Burton

Actually I gave up on this thread after running 'njkayaker' through Google and deciding that someone needs to get a life. Indications are there are multiple bored intellects at work here but honestly - I have better things to do myself.

njkayaker

You really think there's only one njkayaker? Do you make snowboards?

SlimRider

I've always respected you, Scott...

Burton

Naaaw .... I'm not quite THAT dense. But you do have a fairly distinctive style of writing and a habit of beating a subject to death that's pretty hard to duplicate and fairly easy to pick out.



And I'm sure everyone here is a nice guy in real life, but regardless, I'd be more interested in making some riding buddies rather than meeting some people to argue, one-up or bait, so this thread really has lost any interest for me. Nothing personal.

njkayaker

ThermionicScott 

Hey, I respect you too, but you've gotta admit you enjoy a little friendly sparring here.

Digital_Cowboy

Agreed, whatever happened to saving up to purchase something. As if I'm not mistaken wasn't it a great embarrassment to our parents/grandparents to ask to purchase something on credit?

If one can't afford to purchase something at the time that they want/need it what is wrong with putting it on layaway?

Where is the logic in taking out a loan to purchase a TV set or a computer or home entertainment system?

ThermionicScott 

"I want it now!!"

Digital_Cowboy

Hence the problem we are now seeing where not only people but companies and countries that are going bankrupt.

Also as I've said there was a time when our parents, grandparents or great-grandparents (depending on the age of the member) were embarrassed to have to ask a business to be able to purchase something on credit.

But sadly, nowadays it is common place for people to buy things on credit. And then sadly, they end up going deeper and deeper into debt and then wonder why they're in so much debt.

whitefiretiger

credit? whats credit? oh you talking about how those weird little plastic cards that people think are money?

lol sorry. ive never had a credit card or taken out a loan. im poor and im fine with that. i only buy something if i can pay for it in full.
i do have debt but hospitals are thieves and are the only reason i have debt.

and you dont have to spend a ton to get a good bike. i got a giant iguana for $15 on a garage sale. the gal knew squat about bikes and wanted it gone because it was her late husbands bike.

Digital_Cowboy

That and the way that "everyone" wants to "finance" everything these days. The "newest" commercial that I've seen for one of those companies that allows one to check all three of their credit scores has a person in a TV store or at least the electronics section of a larger store wanting to buy a "big screen TV" and asking the salesperson if they "finance." And then "learning" that that he has not one, but three credit scores and that one is low enough to mess up his overall credit score.

I've heard some horror stories about how hospitals will charge a person the price of a full bottle of aspirin just for a couple of aspirins. Or how they'll "overcharge" for a band-aid, or what have you.

While I can understand, and appreciate why she was doing what she was, it would be nice if someone who did know bikes and knowing what she had would offer at least a reasonable price for it in the name of both honesty and karma.

whitefiretiger

I don't want to know my credit score after my week long stay with ER surgery. The one bill they forgave was $60,000 and that wasn't all of it. Shoot they charged $15 for "mucus desposal devices" aka a small box of facial tissues. And they charged for pillows and I didn't get to keep them.

As for the bike I told the lady it was a good name bike and if I had it is have given her $100 without thinking. She told me if I had the $15 she marked it it was mine. I rode it home as a 3spd as the read deralier wasn't working quite right. It was good buy either way as I had one bike at the time and it was in process of a full rebuild due to biweekly issues. One week front wheel bearings two weeks later head set failed and so on so I fixed all at once but now I'm blathering. The giant took a new shifters cable and worked like new. A bit of lube and rode it till I traded it to a guy that got in too a miss buying a project bike with no bike knowledge. So in the end the lady did me a good deed with the bike and I passed the deed to another in need.

