You don't need special tools. You don't need special knowledge. If you can fix a logging skidder you can fix a bike. Bring that thing over here, son! We don't need to pay those frou frou idiots at the bike shop to chip their nail polish and charge us out the wazoo!
When they finally brought the bike to me because they couldn't get the crank off they had already tried a hammer and a torch. The scorch marks were just amusing, but the bash marks damaged the threads in the crank arm so I could not use a proper puller. I ended up using our "one-way trip" crank puller: a two-pronged chisel that goes behind the crank arm, where it will actually work.
People who find the workings of a bicycle impenetrably mysterious represent one end of a spectrum. The people who sneer at the complexity of anything without a motor are at the other end. The repairs improvised by contemptuous mechanics sometimes exhibit the crude effectiveness of a chunk of stone lashed to a stick with a piece of rawhide, but more often they're just a prelude to a more expensive trip to a real bike mechanic after the dismissive Mr. Fix-it has made the problem worse. You can tell when a tinkerer has made a mistake that will help them do better, more sensitive work in the future and when someone who would rather be doing something else has simply bashed it until it either worked or went away.
I have my days when I would rather be doing something else, but I know enough to try to do good work so when the bike goes away it goes away happy and stays away for longer. I really could spend hours just staring out the window, if I could figure out how to get paid for it.
yep yep yep
ReplyDeleteIt is comforting to know that you guys can tell the difference between someone like me who is learning but makes mistakes and those who figure bikes are just like barbecues or swingsets or something.
Rantwick has come up with a GREAT idea! Mount a barbecue to the rear rack. Hmm - note to self to look for that marine BBQ...
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ReplyDeleteTry this instead
ReplyDeletehttp://biketothemoon.ibbt.be/system/files/Bike2BBQ.jpg
My local bike shop is filled with dinks who have no idea how to actualy fix anything. All UBI grads. Unbox, install.
ReplyDeleteWD40 in aw hubs, thrown out shifters that actualy could have been fixed with a wd flush, stripped threads on a crank? You need a new bike. As the towns local "Shadetree bike mechanic" I have repaired stuff those guys messed up or at least removed stems, posts, and cranks they would not touch.
Unbox, Install...I love it.
ReplyDeleteHadn't tried WD 40 as a de-earwaxing elixir for shifters. I've been using Pro Link chain lube for the deep treatment and Pro Gold PG 2000 for the spray-in light dose and preventive shot. I suppose almost any light penetrating oil would work. It needs to leave some residue to lubricate, whatever you choose.
Bike shop staffing seems to be particularly difficult since the mountain bike boom of the 1990s. A lot of newcomers jumped into the business from the retail level all the way up to manufacturing because they thought they saw easy money. Retail got very competitive, so way too many shops were fighting hard for shares of too little revenue to sustain them. Newbie enthusiasts would work dirt cheap just to get employee discounts and upstream access to the newest toys. Add to this the fact that bike mechanics need ingenuity and a sense of responsibility greater than the simple machine would seem to require. If the shop management does not recognize and foster these qualities you wind up with a shop that may be full of flashy goodies, that may maintain an impressive commercial presence, but with a dull-witted, incompetent service department and a sales staff that just spouts manufacturer propaganda.
Well, I only used wd once on sticky shifters. I was at a friends house on Siesta Key FL, and wanted a bike for the week or so I was on the beach. There was a selection of used bikes cheap, all with something wrong that the shop could not be bothered to fix. the best of the lot was a 90s steel scott mtb, with sticky triggers. I chewed him down 50 on the bike, paid, then pulled a small can of wd I had brought out(it was all I could find at my buddys house), squirted, tapped, repeat. The look on thier faces was amazing as I pedaled it away. The indexing even still worked. Liked the bike so much I still use it on the local trails.
ReplyDeleteThinking about my post, It has taken me up to a week to get a stuck stem out, I am sure a bike shop would not want to invest that much time, no matter how valuable the bike.
Our service department probably invests too much time in those difficult repairs we call "bikes from hell." I hate to walk away from something I know I can fix if I just keep working at it. We end up eating some labor costs. These are somewhat offset by the repairs that go very smoothly and by the reputation we get for being persistent, thorough and effective. I'm pretty sure we're still going broke.
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