From time to time, someone will ask us to replace every rusted part on their bike, purely for appearance. This might involve just a few bolts or lots of spotted chrome. Or they might ask if we have some miraculous treatment that will make the marks of neglect and/or cheap metal and plating disappear, returning the parts to their original luster.
Usually, once we explain the expense of such a procedure, they sigh and relent. We will do what we can, where we can, but most treatments that don't involve replacing parts require some amount of abrasion which will make the part more susceptible to surface corrosion. We do get the rare individual who declares that they will pay whatever it costs to have their jewel polished to its brightest, even if that means replacing perfectly functional and barely disfigured brake sets, for instance. And this is almost never on a bike of great value or historical significance. It's often on undistinguished, mid-grade bikes somewhere between three and 15 years old.
It's particularly irksome if the bike was kept in an abusive environment and will be returning to the same. One customer said that he'd kept his road bike -- which he snapped up for some great price -- in a damp shed, and now wanted it completely re-sparkled so that he could then clamp it into a trainer and sweat all over it. He had the mistaken impression that indoor riding would baby the bike rather than abusing it structurally and chemically.
If you hadn't gotten the memo: trainer riding is abuse. Bikes are held firmly, unable to flex and move to absorb rider inputs the way they can in regular riding. At the same time, sweat that would blow away in the apparent and actual wind drops straight onto everything, where the salts are left to work relentlessly. What never sleeps?
You can rinse and wipe the bike, but that never gets everything. Trainer duty is often the last stop in a bike's life, for a rider who has newer bikes to take out and show a good time.
For these rusty bits we were authorized to order complete replacement brake sets. As extravagant as that might be at the best of times, now with the Covid parts famine, it's a long wait. And we're less inclined to eat the freight on frivolous purchases, too. The guy did finally set an upper limit on the repair, but the last thing he told us was that he was selling the bike. So does he still care about how shiny everything is?
Other special projects have come in, too. The rider who stomped the ratchet ring out of his Bontrager hub ordered parts to convert the bike to SRAM 12-speed. Intimidated by the 14 bottom bracket standards and numerous crank axle sizes, he handed off to us to select a bottom bracket for him.
Whenever possible I use a Wheels Manufacturing thread-together bottom bracket in press-fit configurations, to avoid as many of the inherent flaws of press fit as possible. A thread-together unit keeps its bearings aligned to each other, so that they don't wear prematurely if the bearing seats in the frame itself were machined inaccurately or if they've gotten buggered from having bearing sets pounded out and pressed in a few times. Sadly for this rider, Proprietary Bullshit Strikes Again! There is no thread-together unit for this 92mm shell from Trek. He's best served to get the SRAM unit and replace it often, as the industry intended. They really delight in humping their faithful customers. But that's just consumer goods marketing in general. Loyal purchasers of "health" insurance see their premiums climb steadily. Loyal customers of wireless phone companies don't get the sweet "switch and save" inducements. Computer purchasers get rewarded with mysterious changes that make the machines slow down steadily after about the first week. I had a wonderful little Samsung tablet that I loved to carry with me to work. It allowed for all sorts of stuff beyond the capability of my phone, without the need for a full computer. Within a year it was a sluggish waste of pack weight. I nursed it along for a while. It helped save me after my computer got stolen in a break-in, but even then I was struggling to get it to do what I needed. That was pretty much its last hurrah. Thank you for your business! Maybe next time we'll use lube!
Three Specialized kids 12-inch bikes have come in without their proprietary training wheels. Loving parents or grandparents use the bikes for several kids in succession, and can't keep track of where they put the training wheels when they take them off. During the Covid famine, we were not able to get the Specialized training wheels, which bolt to a separate point on the frame rather than fitting over the rear axle in the traditional way. I love how that works, but things go wrong. Owners lose the whole wheel set or, more commonly, just lost the threaded knobs that attach the wheels to the bike frame. Knobs not sold separately. A lot of bike parts share thread sizes in common, but not these. I haven't thrown a thread gauge on there to see what it is, because the most recent customer managed to find the wheels (without the knobs), but had stripped out the holes in the frame. I inserted a couple of carriage bolts that matched some knobs we had lying around in a salvage bin, to make the wheel mount an outie rather than an innie. We have little choice: the axles on Specialized kid bike wheels are too short to support a traditional training wheel, and replacement generic kid bike wheels have been out of stock.
