Merry Christmas from your local bike mechanic
Here is a list I have compiled of things I have heard/seen while working in the industry.
“Man I have this sweet bike, got it at a great price. Pretty sure it was used for some real crazy downhill riding and stuff.”
The more you talk about how great your bike is, the more you devalue any claim you have made previously. As soon as someone comes into the shop and begins to defend their purchase, even before I have seen the bike, I know I’ll be in for a doozy.
This particular downhill bike was nothing more than a walmart hardtail with a dual crown (threaded!) fork. Which leads me into my next thought…
“I want to, like, fix this one up and upgrade it. What can you do?”
I can point you to our dumpster, and hand you a sales catalogue. When bike mechanics are forced to do $200 to $300 worth of repairs on a bike that we wouldn’t give $20, it kills our soul ever so slightly.
“I bought this cheap road bike from you guys, and it’s terrible. It doesn’t work nearly as well as my (insert $10k tri bike here). And I’m just using this thing for training, it should work right.”
Listen, I know where you’re coming from. I own two mountain bikes. One is a 650b fox/X0/XT Santa Cruz speedy little squishy thing that’s dainty and lightweight and is like making love to a beautiful woman that just cooked you a five course meal and lactates beer.
And then I have a 26” nearly thirty pound steel single speed grindy nasty dirty bike named Frank that is the 30-something barfly that you knocked up after a night of binging on cheap bear in that dirty biker bar.
So I get it. You have a bad bike that makes you appreciate how great your good bike is. I get it; you want to train on the bad bike so the good bike makes you super fast. I do the same, but I don’t expect my bad bike to perform as well as my great bike. That’s just a given (Hell, it doesn’t even have gears). But when you get angry at a certain bike brand because of this experience, and threaten to never buy a bike from us again if we don’t fix your shifting (aka, cable stretch that you didn’t bother tightening), that hurts my feelings.
And makes you look dumb. Don’t expect the same performance for a tenth of the bike, but if you do then please don’t bad mouth the bikes we sell because of it.
“I can get this cheaper on line.”
Then why are you here?
“It’s making a wobbly sound.”
Excuse me?
“You know, like *krchuuurgererer*”
Can I ride it?
“Well I didn’t bring it in.”
Bring it in. Always bring your bike in. Always. I have had individuals swear to me up and down that their derailleur was making weird noises, and after tightening their crank arms everything fine. Sometimes it’s not what people think it is. Keep in mind, we’re what you would call “Experts” *snickersnicker*
“What kind of deal can you cut me?”
Well, we’re giving you 10% off the bike, 20% off accessories, free lifetime service, free tune-ups, free lube-ups, free advice, free race calendars, free air (Some people charge for that), and a nice dog to play with. What else do you want? And before you start, no, I didn’t bring my kneepads.
“Don’t try to sell me on a bike, I already have one. It just needs to get fixed.”
Alright, alright. Fine. You have a bike, and it’s in front me on the rack. Without touching it I can already see that it’s a walmart special that needs a lot of money in repairs. Maybe not the most I’ve seen, but how long will you be in town? Four more years? And you want to use this bike to get to work/school/stripjoint/grocery store/IHOP? Alright…
Bear with us bike mechanics/salespeople. We’re doing our job, but we also try to save you some money. Really. When we see that a bike is either A) Very old or B) Very crappy, we try to break it to you the best way possible. Do you want us to be blunt?
We could say “Your bike is a piece of donkey dung that will be in the shop for this, that, or the other every few weeks for as long as you live and if you act now we may be able to save you time, heartache, misery, and money.”
Or, we could kindly try to reason why some bikes just aren’t worth the hassle to save. We have bikes that START at $300 that are 10x better than what you have that also come with lifetime service.
We like you THAT much.
“This is a high end bike, I paid XXXX for it back in 1995 and nothing else will ever replace this bike. My bike and I are soul-connected, and I get butthurt when you tell me that putting another grand into this bike is a waste!”
Ok, I get it. That Cannondale was the bee’s knees back in the day. It weighs 26 pounds and has STX, Rock Shox, and a funky ‘90s paintjob. No really, I think it’s a really cool bike. But could you at least TRY one of ours before hand? And no, picking up a 300 dollar hardtail that LOOKS like your bike and giving us a dirty look because it’s “so heavy” doesn’t justify your attitude.
“I need some bearings.”
OH GOD OH GOD WHYYYYYYYY ok sir what size?
“Kinda smallish.”
IT’S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT SEPUKU VIA SPOKE TIME
When buying bearings from us, we automatically assume you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s nothing against you, it’s just that the ratio of people who DO know how to work on them compared to those who are more likely to feed them to their cat is very, very high. So don’t take it personally when we ask you to come in with the item intended to be repacked and let us compare them ourselves. It’s better that way.
Because we fix not only bikes, but do-it-yourself-why-this-doesn’t-look-too-hard mistakes. And we are eager to teach you. However, you must be eager to learn.
“Why are you trying to sell me on a 26”? Twenty-Nine is superior in every single way possible and because you did this I am leaving your shop.”
