real pleasure to meet so many local cyclists. We gave away hundreds of our bells, litres of coffee and juice, a lot of fruit and many of the Real Pâtisseries oh so fine croissants and pastries.

I do know that we said we would announce the winners of the prize draw today but this has had to be put back by a couple of days as I'm waiting for the photos...

After a busy summer keeping our local cyclists smoothly rolling, this Friday and Saturday (the 18th & 19th of September) Brighton and Hove’s favourite bicycle mechanics will be emerging from the workshop for their inaugural free bells, breakfast and more extravaganza.

Armed with hundreds of our new bells to give away, we're going to get out there and amongst it in glorious Brighton & Hove. Pumping up tyres, oiling chains, providing advice, and supplying and fitting our lovely new bells just for the pleasure of it.

To kick it all off we'll be hosting a "Bikers' Breakfast" from 8am-10am on Friday and 10am-Midday on Saturday. It’s taking place on Hove Lawns (directly opposite Landsdowne Place) where as well as giving away our free bells, we'll be supplying juice, coffee, croissants and more. We won't be hard to miss on the day as we'll be accompanied by our new flag (it's massive) and will be the guys in the slightly amusing t-shirts.

After this our South Coast Bikes 'Free Bell Distribution Units' will be working their way around the centre of Brighton and Hove to carry out the aforementioned bike maintenance.

We’ve also got five great prizes to give away

1. A completely free service including collection, delivery, labour and all parts (parts up to value of £100).
2. An hour of our time (at the workshop). Would you like a maintenance lesson, learn how to true a wheel, or just have us work on your bike for an hour? (Maybe you just fancy a trip to the pub) - whatever you want, it's up to you
3. Two new tyres including fitting. Just turn up at the workshop, choose two new tyres and we'll fit them for you then and there.
4. One of our best selling bike-care kits - delivered to your home, including a demonstration of how to use the items contained within.
5. Finally number five - The mystery prize. What can it be?

Anyone can enter into the draw for one of these great prizes. All they have to do is come down and see us at some point on Friday or Saturday. If you can’t make one of the breakfasts or find a ‘Free Bell Distribution Unit’, you can also enter the draw by coming down to the workshop (41 Brunswick Street West, Hove, BN3 1EL) at any time from 8am to 5pm on Friday or 10am to 5pm on Saturday.

Well I thought this might happen. Three and half months have gone by since the previous entry on this page. It's not that there hasn't been any news here at SCB, it's just that once we get into this - our busiest time of the year, updating the web site tends to take a bit of a back seat.

The main news is that we've been working hard fixing bikes. Matching demand to supply in a seasonally affected, growing business such as ours is often difficult but so far during the 09 peak season (from March to September) the longest customers have had to wait for a collection has been a week and the average has been 3-5 days. (If you think this is a lot, call some bike shops and see how long their wait is.) Of course we'd like to get the wait down even further, ideally to just a day or two and to that end we will are planning to move to a bigger workshop over the winter period. We've been in our current one for just over five years and although we'll be sad to leave, we have now quite literally out grown it.

In other news I'd like to (belatedly) welcome two new members to the team - Neil and Dave. Neil has extensive experience, especially in the MTB field having worked as a mechanic in a busy workshop in the Alps for the last five years (though he has now broken his arm and is so not fixing bikes at the moment). Dave has just returned from five years living and working in France and also rode across Canada in 2007 (oh I'd love to do that). Welcome to both.

Well that's it for now, hopefully it wont be quite so long before I next update this page.

After many hours work, the two new articles I've been writing over the winter are finished and are now up on the site.

Firstly, one question we are often asked is "how best can I look after my bike?"

Well, after a lot of time, thought and effort, we're proud to present the SCB guide to looking after your bike - no tools required. The article describes what we believe to be the simplest and best steps you can take that will have the maximum benefit to your riding experience, keeping your bike running as smoothly as possible between services.

To complement the article, we are also pleased to announce our new all-in-one care kit containing the four items you will need, as described in the article. See the link for details of the care kit and how to obtain one.

Secondly, probably the most common problem we hear of from our customers is difficulty with operating their gears. To try and assist with this I’m also pleased to present another new article – ‘Derailleur Gears: A practical guide to their use and operation’ - full of hints and tips for getting the most out of your gears.

Spring is most definitely in the air and we are looking for a new member of the Team.

Working at SCB involves being much more than just a bike mechanic. If you or someone that you know might be the person we're looking for then please have a look at the details on the Jobs page.

The first entry on the new, news page.

Very pleased to announce that two new IT features are now fully implemented and operational.

• Live availability information is now on the web site (just above where you're reading these words).
• Plus the integration of a TXT reminder facility into the booking system.

One of the things customers most often want to know, especially during the busy spring and summer months is how soon we can collect their bike. The web site now checks in real time with the workshop booking system and displays this information along the top bar. Pretty clever. Just in case you're interested - this is done using ASPTear

An occasional yet ongoing problem we have experienced is customers forgetting their bookings. Busy people have a lot going on and it happens. To try and help with this, customers (where we have their mobile number) are now sent a TXT reminder with all of the booking details. Depending on the time of the booking this reminder is sent either on the day, or the day before. This is done using Kapow

There's more to come. Over the past couple of months (our quiet season) we've been busy here at SCB with a number of projects. I just have to try and keep this page updated...