It's with a heavy heart we announce that Serk as you know it will be closing its doors this Sunday. After 10 years operating as a bike shop in Beijing, the time has come for our business to evolve.
Next week we move into a new design space in 46 Fangjia Hutong, where Serk will continue with a focus on the adventures and bicycle design that has emerged as our passion.
When we started Serk 10 years ago, we specifically set out on a journey of exploration. We had no predetermined idea of what we wanted to become. Along the way we have built an amazing community of cyclists who share the same love of adventure as us. We starting exploring the frontiers of Beijing and ended up in the high mountains of Tibet and Central Asia—all the way to Everest.
While the closing of our bike shop marks the end of an era for us at Serk, it is also another pedal stroke forward on this exciting journey.
Bike shops are interesting places and we've always seen Serk as somewhat of a public institution. Not only are they a place to load up on spare tubes and replace bar tape, but also to chat with whoever is in the shop about your latest adventure, sore arse, or the reason why your left power metre reading is 1.5% higher than your right. They're a place to drool over the latest bikes, and a few times in your life, a place to ride out of on your own shiny new steed. But mostly, bike shops are about keeping people moving forward. A tweak of a derailleur here, a bit of air in the tyres there. The ideas, friendships and fun to be had in a bike shop tell you a lot about the city you inhabit, and in Beijing's case, the wider world. Over the years we have had the privilege to serve so many amazing people, from ambassadors to World Tour pros and all of the diverse and wonderful people in between who have come to be a part of the Serk family.
Unfortunately, in today's retail environment a traditional bike shop no longer makes sense.. Margins on parts and bikes have reduced considerably in recent years as the bike brands consolidate and they compete with the cheaper direct to consumer models. Add in Beijing's expensive rent and unreliable landlords and you have a situation where its very difficult to just break even. It's time for us to operate in a smarter fashion and redirect our energies towards building Serk's growing adventure and bike businesses.
Since 2014 we have been working with Chinese industry partners who share our ambition to create innovative, world class titanium bicycles and carbon parts. In the coming month we will launch the next generation Serk Ti bike, a lightweight all-terrain adventure machine we are immensely pumped to show the world. After seeing the incredible bikes released recently at NAHBS (The North American Hand-built Bike Show), we are even more excited that our new Beijing designed and built bike is spot on trend.
Finally, we want to reaffirm our focus to our community. Although the physical bike shop is no more, we've also built a great virtual community that we are intending to enhance further. We have so much knowledge, experience and passion for the bike and we want to continue sharing in a more focused and open-source way. You can expect more community talks and more focused information in our WeChat groups.
We want to thank all of you for your support and patronage. We're eternally indebted to our community and all of our amazing staff over the years. We hope you'll continue to support us, and want you to know the door at Serk will always be open.
See info below on the status of our services from now on and also a guide for our WeChat virtual communities.
@all
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