Repairs on the road with Domex Bikes

Rebecca Morley catches up with Domex Bikes – a newly launched mobile bike repair service – on how it started and how it aims to fill a gap in the market.

It’s safe to say mechanics are pretty indispensable in the bike industry – there’s an increasing number of bikes in the market now, so the need for people with good skills and experience in repair is higher than ever.

Becoming a bike mechanic is after all a “future-proof career” – that’s according to Shimano’s European Bike Mechanics Championship, which took place in Belgium in October, which also aimed to promote their role in the cycling industry.

But what about mobile mechanics? Our lives are busier than ever, and people are seeking solutions that offer as much convenience as possible, in every part of life. This presents a real opportunity for mobile bike servicing, particularly when we think about all the struggles the physical retail environment has faced over the recent years following on from the Covid pandemic.

The beginning

Domex Bikes is a mobile bicycle servicing operation based across London and Surrey, with its launch taking place earlier this year with the aim to fill a gap in the market of bike service and repair. But interestingly, its parent company Domex Ltd has already been operating for over two decades in the field of servicing kitchen appliances and white goods, with around 120,000 clients each year.

“Domex Bikes began in January 2024 but our parent company Domex Appliance Services has over 20 years of experience in the kitchen appliance world,” Paul Randall, operations manager at Domex Bikes, recently told BikeBiz.

“Domex saw a gap in the market of bicycle service and repair and brought me in (as the bike guy!) to add my industry knowledge to their established customer service and back office model.”

The bike guy

Randall has been in the bike industry for 11 years now – as a store manager at British cycle retailer Cycle Republic, a self employed mobile mechanic, head mechanic and mechanic supervisor at shared e-bike operator Forest Bikes, and now ops manager at Domex.

“I’ve been obsessed with cycling for as long as I can remember and have some decent palmares in terms of mountain passes conquered on my bike over the years,” Randall continued.

“I was approached by Domex in November last year as someone with industry knowledge, management experience who could set up and lead this new business venture. It’s been a rollercoaster but we are making the right moves and have built some great partnerships in the last nine months.”

Domex’s fleet of mechanics can visit customers at their home, at work, or at the side of the road to deliver its bike servicing – this can range from a simple quick fix like a puncture repair, all the way up to a complete strip down and bike rebuild.

Other services include hydraulic brake bleeds, groupset upgrades, bike building, and e-bike services.

While it launched initially in London and Surrey, Domex Bikes has ambitions to grow across the entire UK, offering services in cycling hot spots such as Bristol and Cambridge and other large urban environments.

High level service

But why is there demand for mobile servicing now – how have consumer expectations changed in recent times in terms of bike servicing and repair?

“Everything changed with Covid, and the landscape of mobile bike repair became filled with various one man bands operating themselves as opposed to in shops,” said Randall.

“High Street bike shops are few and far between now, and finding a really great one is hard. What we bring to this sector is a fleet of top level mechanics in state of the art workshop vans, providing a consistent high level service.

“We are the only mobile Shimano Service Centre in the country and that banner of quality and excellence gives the customer full trust in us, as opposed to the cowboy country that one man band mechanics sit in.”

So what opportunities and challenges does this sector face? “Honestly, I think that it’s all positive for us,” Randall said. “The sector has an image problem, but we solve that with our quality and our status as an SSC.

“The opportunity is there to change the industry and provide higher quality at greater convenience. I’ve got my sights on the international market after we have expanded further into the national one.”

On what the long-term future holds for Domex Bikes, and others in this sector, Randall said: “Personally, I’d like to have a training facility to develop our own mechanics, get people excited by the thought of being a bike mechanic as their profession.

“Cycling is awesome, and working in this industry can be so fulfilling. I’d love to get people into the industry, harness their passion and change people’s lives. Giving chances to people who need them and developing a workforce based on passion for bikes.”