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Misplaced Loyalty To The Local Bike Shop?

05.10.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 13 Comments

Guest poster Jeff Hemmel liked his local bike shop — until he realized he didn’t.

 We hear a lot about doing business with the LBS, or local bike shop. For the most part, I agree. These are businesses in our community, supporting our sport. Sure, I’ll get something online if it’s truly a fantastic deal. But for the most part, I try to keep things close to home.

Lately, however, I’ve been having second thoughts about which of those community shops deserves my support.

This isn’t about calling anyone out. Suffice it to say one bike shop is where I have bought two bikes, some semi-expensive wheels, numerous parts and accessories, and a decent amount of service over the years. They’re close and convenient. The other is where I have bought a few things at best, and gotten the occasional service. They’re neither close nor convenient, especially if I have to leave my bike or get there by car.

Seemingly it would be a no-brainer to keep going to Shop #1, except for one significant detail. With a couple notable exceptions, the staff is just not that friendly. And it’s not just me who thinks so. I’ve had both neighbors and friends share similar experiences. I don’t expect them to roll out the red carpet. But as a polite, friendly customer who has spent a lot of money in that shop, I do expect to feel valued when I go in there. Heck, at one time I figured I’d probably end up friends with some of these guys. Instead, I sometimes feel like I’ve annoyed them just by coming in the door. As I said, there are a couple exceptions, including one mechanic who always has a great attitude. The overall vibe, however, is just downright weird. Friendly conversation, beyond the basics, is rare. The quickest tweak usually results in a charge. The “friendly” wrench went out of his way and taught me how to do something several months back; the next time I came in one of the others made a snide comment about how much time I had wasted.

It would be easy to dismiss these negative encounters as the occasional misunderstanding or bad day. But sadly, I’ve come to expect it as the norm.

Contrast that experience with Shop #2. On the whole, I haven’t spent much money at all there. I’ve bought no bikes, and few parts. Most of my visits have been when I’m riding by and stop in for something simple. But when I walk in their door, I’m always greeted with a friendly, sincere hello. They ask how I’m doing, how’s my riding going, etc. On the occasion that I’ve mentioned a problem, they’ve immediately thrown my bike on a stand and given it a tweak. Simple, quick adjustments are never followed with a charge (I typically respond with a tip for their generosity). The one time they did do a more extensive repair — a bottom bracket replacement — they compensated for a delayed part by temporarily putting a completely different crank and bottom bracket on my bike, just so that I could keep riding rather than be left on the sidelines for a week. They’ve never asked for my long-term business. But their actions, and their friendly nature, show they deserve it.

For some reason I’ve felt some kind of strange loyalty to Shop #1. I’ve even gone so far as to defend them when others have criticized. But finally, I’ve stopped to ask myself why. Why do I support a shop that I almost dread going into? Why do I ignore a shop that always makes me feel welcome?

I urge you to support your local bike shop. But just because a shop is local doesn’t mean it deserves your business. You’ve got to feel good about where you spend your money…and they’ve got to earn it.

—————-

By the way, here’s a special offer for Bike Noob readers. The concoction called Secret Drink Mix, which Jeff profiled awhile ago, now has a new name. It’s called Skratch Labs. And they’re offering a 15% discount. Visit their website, go to Products, and place your order. Enter Bike Noob in the discount spot.

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Categories // Equipment, guest post Tags // guest post, Hemmel, LBS

Comedy of (Mechanical) Errors

01.26.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

Guest poster Jeff Hemmel finds that sometimes, rides just don’t go as they’re planned.

Just as in life, some days on the bike go smoothly…while others make you wish you had just stayed home. Proof? I offer a glimpse into today’s ride…or as I’m calling it, the comedy of mechanical errors.

7:45

Text friends (or at least the short list of friends who also work from home and thus can ride on a weekday morning), see who’s ready to ride. One’s out, one’s not responding. Begin mindless wandering on Internet.

9:00

Still no response, so come up with a solo plan. Just for grins, I’m going to tackle several Strava segments in the area and see if I can post some ridiculously fast times so everyone will think I’m a cool cyclist. Haven’t heard of Strava? It’s a GPS-based, mileage-tracking app with a social-media component…but let’s face it, it’s really just a way for people to compare themselves to others and convince themselves they’re cool cyclists.

9:15

Finally leave the house, heading toward the downtown route favored by the local cycling club. Approach the first segment I’m targeting, bordering a local country club. Pop a caffeinated energy gel into my mouth and get ready to hammer. Instead, realize I have a flat and curse the loss of precious, Strava-busting momentum. That makes two flats in about three days in the same tire…or two more than I’ve gotten in about the entire last year.

