The 1990s were ugly. The sudden influx of cash from the mountain bike boom led to a surge in incompetence and dishonesty. People would drive many miles to check out different bike shops, in search of a little lower price or a particular brand that the magazines or their friends told them was the only one to buy. Shops a hundred miles apart -- or more -- would badmouth each other’s work.
The bike business attracts competitive people. I showered plenty of napalm on other shops’ bad workmanship. The apparent easy money in the mountain bike market led to a surge in "bike shops" and increased bike sales through more generalized outdoor sports stores. Between the unprepared merchants and mechanics, and the bike industry's own rush to dump poorly designed and barely tested products into a market loaded with consumers unable to judge the merits of the so-called new improvements, there was plenty to criticize.
With the fragmentation of the bike market, all that seemed to have subsided. Overall participation dropped, and the riders who continued to ride fell into multiple categories, none of them dominant. Addicted bike collectors with sufficient funds and time might ride in several categories, but those riders are a minority. Special interest riders seek the shops that specialize in their interest, or patronize large shops that can afford to have stock in each category, and staff to cover the range of complexities. You hope so, anyway. A lot of it is just absorbing and regurgitating industry propaganda, as it was in the darkest years of the mountain bike boom. There was no time to study it all in depth, as it blasted out of the firehose. The term "retro-geezer" was coined at that time, to describe cranks like me, who critiqued the avalanche of temperamental junk that creates six problems to solve one.
The parallel lines of complicated machinery ridden hard by novice enthusiasts is ushering in a little resurgence of trash talk. Our shop is in a town with a year-round population under 7,000. Of those, only a small handful will use anything non-motorized for recreation or transportation. This is America, and normal people drive. We draw from surrounding towns, but they have even smaller populations. This makes it impossible for us to stock in depth in any category except the most basic recreational path bikes, and even that market seems to have gone a little soft this year. When one of our customers does business voluntarily or involuntarily with another shop, they sometimes share that other shop's scathing assessments of our work and knowledge. And I silently critique every bike that comes through my work station from some other mechanic's hands. I just don't bother to share my observations with the customers. I share them profanely and profusely with my fellow mechanics, on days when there are any, but that's as far as it goes.
Trash talk was a symptom of the hyper-competitive bike market of the 1990s. Now it is a symptom of the competitiveness born of famine. But competitiveness itself is a symptom of the belief that there's something to win. Part of what has driven fragmentation is habitat loss. Bikes are looking for places to thrive, or at least survive. It's Darwinian speciation, as the basic pedal-powered ancestor adapts to specific niches: varying levels of technical trail; gravel roads; sedate paths; roads; BMX tracks; freestyle parks. Shops don't shape customer interest. Customer interest shapes shops. We fight a constant battle to remain competent and relevant.
2 comments:
Trash talk didn't start in the 90s. In the early 70s in the 2nd or 3rd year of the "bike boom" i wrenched for a mid-sized shop. Along the street were three shops within about a mile and a half, ours in the middle between a large, well-established Schwinn dealer and another mid-sized shop. We lived and died by fast turnaround of repairs- the Schwinn dealer's turnaround for a flat tyre was 7 to 10 days excluding Sundays whilst we did them on the spot (we had no room to spare!)
The Schwinn dealer's mechs were quietly glad that we got all the "hammer bike" and flats business- all they and the owners were really concerned with was uncrating and building new Schwinns and could afford to turn away service of bikes they didn't sell. The other shop's mechanics and owner were often heard to trash talk our owner and mechanics (IMHO, our lead mech was and is one of the best i've ever known.) As the #2 wrench who doubled- as we all did- on sales, i took it very personally, but tried to refrain from saying anything. Our owner went so far as to tell that shop's owner to STFU or be sued (truthfully? he was badmouthing the other shops just as much)- it all got rather ugly, but the Big Boys down the street kept their opinions to themselves since Schwinn at the time was untouchable and content to let the competition eat each other.
In the end, no shop remains on that street. Our shop died of a bad business model- the owner tied up far too much capital on stock that was outdated within a year; the other non-Schwinn shop withered at the end of the boom for similar reasons; and the Schwinn shop went the way of the Schwinn Corporation...
No winner, no survivor.
I came late to the ten-speed boom, buying my first derailleur-geared bike in 1975. And I was lucky enough to have an excellent mentor to teach me how to do all of my own mechanical work. I added higher levels of skill over the subsequent years, but never had to worry about depending on a shop for the essentials. As a result, I missed out on the competitive side. When I got my first shop job, in 1980, it was one store of a two-store chain. We were the stepchild. The privileged kids worked at the other shop, where the owner spent most of his time. But we were also the profitable shop, so the owner would come raid our till. The most trash talk I heard was from the staff at that other shop, our supposed ally. And the 1990s brought competition across long distances, even across state lines. Granted it was more heated in the same town or nearby towns, but we had to deal with customers who would travel ridiculous distances to score what they thought was a deal.
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