Ok, before you big hoop boys jump on me, hear me out. I like a WELL BUILT 29” bike. I have been on many bikes (more than most, I assure you) and there are 29ers that I absolutely love (Jamis’s Durango 29er frame has GREAT geometry for me, but it has been discontinued. And I love Niner and Salsa).
However, if you have told me that you don’t race, only ride on the weekends sometimes with your buddy, want something for around $800, and don’t know what clipless pedals are (“What’s wrong with the plastic ones?” You ask me…), don’t get in my face when I show you a 26” hardtail with good tires, mid range Rockshox fork, X7 components, and a durable wheelset in your size.
I’m not trying to screw you. I’m trying to get you a good deal and something you will enjoy riding.
Also, for the individuals here who think “Why not sell him a more expensive bike so your shop gets more money?” Think about this. What do you think we make more money off of, bikes or accessories? Getting a guy to buy a cheaper bike, pushing a discount on our accessories, and making him buy helmet/lock/tubes/camelback/bottle/cage/etc is better for us.
“I don’t want a bike with all dem gears, that’s stupid.”
Best case scenario; another single speed junkie! Oh happy day let’s talk about racing and the freedom we feel that only comes from cutting the cables that truly hold us back!
Usual scenario; He doesn’t want to spend over $100 and looks down on you.
“Do you sell Trek?”
No, well sell X.
“Why not?”
Because we love doing business with X, they are a great company that makes a great
product.
“But I bought this trek and want it worked on.”
…I fail to see the roadblock you have stumbled upon…
“I can’t get it worked on here then?”
What makes people think this I don’t know. However in most cases, I will convince them that we are qualified to work on his $400 Trek comfort cruiser hybrid. Sometime, however, they leave the store because they only want a “qualified trek technician” to work on their bike. Jokes on them, the local Trek dealer is a pain in the butt. Any bike shop that charges you $2 for air is one that deserves to burn down.
“Can I borrow your tools?”
They don’t leave the work area, but we can sell you that tool…
“Why can’t I just use them?”
Because they are mine, you didn’t buy the bike from us, and we’ve got bills to pay?
“I keep getting flats!”
Hm, this is a fairly small volume tire for this bike, what kind of PSI do you keep in it?
“I dunno.”
Well, on the tire it says that you should have anywhere from 80-100 PSI.
“Oh well yeah I put some in until it was kinda hard and road it and then got a flat so I figured I had too much in it. Why are you popping valium right now?”
“So my stupid dad wants me to have his stupid old bike for school. It’s so stupid and I hate it and I never ride it, I just lock it up outside with my $8 cable lock from Academy all the time. But he’s coming down and he told me to get it checked out so here’s his credit card. God I’m too good for this.” *Tweets, ‘Stuck in this lame bike shop UGH but partying tonight with my girls! #partygirl #daddysmoney #sorostitute’*
Oh I’m sorry little girl, life is so hard. Your daddy has GIVEN you his old TITANIUM LEMOND as a cruise around school bike. You want to put WHAT seat on this? You know this is a Brooks saddle right? Do you even know what that is? The cables are getting rusty, you should probably… Are you paying attention to me? What are you doing? Are you tweeting again?
Had it happen more than once. Some spoiled kid comes in with a great bike that had been taken care of big time, but was just a bit older but still in perfect working order. Until the kid takes it off a few curbs, gets hit by a car because they refused to yield, left it outside to rot in the sun and rust in the rain, etc.
BMX Dads are the WORST.
“Man is this all the bikes you sell? Where are your race bikes?”
Well, we have some road racing bikes, a few tri bikes, some good mountain bikes to pick from…
“Naw naw, man, My kid needs a *Insert insanely small company BMX bike brand here*. The last one we road, *insert just as good brand here* was a POS man. Rolled like @#$& and my kid’s not going to ride anything that terrible.”
Ok, I get it, you want the best for your kid. But he’s 9, and does low-profile BMX races on some weekends. You want Chris King hubs on your kid’s BMX bike. That’s fine. But we don’t sell those. Please don’t get an attitude when we don’t have the best BMX bikes around.
You’d think it would be from the strict roadies (They can get pretty bad), or the triathletes (Oh you only do one sport? How quaint). But nope, my worst encounters have been with BMX dads.
That reminded me of another situation.
Overweight individual walks in (I got nothing against bigger people) and shows us a recumbant in a magazine. We call the company (From Holland) and order it for this guy. He can't ride a normal bike because it hurts him, apparently. So he spends thousands on this custom recumbant two-wheeled behemoth called The Orca.
We get it in, and he can't ride it. Hell the mechanics had a tough time figuring it out. So it's sat in our shop, because after he paid for it and rode it for a few weeks, he asked if we would buy it back from him at full price.
We're currently looking for a buyer.
http://rbr.info/images/stories/blog/...ima-orca-2.jpg
The reason for this post is simple. Be nice to your LBS. We’re people too. If I think of anything else, I’ll be sure to add. Most of the worst memories I’ve blocked out with hard drugs and alcohol.
Be thankful you even have a job.
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