9:29

Remove the tire, lay my bike on the grass, and begin my inspection. Yes, I know that guy on YouTube does this process in 45 seconds, but I’m actually trying to find out what caused the flat…not just have it repeated another couple miles down the road. After two minutes of tentative feeling around inside the tire (does anybody really want to discover the cause with their bare fingers?) I find a tiny piece of glass. It’s buried, so I spend the next several minutes trying to dig it out.

9:35

Overcome the revulsion I have about putting something in my mouth that has been produced in a factory and attempt to blow a little bit of air into the tube to give it some shape. Nothing’s happening. Un-strap my Lezyne mini pump (hey, like a Boy Scout I’m prepared), then spend the next several minutes in frustration trying to unscrew the air hose which is housed within the pump body for storage. Curse myself for not greasing the threads.

9:38

Finally pump a little air into the tube, then start wrestling with the tire. After thousands of miles it’s decided to snap itself back into a kinked, twisting figure eight that my frazzled brain simply cannot decipher. Nice elderly lady stops by to offer assistance…obviously she’s never seen an experienced cyclist change a tire before.

9:40

Grab CO2 cartridge and let ‘er rip, anxious to get on with my ride. The tube begins to fill, then quickly the gizmo fails, adding a few greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and causing me to whine like a baby about my now-frozen hands. No spare cartridge, so go back to the mini pump.

9:50

One thousand, three-hundred-and-twelve pumps later and I’m exhausted. My tire is just on the firmer side of mushy. I’m obsessed with this Strava thing so I soldier on, ignoring the fact that I’ll soon be passing through a little rougher side of town with no spare, no patch kit, and no other tough-looking guys in badass Lycra. Okay, I do ponder for a moment who I can call should I have another problem…and wonder how long my puny self and expensive road bike will sit unnoticed while said person comes to pick me up.

9:52

Start to roll once again and realize my tire is mush. Stop, un-strap pump once again, and pump another thousand times (give or take). Tire pressure is now maybe an optimistic 70-psi.

10:00

Once again get underway, but aft water bottle is jumping wildly with every pedal stroke. Inspect and discover the cadence magnet on my crank arm is now inexplicably colliding with the remounted mini pump, which in turn is springing the bottle in question. Pedal in weird, half-arcs until I find a park bench…where I proceed to stare at the situation with all the knowledge and experience of a guy who just took 30 minutes to change a single flat tire.

10:10

Give serious consideration to the theory that a crank arm that can handle all the force generated by a Tour de France winner just bent under the weight of a 16-pound bike frame sitting on a well-manicured fairway. Un-strap pump, put it in my jersey pocket, give up on being king of the GPS-tracking-app mountain, and head home, completing a whopping 16 miles…in 1 hour and 37 minutes.

I did finally solve the mystery, or at least the part of it that didn’t involve my own incompetence. The pump bracket has mounting slots, rather than boltholes. Though the bolts seemed tight, the bracket had somehow slid to the left…just enough to derail my best-laid plans.

Hmm…maybe those Strava guys did it.

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Categories // guest post Tags // flat tire, guest post, Hemmel

Putting It All In Perspective

01.12.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

Guest poster Don Blount looks at different kinds of pain.

Suffering sometimes is all about perspective.

I recently had two old dental fillings replaced without use of anesthesia. More than a few people cringe when I tell them that story.

I did not ask for this experience. Before the dentist started the work, he tested the area with a blast of cold air and then of cold water. “You didn’t flinch,” he said. “So I’m going to try this without giving you anything. Why numb you up and have you put up with needles if you don’t have to, right?”

WHHHHAAAT????? I thought.

Maybe I didn’t flinch because I have a high pain tolerance. Maybe I didn’t flinch because I was too tense to move.

However, he assured me that he would give me anesthetic if I was in pain.

As my dentist poked, prodded, drilled, polished and went about his work, my mind drifted to cycling. Specifically it drifted to suffering on the bike.

Middle Bar.

I remembered some of the climbs I did in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains last year. I was taken on a club ride up road called Stoney Creek. I don’t remember seeing any stones or a creek, I remember a never-ending climb, pedaling squares and gasping for air.

There was another ride on Paloma Road that I I kept telling myself to just keep turning the pedals, keep turning the pedals, k-e-e-p t-u-r-n-i-n-g….. You get the idea.

And there was Middle Bar. I remembered riding (and walking) alone up a bumpy sorry-@#*! road. I never told anyone this but at one point I was going so slowly that I just toppled over and fell like a top that had lost its spin.

I was unhurt, my bike was fine but I managed to damage the new Deda handlebar tape I had put on just a few days earlier.

But all in all, this riding, this suffering, somehow made me a stronger, better rider.

And as I sat there in the dentist’s chair mouth agape, drill whining, I did not think of the fun, easy or enjoyable rides but those difficult rides. And I knew that if I could survive those bike rides then I could survive the dental work because I suffered more on those rides.

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Categories // guest post, training Tags // Blount, climbing, guest post, pain

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