A couple brought their cheap smokeless mopeds in for tuneups, particularly the brakes. Their bikes used cable disc brakes, which can be a better choice than hydraulic for many customers, but only if they actually work. These wouldn't even slow the bikes down, even after they had been adjusted. It was a bit of a puzzle to figure out how to get the pads out at all to check them for wear and contamination. The pads resembled the round type used on Avid BB5 brakes, but they're smaller, so BB5 pads will not fit. The only information we could find on line about them was a forum post in which someone said that they bought a complete set of cheap, off-brand calipers with pads in them to replace the original cheap, off brand calipers when the first set of pads wore out. By all means, let's send more crap to the landfill.
I know that auto repair places will use a rebuilt caliper with pads installed as a one-step solution to stuck pistons and scorched pads, as drivers in salty environments know too well. But the stuck calipers get sent back out to a rebuilder to be reconditioned and returned to the general supply of repair parts. No one is doing that in the bike biz that I know of, and it would hardly be worth it on calipers that were cheap crap at the outset.
The two bikes, nominally identical, had minor differences. Maybe one of the bikes was an "upgrade." They both had the same crappy brakes, but for some reason one of them had 8mm socket head crank bolts, while the other one had fake 8mm bolts simulated by a molded plastic cap covering a regular 14mm hex head.
Speaking of cheap bolts, I've been noticing more and more socket head cap screws and bolts that are a sloppy fit on the wrench, and made of soft metal that rounds out immediately under no more than a normal amount of torque for their size.
Economically, it makes perfect sense. Thrift doesn't keep money in motion. A long buying cycle leaves factories barely ticking over as they wait for the next surge of demand. Wasteful consumption creates jobs, even as it plunders and pollutes the environment and turns labor into a mere line item. Depressed wages feed demand for cheap products which feed the need for cheap labor which depresses wages... You could go for a bike ride to cheer up, provided that your tubeless tires have remained sealed, your brake fluid is reasonably fresh, your suspension hasn't collapsed, and your shifters don't need new batteries.
We sipped a bit of the Kool Aid and brought in a couple of Fuji smokeless mopeds. They have rear hub motors and downtube-mounted batteries, so they're very heavy in the rear. Under a full charge at maximum assist, I wonder how readily they would pop a wheelie. To keep the weight down, they do come with a carbon fiber chain guard.
Just kidding, it's fake carbon. Nifty print, though.
The owner's manual is a bit intimidating.
Speaking of things that aren't carbon, a long-time summer customer of legendary frugality asked us to find him a replacement frame for his carbon bike, which had cracked after decades of use. He wants to transplant the entire parts gruppo from the old bike to a new frame. Carbon? I hear you can get that repaired and it works great. I actually know two riders competing on repaired carbon frames.
Carbon! It says right on it.
Whoops. Not carbon. That bike only has carbon in the seat stays and fork blades. The rest is good old, perishable aluminum. And it had perished undeniably.
He really should pick out his own frame. He won't find a brand new carbon frame with a standard threaded BB shell, but there are adapters. We also assigned his brother in law to needle him into buying a thoroughly modern marvel like the rest of the roadies in the family have. While we wait to see how that evolves, the bike hangs in our shop, moving from hook to hook as it gets in the way of one thing after another. Almost no one will ever take my advice to turn the calendar back a couple of decades and build a nice steel bike with friction shifting and conventional wheels. Ride more! Tweak less! Too boring.
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