zenith

I kinda see the things have gone out of topic here. I admit it I didn't read all the pages. I would like to had my 2 cent on the original post.
I have nothing against department store bikes. Yes they are cheap, yes they are not well made/assembled but if they are selling them its because there's customer for them. Not everyone wants to spend money on a 1000$ bike. I did not at and still I'm not. I ride dep store bikes. I have a 1994 CCM from Canadian Tire that was sold for $100 back then. I rode the thing everywhere through everything. I even did a 300km cyclothon with it. It's not even a road bike but an overweight ATB. What part did I changed on it? The rims. I still have the factory tires, my commuting tires, original seat, bars, shifters and derailleur. Mountain biking is not easy on any bikes so yes my rims have bent. The gears and brakes are mostly in good order and I have nothing but good thing to say about this old bike. Then comes all the others, free spirits, Leader, Super Cycle and so on. Love them all.
About the shoppe that didn't want to check the bike. Well my local store is saying the same thing. I asked why. They told me it was because those bikes are never staying adjusted and it was not worthed trying to work on them. I fix bikes for people and it is true. They are hard to adjust most of the time and it gets really frustrating so you can't do an accurate job. I don't think they wanted to snob anyone but save their backs having to fix again and again the same bike under a sort of warranty.
That's my 2 cent.

SlimRider

If you're a competent bicycle mechanic, once you've repaired a bicycle, there should be no recurrence of the same problem. That would be indicative of incompetence. If you don't know how to properly use a wrench, then put it down and let a more proficient person with greater skill handle the job.

That's just common sense...

- Slim

Digital_Cowboy

IF any "industry" needs to have more regulatory control it's hospitals. Given their penchant to overcharge for what we could get cheaper at the local pharmacy/department or grocery store.

At least you made the offer, and she told you what she wanted.

DX-MAN

Yup, we all agree (except gpsblake) that BBS BSO's are cheap and poorly turned out; as one who has to perform 'heroics' to make them rideable, I couldn't agree more. I just want to say one thing about your anecdote of the 1994 CCM:

I had a 1997 HUFFY, their 'Blades' model, an 18-spd rigid, that lasted 6 hard years, all with original equipment! I know how they CAN be -- but that's not really the case any longer. $100 in 1994, 1997, even 2000, could buy a low-end, but still acceptable, BSO.

No longer.

In their ongoing attempts to hold the line on prices over the last decade, Walmart has allowed, even encouraged, a quality reduction in bikes/parts that can only be adequately described as an AVALANCHE. What used to come on a bike priced at $120-140, now starts at $200, IF you're lucky. (I was, in fact, AMAZED that Roadmaster actually upgraded their 'Mt. Sport' line, renaming it 'Granite Peak', and adding alloy rims, a 3-pc crankset, and SRAM shifters, while keeping the price point the same!)

How the company that is reputed to have built the race bikes for 7-11 30 years ago, and produced the hardy Blades, has fallen....

3 years ago, we ran through a series of the 12"-wheeled Huffy RockIt model, for little boys; 40% rear hub failure out of the box! Last year, the WORST WELDS I HAVE EVER SEEN ON A BIKE showed up on a handful of Ladies' Cranbrooks. Tires with bubbled sidewalls, beads that WILL NOT evenly seat on those crap rims (themselves with welds so slagged they needed FILING before a tube would hold air!); I was helping a couple of seniors look at bikes one day. The husband asked about the Cranbrook, and I honestly (bluntly) steered him away from them. After quietly denouncing the brand as 'no longer acceptable', the wife spoke up, indignantly telling me she'd RETIRED from Huffy when it was located in Ohio! I looked at her directly, and told her that she had taken the quality with her when she retired.

One one hand, I think it's a bit silly to think that ANYONE would take these things to an LBS for work -- then I remember, most BBS's don't have people like me, who know what they're doing. (It's not bragging when you can back it up, right?)

I even tried moonlighting out of my garage, repairing the BBS bikes; I got ONE customer for a flat repair, who was indignant when I didn't give her the repair for the cost of the tube! Other than that, I wasted quite a few evenings sitting in my garage with a sign at the end of my driveway (yes, I posted ads around town). People would rather just return those things, thinking a NEW ONE will solve all their problems. A handful of customers over the years have left totally, after 3-4 exchanges of crap bikes that had one problem after another (of course, it COULDN'T be the bike, it HAD to be US assemblers).

Wow, I sure have rambled HERE.....

njkayaker

LBS have many bicycles that cost much less that $1000.

njkayaker

This is Walmart's basic business model. It can't go on forever (while maintaining a reasonable quality). Manufacturers entering into agreements with Walmart devalue their brand to Walmart's advantage, while they lose out in the end.

