LEGO Review 31026 Bike Shop and Cafe

Preview of 31026-1 Bike Shop & Cafe

It is with mixed feelings that I start the review about this set.  The set is a fairly new set (May 2014) and it's a part of the Creator series. It would fit in perfectly with a City setup and there is a possibility to use the parts for a MOC.  The MSRP is 79.99€ in Europe($89.99 in the US) and has 1023 pieces. The mixed feelings come from the fact that when I choose sets to review, I choose them on basis of display ability.  At first sight, it does not look bad, but it seems tiny compared to the Modular building series.  It is only because of a significant price cut (52€/piece), that I bought 2 sets of the 31026-1 Bike Shop & Cafe.  This set is a part of the 3-in-1 type of creator sets so manuals for 3 different builds are included.

Theme

The Creator theme is a very vast collection of different types of builds.  It ranges from creatures to vehicles and buildings.  They are in general more detailed than City Sets and therefore also suited for AFOL's and MOC.  The sets were meant to be without minifigures in the beginning but when the theme evolved, some sets were released with minifigures and this included the 31026-1, which has 3 of them. The difficulty for building can be rated from very easy to relatively difficult.

Packaging

The packaging is simple. You have the LEGO Creator logo on it.  Then a picture of the street where you can see a scene with the 2 buildings and minifigures in action.  Below that you have the 2 other pictures of the sets you can build.  Actually the scene does remind a lot of what you can find on City sets. The back of the set shows the back of the buildings with the interior and once more, the 2 other setups with larger pictures.

Content

In the box, we can find 8 separate bags, 2 light gray plates and a bag containing the manuals. The bags are not numbered as with other sets due to its 3-in-1 nature.  I can't say I have the "wow" feeling when I look at these bags. The set is a 1k+ pieces one so I had expected more of it for some reason.

Build Experience

You can see on the picture above that 31026-1 Bike Shop & Cafe has a lot of different colors, especially the dark red and light blue which  are very special to have as building accents.  In terms of color variety it did impress me.  Once you sort the lot, you realize you do have quite a nice variety of useful building bricks.

Build Part 1: The Bike Shop

It's tiny! Is something you would say when you start building the Bike Shop. Agreed, it can not be the same as building 10224-1 The Town Hall, but it looks surprisingly well.  The ground floor has the beautiful blue walls and also the funky green slopes above the big window. The window arches are beautifully done and the grooves in the first floor walls combined with the gray accents really turned out well!  The locking mechanism feels sturdy.

There are some nice interior details.  For one  you have the kitchenette on the first floor. Very well done.  I liked the golden tap.  So absolutely vintage.  It resembles somewhat the kitchen of my first studio.  On the roof, which can be reached by ladders and a hatch, there is a little terrace with a barbecue set. Typical for small urban houses. It is my favorite part of the structure. In general, the Bike Shop part made a good impression with its build, pieces and techniques.  Because of the small size of this structure, the building goes relatively easy.

There were some issues with stability in the beginning, I broke a wall down when building, but in all, it was pleasant to build. It would fit well in a LEGO City setup folded out.  For use in a Modular Building Series, it is too small in combination with the existing buildings.  It is a relatively easy build so the younger ones will be able to have fun building this too.

Duration of the build: 54 minutes

Build Part 2: The Car

It is nothing really special this car.  It has a pair of rims  that I have not seen before.  The hood is quite nicely done with the different elevations but for the rest, it is an ordinary small yellow car.

Duration of the build: 7 minutes

Build Part 3: The Café

The Cafe seems to be larger than the Bike Shop.  The ground floor is the café.  The first floor holds a relax area and the roof has a nice botanic garden.  On the outside there is a small terrace to enjoy a cup of espresso. When you look at the outside, you see the colors dark red, sand brown and blue.  I like all 3 colors and the sand brown does go well with both the blue and the red.  Combining all three colors in the building is daring and does not work for me.  When the building is clapped out (in play-mode), it would look good in a City setup.  The curtains look pretty good from the outside. You can see a construction for a lamp and espresso-machine which are both well designed.

Duration of the build: 51 minutes I see this building especially as a showcase for colors and building techniques.  It shows you some ways to decorate windows, and how  to break up walls to give them some life.  It also shows how to construct certain items, like a workbench or a espresso-machine.

