I bum around at one of the local bike shops, helping clean or tube changes.
anyways, close to closing time, this guy in his 50s comes in. looks like a bum, has no bike, and is carrying a trader joes bag. he talks about how nice he bikes are, then goes up to the owner and talks in hushed tones. I figure he’s talking about pricing or something. Anyways he leaves and the owner says the guy came in to try and sell his bag of weed.
$1k+ bongz man
I’ve had,
A lady who was looking at a Lemond Road bike with the high end Suntour Shifty bits, Shimano 600 brakes and aero levers, Shimano 105 double cranks and decent ambrosio rims complain that for 200 dollars (in America prices that’s like, 150) the bike should really have the shifter integrated into the brake levers…
Also people who complain that their chain makes rubbing noises when they ride crosschained, and that if I tell them “don’t cross chain” they tell me “well yeah, but you can’t fix this?”.
I have tried to explain this to my girlfriend many times to no avail. 
This is basically a day in, day out occurrence for me. It’s only gotten worse as I’ve moved up the ladder from crumby neighborhood bike shop to high-zoot tridork heaven. Expectation are so low in your neighborhood shop that no one cares, while the idiot who just dropped $8000 on his new Madone can’t help but indignantly think “why shouldn’t I be able to use my 50/28?!”
I usually tell them that I can fix it by raising or lowering the derailer to the incorrect height, or by angling it so that it doesn’t shift properly.
Haha classic BC response.
TC: I’ve made the same comment once, but the shop who assembled my bike had also shortchanged me on housing so my brake cable popped out of my bars turned far enough, so I figured it had something to do with that (I was fourteen!).
jeez…
i have so many stories from working in the cracked out spot in town.
i’ll type some up later.
This. I helped open up a shop that two of my former customers from a different shop were opening. Neither of them had ever worked at a bike shop nor worked on bikes outside of changing a tube on a ride. They went to Barnett’s and came back and were trying to fix EVERYTHING. From old, busted freewheels to 20 year old, blown out trigger shifters. You name it, they tried (and more often than not, failed) to fix it. I tried to explain that there are some things you just don’t bother with. They got so mad at me until they realized.[/quote]
kassebaum’s dad?
^lulz
This thread is gold.
I was in a shop the other day perusing some tires and a guy came in holding a Bianchi with a cracked seattube. He stated, unprompted, that the bike was fine until he replaced the stock seatpost with a carbon post he bought on CL. Of course it was too small, and the dumbass just overtightened the binder. Immediately after admitting to using the wrong size seatpost, he asked the mechanic how he was going to handle warrantying the frame. The best part: the shop isn’t even a Bianchi dealer.
this thread is great.
good motivation for not working in a shop
Working in bike/ski shops was so much fun because you’re a service that people “need” and as such, you have the final say. If a customer is being a douche and you want to tell them to GTFO, you can. Of course… this is done using secret sick burns and stealth braggin.
Haha…
so when i worked at this shop in the “hood” (as hood as you can get in portland), we had a local group of crackheads that would frequent the shop with their shitty shitty bikes.
on day the whole posse rolled in, were talking two dealers, one crackhead and one crackwhore. anyway, the dealers names were dennis and pimpin willy or some shit. dennis is at the counter arguing with us about a brake adjustment when the crackwhore rolls up to the counter and starts being super loud complaining or something. dennis straight up turns to her and tells her “shut the fuck up ho, us men are talking” while slapping her across the face and continuing his conversation like nothing had happened. all three of us just stood there watching this go down. one of the craziest days.
next up, the shooting…
fuck shop people, yes offense. i called down to the lbs and asked what the price for a 105 chain was. $70. bought one on ebay for $25. called for some basic eggbeaters. $100. bought on ebay for $45. fuck the lbs
i went to cycle sport in oakland to buy an ultegra/op wheelset and they tried to put me on a 58cm cervelo. wtf
0_o
-so
first lbs told me i need to buy a compact crankset from them in order to be able to shift.
is it true that you have to use a compact crankset to run 10s ultegra?
i bet somehwere on the netz there is a bike shop lulz thread and some mechanic has posted about sol getting hte wrong size seatpost from them and trying to hammer it in his frame…lollin.
[quote=-s]first lbs told me i need to buy a compact crankset from them in order to be able to shift.
is it true that you have to use a compact crankset to run 10s ultegra?[/quote]
wat
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