Elbeinlaw

Thank you for asking. We bought two Trek Verve "Low Entry" bikes because we are a bit more unflexible than we were 20 years ago. I've owned bikes that I bought and maintained since 1978, so I'm not a neophyte. But my last new bike was from some time in the 2010s. At that point, disc brakes were in the very-high-end bikes and probably mountain bikes. I never worked on them. Index shifting was pretty new in the general bike market, like my Fuji Absolut. But the main technology was pretty much what it had been.

The Treks both have disk (disc?) brakes. I figure I'll get it sooner or later. But there are things that I should be able to find in a manual: like, when I removed and replaced the quick release front wheel on my wife's bike, the brake pads were jammed. I figured it out (largely because I'd seen a disk-brake-unjammer tool on the internet and wondered, "Gee, I wonder what that's for?") So I figured out how to do that, but I'm going to have to work throught the disk brake technology.

The bigger challenge came next. I went to quick release the wheels on my bike, a Verge 3. I'd never seen anything like it: quick release on one side and an attached-to-the-frame nut on the other side. Maybe this is new technology as of 30 years ago, maybe it's proprietary--I have no way of knowing. In fact--and here's the main point--I don't know what to call it, so looking it up didn't work. If I had a manual, with an identification of parts, I'd have been able to identify what it was. And to look it up.

Now, I know as sure as I'm living (if you can call this living) that one of you is going to tell me what the damn thing is called, other than all of the things I've called it in about 3 different languages. Or, equally beside the point, tell me how to use the quick release. I'd appreciate the advice, but that's not the point I'm making. The point is that an instruction manual should describe every part of the bike. E.g. "this is a derailler." "This is a disk brake." "This is a seat post." "This is our patented Trek Non-quick-release-release front axle." Particularly in newer technology, that's pretty obvious to me that they owe me this. They don't want to print it out to save ink and trees and dollars, OK: put the details on line. In fact, give me a manual with links to each page on your site.

But these people do nothing. And when I talked to Trek, they were less than useless. They were useless with a 35 minute wait. I don't care if it's just because I'm old and grumpy. That's bullshirt not to provide elementary information. I'd never recommend Treks to anyone just for this reason. If you don't support your product I don't support you and I will tell everyone I know that that's your corporate attitude.

And that's the end of my b***h session. Thank you all for listening. If anyone wants to light torches and up pitch forks, I'm in.