Bike Shops Editing and Proofreading Services

A bike comes in for a gear adjustment and the mechanic finds a cracked fork steerer. The customer wants their bike back for the weekend and the crack is not obvious to anybody who is not looking for it. What happens next is a conversation that has to be had in a workshop doorway, and whether it goes well depends on whether the shop has ever written down what it does when a bike is not safe to ride.

We edit what bike shops produce — service level descriptions and what each includes, safety-critical findings procedures and their communication, workshop estimates and their approval process, refusal-to-release documentation for unsafe bikes, sales handover and setup documentation, warranty and manufacturer claim explanations, fitting and sizing records, hire and demo terms, quotations for parts with lead times, and maintenance guidance for customers. Our editors work on the finding that stops a bike leaving the workshop.

The safety-critical finding is where a bike shop's judgement meets a customer's weekend, and its failure is a technical statement without a decision. "The steerer is cracked" is a fact; the customer needs to know what the shop will and will not do. We write these so the finding is described in terms of consequence rather than component — what happens if it fails, and how suddenly — since a cracked steerer that fails without warning at speed is a different sentence from a worn chain; so the shop's position is stated plainly, whether the bike will not be released for road use, will be released with the customer's written acknowledgement, or is fine to ride while a part is ordered; so the three categories are distinguished in every estimate — must be done before riding, should be done soon and why, and can wait until next time — because a list of eleven findings priced together reads as an attempt to sell a service the customer did not want; so the cost of the safety work is separated from the cost of the original job, given that a customer who came in for a £25 gear adjustment needs to see that the £180 is a different decision; so the option of doing nothing is acknowledged with what it means; so the part's availability and the realistic date is stated, as a bike held for three weeks with no information is a customer lost; and so anything the shop found and is not charging for is mentioned. Findings communicated this way keep both the customer and the shop's judgement intact.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including workshop documentation, pricing and customer correspondence. We are editors rather than mechanics or safety advisers, and we offer no view on components, safety or liability. What we can do is turn a technical finding into a decision the customer can make.