General Cycling Discussion - Hey from Northwest Indiana...

Im basically just posting now because im waiting for photoshop to uninstall (who would have thought that it takes 30 minutes?).
Ive been a lurker on this board for about a year, and im going to share my two cents on the "LBS" we hear so often.
the LBS has been played.
when you can save $30-$2000 buying online, your LBS needs to start buying in bulk and put up a damn website.

"oh but you get free maintenance... blah blah blah"
Well son, you are a sucker. If you dont know how to work on your own bike, go to the freaking library and borrow a book on bicycle repair. I bet 99.99% of the people on this forum (this being a complete guess.. I would assume there may be at least .01% of the people here with no working limbs) could learn how to work on their own stuff.
Are you going to call your LBS when your out on a 20 mile trail in the middle of BFE?
OF COURSE NOT! Youre going to sit down and think of a way to fix your problem, or you got a heap load of walking to do!
"but i dont have the tools"
Man is granted a very special gift.. the ability to think outside the box. tools are tools. There arent many tools one needs to work on their own gear. If you dont have a $200 headset press, look at what the tool does.. now replicate that cheaply... how bout a 12" long bolt and some washers? WOW, a $1.78 headset press.

To me working on a bike is much like working on my car. If I work on my car, I know that its going to be done right (even if i dont know what im doing)!
You learn... you use references.. you figure it out.
If someone ELSE works on my car, im hoping the job is done correctly, because i dont want to be paying a **** load of money to have that same person fix an issue caused by them in the first place!

Well, welcome aboard, fellow Hoosier!

I think you might get more responses in General Cycling though, so I'm moving your thread there. I'll leave a redirect link though.

By the way, there are Local Bike Shops, and there are Local Bike Shops. ;) Some are better than others. I am fortunate to have one of the real greats in my neck of the woods. ;)

Hi drewdoog, it sounds as if you have not had good experiences with your LBS. That's indeed a shame, because it is important to keep the local businesses afloat. But, as Tom says, there's LBSs, and then there's GOOD LBss....

Welcome to Bikeforums!

East Hill

Here was the incident that started my dislike for my LBS.
I have three in the area, all owned by the same person.
When i was 16 yrs old, i saved for two years to buy a new bike.
I went online and knew the bike i wanted. a trek y50
So i take my $3800, and go down to my lbs.
I sit there looking at the bike trying to get someones attention. After doing this for 5 minutes, i finally go up to the desk and ask if i can get some help.
10 minutes later, the owner comes up to me and you can tell hes forcing himself to do it.
I asked him if he would be willing to swap out the xtr (i believe they were called SIS then) for then what was a set of grip shift twisties. He then decided to tell me why rapid fire was superior to twist and if i wanted better performance to go with the RF.
When i ride, i want to be able to dump all the gears in one motion. I dont care what are superior to you. I do not like them.
So then he tells me the only way he could do that is if i paid to have a set sent to him from his supplier!
I have no problem waiting for something, but are you kidding me? i have to pay for a set of inferior shifters for a bike that costs nearly $4000!?
what, hes only probably making $700-900 on the sale, and he cant lose $35~!!
I went online, found a site that had the bike i wanted for $200 cheaper. so i emailed and asked if they would swap out the shifters, and they said absolutley, and then asked what kind of cables and cable housing i would prefer!
two weeks later my bike arrived at my door step just the way i wanted it, and the xtr shifters were in a bag zip tied to my seatpost.
I then learned how to fix my bike myself.
Ya tru a wheel.. if the wheel is less tru then when you started, you just learned one way not to do it.

I have to say, you didn't have a good experience with your LBS.

But, you did learn how to fix your bike yourself. So in the long run you came out better, and the LBS owner did not.

East Hill