Strange Musings

[Dirtyhip]

Some bikes do not ridden.  Our poor bikes see almost too much action.  They get whooped on.

A bike came in the bike shop today.  It is around a 2015.  After the customer dropped it off for a tune, we all crowded around it, because it was new enough to put back on the showroom floor.  It didn't really need much of a tune at all.  Poor bike.  It was just sitting on flats and someone had bumped the hanger or the derailleur.  Looked to have been ridden less than 20 miles in its life.

[F_in Ray Of Sunshine]

14 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

Some bikes do not ridden.

Um, yeah, sure. 

[ChrisL]

I'm in a tough spot with 2 of my bikes.... My Mtn bike needs to have the wheels trued, at speeds over 15 mph it wants to buck me off the shimmy is so bad.  Don't have the tools or know how to do it myself.  Crosser has a busted spoke on the rear wheel and I haven't had time to drop it off either.... so I'm riding my roadie or my mtn bike slowly....

[Dirtyhip]

5 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

I'm in a tough spot with 2 of my bikes.... My Mtn bike needs to have the wheels trued, at speeds over 15 mph it wants to buck me off the shimmy is so bad.  Don't have the tools or know how to do it myself.  Crosser has a busted spoke on the rear wheel and I haven't had time to drop it off either.... so I'm riding my roadie or my mtn bike slowly....

Ouch.  I am thankful for my truing stand and my in home bike mechanic.

[maddmaxx ★]

Learning simple truing is an essential skill.  Some can even be accomplished on you bike without a truing stand, with wooden dowels or popsicle sticks held on with rubber bands as scratchers and a single spoke wrench.

[Caretaker]

10 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Learning simple truing is an essential skill.  Some can even be accomplished on you bike without a truing stand, with wooden dowels or popsicle sticks held on with rubber bands as scratchers and a single spoke wrench.

True enough.

[Dirtyhip]

17 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Learning simple truing is an essential skill.  Some can even be accomplished on you bike without a truing stand, with wooden dowels or popsicle sticks held on with rubber bands as scratchers and a single spoke wrench.

Shhhhh....some people are trying to sell some truing stands. 

[Ralphie ★]

8 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

Shhhhh....some people are trying to sell some truing stands. 

And the west of us awe hunting wabbits.

 

[maddmaxx ★]

7 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

Shhhhh....some people are trying to sell some truing stands. 

I have friends who are in a high wheel club, period costumes and the whole 9 yards.  They make appearances in parades.  They could find no bike shop willing to true a high wheel because "whine" the stands weren't large enough.  I had a couple of them over to the house, chucked the whole bike up to my repair stand and mounted single ended q tips onto the fork with rubber bands.  Then I showed them how to true.  Everyone laughed a lot about that.  You just need to be patient because that bump on the rim takes a long time to come back around.  

[Dirtyhip]

3 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

I have friends who are in a high wheel club, period costumes and the whole 9 yards.  They make appearances in parades.  They could find no bike shop willing to true a high wheel because "whine" the stands weren't large enough.  I had a couple of them over to the house, chucked the whole bike up to my repair stand and mounted single ended q tips onto the fork with rubber bands.  Then I showed them how to true.  Everyone laughed a lot about that.  You just need to be patient because that bump on the rim takes a long time to come back around.  

..and how much time did you spend on the entire gig?

There are things that we just don't make money on.  This might be one of these times.  We can't get people to pay us enough for the time we spend.  Example:  We charge $5 for a flat repair.  However, when someone walks in with a folding bike that they want a flat repair on, we are gonna charge more.  There is more to take off and more to put back together.  When you want to charge a fair amount, some people freak out at the costs.  Things have to make business sense.

I wonder how many mechanics don't like to work on Jaquars.  HAHA

[maddmaxx ★]

2 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

..and how much time did you spend on the entire gig?

There are things that we just don't make money on.  This might be one of these times.  We can't get people to pay us enough for the time we spend.  Example:  We charge $5 for a flat repair.  However, when someone walks in with a folding bike that they want a flat repair on, we are gonna charge more.  There is more to take off and more to put back together.  When you want to charge a fair amount, some people freak out at the costs.  Things have to make business sense.

I wonder how many mechanics don't like to work on Jaquars.  HAHA

I spent a weekend, one day for me to learn how and do it and one day to teach them how.  No charge.  I'm an ok bike mechanic, not a professional.  There was a time that I would repair peoples bikes just to learn how to do a job.  After a while when I discovered that folks were bringing me bikes because they were cheaping out I simply stopped.  I learned enough to be able to build my own bikes although as the last one showed there are still tricks I can learn from guys like 3a. (that was the infamous stuck bottom bracket removal)

I'm too slow to be a professional.  I'd need to crank out repairs much faster to work in a bike shop.

As to being a mechanic, whether it be bikes or race cars I'm the kind of guy who can turn out a fine product from boxes of new parts, but not be so good at repairing old broken ones.