ho chi minh modern bike shop

Wish I could tell you more but I was just there and didn't find much. I did find a bike parts shop that was more useful than the shops that sold bikes, but it was a bit hard to find. It was near Duong Vo Thi Sau, a bit east of DL Hai Bai Trung, near Le Van Tam Park. The shop was sandwiched between a few bike shops and I went right by it until a bike shop owner pointed me to it. Good luck. I actually found a better pump in Long Xuyen but I guess it all depends on what you are looking for. Good luck!

Thanks very much Diane!
I will definitely try to find it...

I knew a bike shop there but I can't rememeber the area...just it was a litlle bit far from the turistic area.....

Someone here used to say there was a good bike shop near the New World Hotel where Bill Clinton stayed, but since then I'd been searching for this professional bike shop for over 3 years, I s till couldn't locate it.

There are a few modernish bike shops to the west-north-west of the New World Hotel (North of the main park in Dist 1). We actually had better luck in the hill town of Bao Loc, to the north-east of HCMC. There are loads of locals getting around on multi-speed mtbs there and at least two shops with a decent range of stuff, though of course the quality isn't great. There's also at least one mechanic there pretty experienced with modern bits well with screw-on cassettes anyway. We got new rear cassettes there to deal with the hills. We only switched the largest sprockets, but they're still going strong after another 3000kms including some pretty poor maintenaince and loads of mud and rain. The bits and labour cost us about 200 000 dong in total (including brake shoes, cables and chains).

Hi everyone!

Thanks for your replies.

I thought I would add my knowledge:

We ended up finding a whole bunch of modern-ish bike "stands" in a market. We had to take taxis there from the tourist district - they were in Q5 while the tourist district is in Q1. We would tell the taxi driver "Cho (Market) Tam Thanh in Q5". It is a big outdoor market and one street has many bike parts stands all in a row, with much better stuff than in other parts of the city.

Happy Pedaling.

My two cents - I am in HCMC looking for a decent repair shop at the moment - I followed slate37's directions WNW of the New World Hotel and think I found them - from the corner of T.R. Dinh and Le Thanh (right under the shadow of the hotel) you can see 4 bike shops. Unfortunately, although they sell multispeeds they do no repairs, speak no english and didn't seem particularly willing to help me find somewhere to service my bike.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Tam Thanh market (doesn't look too far by bike actually) in the hope of finding something. Otherwise, it's cross my fingers and hope to make it to Bangkok time...

Update - I went to Tan Thanh market today, found it quite easy to get there by bike and to find the bike shops - Q5 is the old Chinese quarter and it there are maps of it in the guidebooks.

I found one guy who was quite experienced at running gear; I got a new chain ($5), sprockets ($10) and chainrings ($13) all installed well. The sprockets say shimano on them; I suppose there's a chance that is true. The other stuff is low quality. That guy was on Tan Thanh street, directly opposite shop no.99.

Hope this helps future travellers, and I hope my new gear gets me to Bangkok!