 Important also is that the café has 11 windows and 3 doors and it is about the same for the Bike Shop.

 Windows and doors are expensive if you have to buy them in pieces from s@h or Bricklink which certainly adds value to this set. In all, I like the building experience of this set. It is over 1000 pieces but it builds relatively fast.

Building Techniques

I think the entire set is a building technique at itself. Plenty of things are demonstrated

• Arches above windows
• Placement of windows next to doors
• Locking mechanism
• Combining windows
• Decorating outer walls
• Roof decoration
• Special items
• Etc...

This set has some great building techniques. Definitely feel like I learned something while building this.

Minifigures

The Suited Guy: The head is released in 2014 and already can be found in 4 different sets.It is pretty common as is the rest of this body. The torso dates from 2006 even and has appeared in 18 sets so far.  I am a bit disappointed that they have not yet updates this torso to have back printing.  The pants for Suited Guy and the rest of the minifigures are all very common unpainted ones.

Leisure Girl: Leisure girls hair is a new mold from 2014  and is unique to this set so far... but undoubtedly it will turn up in City sets to follow since it worked out well. She has a funny torso.  The lines drawn give her a more female look but kind of a superhero-female look. Nice abs!  The back has some printing too, also with the lines and black area.  I wonder if these are just the pockets of the jacket she's wearing.  Again a lost opportunity to add some more value to this new minifigure by adding some printing on the pants or perhaps even with a different color.

Bike Shop Employee: Mediocre minifigure. Don't have anything for or against it. If you look at these minifigures and compare them with the ones from the modular building series, you will find them disappointing.  The uniqueness and quantity.  It is hard to rate this section.  Creator series are not focused on minifigures so in essence, 3 minifigures is very good compared  to other sets of its kind.  But on the other hand, if you look at the price, you would probably have expected some more.

Unique Pieces

The amount of 'nice' pieces in this set was pretty good for a set of this size.  It is not overwhelming but certainly approved what I found.

• 3 pieces are strictly unique to this set.
• 1 piece is available in 1 other set besides Bike Shop & Cafe
• 18 pieces are available in this set and 5 or less other sets.

Some printed pieces like the calculator, the screen and bank notes are always nice.  There are no stickers in this set.  My favourite part is the gold tap.  The special green slope is found in other sets too, but it is the first appearance in a Creator set.  The wheels and the orange translucent cap, I just chose because I liked them, nothing really special about them. For a complete overview, you can check out Brickset.

Value For the Money

With a price of 79.99€ or $89.99 it is an expensive set for the Creator series but still acceptable.  It is also one of the larger Creator sets.  The price has not fluctuated yet but as seen it can be bought for around 60€ at this moment.  Already a nice drop from MSRP. The total pieces of this set is 1023 while it weighs 1700 grams.

• Price/Piece comes to 7.82c/piece
• Price/Gram comes to 4.71c/gram

Here  we have a nice difference between the Price/Piece and the Price/Gram.  The manual comes in triple so it adds to the weight of the set.  It is not a bad value when you look at the contents.  

Plenty of windows and doors and some good colors.

Display

I don't think there is much to display.  Sure, it are both nice buildings, but they are too small to put them in a lineup with buildings from the Modular Building Series.  Perhaps if you take a few of 31026-1 to even out the difference in pieces, you might make something of it.  The 10224-1 Town Hall has about 2700 pieces compared to the about 1000 pieces of 31026-1.  So add 1,5 more of them to this and you could have a building that could stand well in this street. However, if you want to give your kid a nice extension to their City village, this is the item to get. If you fold out the buildings, you get a very nice length of buildings. And who knows, you might learn something when you help them build it. It has SOME minifigures and a very nice array of bricks so fun guaranteed.

The price between 60 and 70€makes it a  good holiday gift buy.

Growth Potential:

I don't believe this has that much growth potential.  It is a good set, but just not for investing.  I think everybody should have one, but none will pay you "top dollar" to get one.  I also think there will be other similar sets coming out in the next few years and they will be equally or better priced. I think 31026-1 was marketed wrong.

This is not a real Creator set, nor is it a Modular Building Series.  It is also not a City set or anything else.  Perhaps it can go to 120% of its MSRP but it is doubtful.

I hope you enjoyed reading this review as much as I have writing it and building the set. Comments are always welcome!