BIKE.co vs Ascend

Ascend describes itself as a full-service retail platform made for bike and outdoor shops. It runs the point of sale, inventory across stores, vendor ordering and registration, ecommerce through Locally, and a service center with work orders, technician availability and repair timers. It comes with installation options, including custom hardware setup.

BIKE.co is not a retail POS. It is the erp.io Service module set up for bike repair. Quotes, work orders with visits, a week schedule, time clocked to the job, checklists and invoicing are live today. The bench board, bike records with serial check-in, parts inventory and pickup texts are on the Service roadmap.

If you run a retail bike store and want one system for the floor, the stock room and the workshop, Ascend is built for exactly that and is available today. BIKE.co is for shops that want service at the center and the rest of the business in the erp.io suite.

Ascend's help center walks through a repair that starts by scanning or typing the bike's serial number, which pulls up the customer. The work order holds a Call If Over amount so the mechanic knows when to phone before going further, internal notes, an estimated time based on the repair type, and a Save Old Parts flag. Due dates are set from a View Availability screen that assigns the job to a specific technician or to unassigned time. Parts scanned into the work order come out of inventory, and unstocked parts prompt a special order.

Mechanics can run a timer that fills in actual labor time. Marking a repair Completed sends the customer an email or text based on their contact preferences, and the Service Center can be filtered to show bikes that are Ready for pickup and payment. Ascend HQ has a Service Team Analysis report for looking at your mechanics' and service center's performance.

On the retail side, Ascend's site lists quotes, layaways, special orders, credit, debit and gift card payments, built-in Trek and QBP vendor integrations for checking availability, placing purchase orders and registering products, multi-store transfers, a mobile app for inventory, Listen360 for customer feedback, and on-site or remote installation with hardware setup.

BIKE.co is built around the repair rather than the sale. Today that means a quote with optional lines that converts into a job, visits on a week schedule with a mechanic on each, time clocked against the visit with weekly approval, and an invoice from the finished job. The Service plan adds the bike as its own record, with serial, owner, components and every past repair, a board of every bike by status, bench capacity by day, and job costing that sets labor and parts against the price. Those are planned, and the roadmap lists which phase each is in.

The checklist builder covers something shops often do on paper: the written standard. You decide what a tune-up means in your shop, write it as a template with required answers and photo questions, and publish it as an immutable version. A new mechanic works to the same standard as your head mechanic, and the rider gets a PDF showing what was checked and signed off.

BIKE.co also brings the erp.io suite: Phony answering the phone, Accounting and CFO for the books and the season, ATS for hiring, Courses for training, Chat between the counter and the bench, and Sign for waivers and rental agreements. All in one login with one set of permissions.

Pick Ascend if you run a retail bike store and want the floor, the stock room, vendor ordering and the workshop in one system that exists today. If you order from Trek or QBP every week, want hardware installed for you, and need a service center with technician availability, timers and pickup notifications this season, Ascend's own pages describe all of that.

BIKE.co makes more sense if your shop is mostly service, if you want quotes, jobs and time built around a written and versioned checklist standard now, or if you want an AI receptionist, accounting, hiring and training in the same login. Be clear-eyed that bike records, parts and pickup texts are still planned; if you need those working before the spring rush, Ascend is the safer choice this year.