Vince, a cycling buddy, recently recounted his experience at
a local co-op style bike shop, where with the help of bike mechanics, cyclists can
work on their bike for free with in-house tools. Vince hung around nearly an
hour waiting for the on-site mechanic’s help. The guy, said Vince, was intently
tending to the bike problems of a particularly hot woman. He didn’t seem to be
in any hurry to finish his work with her. Finally, Vince just left. He proceeded
to a nearby bike store shop, where a mechanic fixed his bike problem in 15
minutes.
That story reminded me of the value of going to a bike store
shop with good mechanics. It’s been my experience that most of them do. To me, a
bike store shop is the way to go when the bike needs work. Sure, a rider can
take a class on bike mechanics and learn to do things at home instead of paying
for repairs. You might save money, but it’ll probably take you a lot longer.
And, odds are, you may not do the fix correctly. And that’s no good at all!
Then, you’ve really wasted a lot of time and still have a mechanical.
The situation reminds me of something Clint Eastwood said in
one of his classic Dirty Harry movies:
“A man’s got to know his limitations.”
Even a rider with a lot of knowledge of bike mechanics isn’t
likely to have a full array of bike tools and parts close at hand, let alone
the how to make a bike work like a Swiss watch. Which is what a good bike
mechanic can do, no problemo.
An experienced bike mechanic, in a fully equipped shop of
bike stands, parts and tools, works on bikes all day long at least five days a
week. His or her familiarity of transforming a bike with worn out parts, or out
of adjustment components, into a finely tuned machine, is the difference maker.
Most riders that work on his or her bike here and there, will never have the
sure handedness and instinctive feel of excellent bike mechanical work that a
pro mechanic has from working on bikes all the time.
I remember on my first bike, mondo years ago, I decided I
was going to true one of the wheels on my Schwinn Varsity. I assumed it was
just a matter of using a spoke wrench on a few of the spokes that looked to be
putting the wheel off of a fully round rotation. So
I started in, turning a spoke at the base here and there,
somehow thinking it would become a trued wheel with my efforts.
Well, uh, no. I ended up making the wheel more oblong than
it had been! I then spent a long time getting it back to its original somewhat out-of-true
shape, which I decided I could just live with. A perfectly true wheel wasn’t in
the cards. Taking it to a bike mechanic didn’t even occur to me, probably
because I was a broke college student.
Recently I had my trusty bike mechanic, Adaman, true the
spokes on my road bike wheels a few rides after I’d bought a new wheelset. Now,
Adaman is about as good a bike mechanic as there is and he told me how tricky
it was, even for him, to true my wheels. But, he said, it was a piece of cake after
he remembered the spokes on my particular wheels thread opposite a normal
thread. So, he said, when you first think you’re tightening a spoke, you’re
actually loosening it. Once he remembered that, it was no problem for him to
adjust the spokes’ tension on each side of the wheel to make it spin perfectly
round. For me, even if I knew the opposite thread bit, there’s no way I could
have trued the wheels as quickly as Adaman. He’s experienced. I’m not.
So sure, a bike shop is going to charge you for parts and
labor, and you may wince at the price. But in return, you get your bike riding
as it should, finely tuned, with all components in sync. The other big bonus is
that it usually doesn’t take a bike mechanic too long to fix your bike, so
you’re usually back riding with little down time. No doubt, the stuff in most
bike shops is overpriced. They have a building lease to pay, they have to keep
the lights on and pay salaries. But if they have good mechanics, they’re well
worth a visit when your bike needs work.
Java loving cyclists
A lot of cyclists like, even love, coffee, I’ve noticed. I’m one of them. And on a recent ride I
met the above mentioned Vince, a fellow rider at a rest stop. He told me he is
in the coffee roasting business. His dream is to set up a coffee/bike place
where riders could stop for a cup, and if needed, have any mechanical issues on
their bike worked on by an in-house mechanic. There are such places here and
there, though I haven’t visited one. Definitely a good place to meet other
riders, compare notes on riding, bikes, coffee, fun routes to ride, etc. I hope
more of these rider meetup places crop up in the future, just to connect more
riders with each other. What could be better?
Electronic
shifters…worth it?
Recently chatted with a rider who had an electronic shifter
on his bike. I’d only seen one other rider with that on his bike and both said
they loved the system over the traditional manual shifting.
This second rider said the only thing he worries about is
the shifter’s battery running out of juice while on a ride. So he has to make
sure it’s charged enough to make it through whatever time he intends to spend
in the saddle for each ride.
Here’s a good informational video on an electronic shifting
system for a road bike, which costs in the neighborhood of $2,600 according to
this guy. He says it’s still too early to tell whether they will become what
all riders want on their bikes. But he predicts higher end bikes will all come
equipped with them in the future. Anyway, this is a good primer on them, check
it out…
Until next time, remember to strap on a helmet every time
you get on the bike. Then keep the rubber side down, ride safely and, most
importantly, have a blast!
-- Mark Eric Larson
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