HokuLoa

Unbelievable that some here are stilling trying to lay blame with the LBS and their wrenches. Boggles the mind. I'll chalk it up to "internet experts" who clearly have not worked on enough BBS BSOs to have learned the lesson that the problem is with the original quality of the bike. Wally cheaps out for further profit, Wally's customers demand cheap and don't know any better, Wally's bikes fail (or perhaps succeed for the limited role the "cheapness" intended), cheap Wally customer unwittingly demands a fix and performance that is inconsistent with the quality and intended use of the cheap Wally bike...

Heavy emphasis on "cheap." One way or another one gets what one pays for. Anyone who cannot see that with the BBS bikes is ignoring the facts or is unwilling to admit to them. They are not useless bikes but their intended use is far more limited. To expect more from such a cheap option is just silly. To view this as the fault or responsibility of the LBS is just delusional. They are entirely different markets. The cheap and frankly built to be disposable versus the more expensive and generally built for the long term. It really is as simple as that...

FYI, I have way more respect for an LBS that tells their customers like it is and plays good advocate rather than doing repairs that exceed the value of the bike. The customer is almost always better off knowing why the repairs don't make sense and is served far better by being educated for the long term about cycles and quality. Turd polishing is actually a disservice in the long run.

Monster Pete

That's true, though I think the perceived problem here in the OP is that the LBS mechanic offered no explanation or advice whatsoever, other than 'I don't work on those.' Simply explaining why would have gone a long way.

SlimRider

Most BBS objects or Walgooses, if you will, are quite capable of being repaired. Most can be routinely repaired without any extra fanfare, just like any other bicycle. So what, if the price of the repair exceeds the original cost of the bike. It's not you're job to determine the value of the bicycle, but to provide a service to your prospective customers, who are willing to to pay cash.

HokuLoa

True, but that OP topic has degenerated into page after painful page of hand wringing about what LBSs should or should not be obliged to work on. Totally silly. The OP can be explained by poor customer service that could have nothing to do with BBS or even bikes.

HokuLoa

Look Slim, you were earlier deriding the wrenching ability of a poster because you think BBS bikes will not have a recurrence of the problem so it must be the wrench not the bike. That opinion has plenty of real world evidence to the contrary. That aside, say an LBS looks at a $150 MSRP BBS ride that needs $150 or more in work to be serviceable. By experience if they know that the hassle in getting it right will necessitate a rising shop bill and a high degree of likelihood for repeat repairs then the responsible role is to educate the customer rather than indulge their ignorance. Doing the latter costs the customer more money and hassle in the long run and frankly results in a less positive cycling experience.

A good LBS/shop is like a good wrench friend. If a friend brings me a dog to work on that approaches $150 in cost (labor not included) my immediate advice is that we locate a used, better built, better lasting bike in the same price range. Good shops do the same and play responsible advocate. They don't waste their time indulging a bike ignorant public and a cheap, disposable, toy bike market.

More specifically to your point though it isn't the cost of the bike (which you call "value") that is the concern of the LBS. It is actually the VALUE. The low VALUE of the BBS rides is often that despite injection of cash and hrs of work the VALUE remains relatively unchanged. The value added is often only in the replaced components and frankly even those can lose value when strapped onto the the existing low VALUE bike. There is far better VALUE in many used bikes that COST the same as the repairs requested by an uninformed public. It really is pretty simple economics for people who know bikes and relative VALUES.

Abe Froman

One thing I always find crazy is that a BBS is a retailer. Often times the retail markup is 100%. It is sometime lower with bikes, especially at a LBS, but now think that a bike you pay $100 for retail, cost the retailer somewhere between $50-75.

There's brand licensing, ship freight, customs, tariffs, warehousing, truck freight, etc, cutting right down to it, that $100 bike bought from a BBS cost the factory probably in the range of $15-$30 to manufacture.

HokuLoa

Is it any wonder why they locate their bike section in the toy department rather than in sporting goods...? The BBS cater to a segment of the market that demands little except rock bottom price and unfortunately they usually get exactly that and no more.