bleukahuna

I've seen that same application at several local shops, I think QBP put it together. The shops that I've seen using it stock fewer parts than Walmart but they can get almost anything tomorrow. I suppose it's how they can afford to stay in business but when I go to an LBS for something mundane, like rim strips or bar tape, I think I should be able to go home with it that day. There is a shop less than 1/8 mile from me that can send me home with a $5k asian road bike but not a couple of $1.00 spokes(we can have them tommorrow, or Thursday) I usually go 15 miles to a smaller shop that has what I need when I need it.

banjo_mole 

Nah... Some Spanish and English and Archaeology, and more Sociology. I'm enjoying it for the most part, but officiallising both of the languages I enjoy used and formalizing them really kills that for me.

Miamijim, I know, I know. Ever the realist! I playfully scoff you, of course, I do indeed see what you mean entirely, I was simply allowing myself to ruffle my own feathers and pomp my C&V. Kind of like grumbling about hipsters half the time and then going to coffeeshop concerts. (Although I follow them up with rainy hikes in the hills, go into a diner after and eat juevos rancheros, so I'm a little more real than a hipster at 2am sitting with truckers, soaked and muddy and smiling.) I'm rambling.

My point is, of anyone to post so far, I'd say you and cyclotoine are most in the right on the matter, if such a thing as "right" exists in a forum. *wink*

I agree that shimano is the bread and butter of shops, but that's just not my thing as a person.

I was also thinking today about the "replace" theory mentioned here, isn't that bad on the planet? Planned obsolecence, and all that jazz? It seems like replacing broken brifters etc left and right would definitely add to the landfills, yeah?

Anyway, it's all fun.

-nick

Fibber

Sounds kind of like the experience I had last week. I have purchased several new bikes from this one establishment, along with an extensive amount of parts, accessories & tools over the years. Recently they let me pick from their boneyard of old rims to feed my C-V habit, but this past week they politely informed me that they needed to change policy and terminate picking because of a variety of reasons (some valid, others kind of BS). But no matter, I respect their right to throw stuff away or recycle without us garbage pickers raiding the bin.

I then went inside to buy some lube and a tool, whereupon one of the wrenches took issue with my desire to ride old bikes. He wasn't disrespectful, just kept saying how much better the new bikes were, and that I needed to change. I reminded him that I was a steady customer of new stock as well, but considered old bikes much as a hobby and consistent with my general overall lifestyle. I informed him that while I now own a modern home, I had spent 18 years rehabbing an 1889 farmhouse, and still fill my new home with early 1900's oak furniture. I once placed a serious bid on a 1946 Ford Tudor sedan, not because it was in any way better than my modern car, but because working on old things gives me pleasure. Would you be surprised if after all this he still didn't get it???

krems81 

Trick question: there is no difference

Whether the trick was intentional or not is another story.

krems81 

Most factory wheels today have 32 spokes. I'd say its fair to say 32 is the mean, or average. No? That's probably the answer they were looking for. I won't fault them for that question.

jebensch

Oooh fun. I wanna go:

Tell us about your bicycles and how you ride.
They're pretty and steel. I ride poorly. Like a mostly-shaved chimp plopped into the end credits of Benny Hill.

Please copy and paste the list below into the text box,
and arrange it in order of expense (highest to lowest):

Those are all made-up words. They're probably Toyotas...18 grand?

The average bicycle wheel has how many spokes in it?

I lose my place after 6.

What in your opinion are some of the hottest cycling trends today?*

Tattoos. Helmetless riding in city traffic. Explaining why you ride fixed using some vaguely-cultish watered-down take on Buddhism.

Who do you consider the world's most-famous cyclist?

Fonzie! Aaaaaayyyy...

Blue Order

I agree.

But what I mean is the kind of shop that sees a customer with a C&V bike as a pigeon. When they start teling you you should replace your bike because "steel gets all noodly and dangerous," or because "all of the components on that bike are outdated/can't be serviced," i think that's dissing the customer. They're treating the customer like a pigeon waiting to be plucked, instead of like a customer who needs their bike serviced.

On the other hand, if the bike truly is a low end POS, then the shop should do as you suggested.

paparazzi

And here we are, 4 years after this thread began, in ref to a LBS job application and, as I was looking into my own LBS application, searching who/what they were looking for in an enthusiastic employee...their application is an exact DEAD RINGER for the app you posted. Word for word.
Amazing, almost stunning and rather disappointing. I think disappointing because yesterday when I first scanned their online app, I read through it and thought "Hmmp, okay." Today I did some research I ran across this thread. *Sigh* There's no originality anywhere anymore. FOUR YEARS it's been since you posted this! LOL

ColonelJLloyd 

Right. Creative writing skills are what I look for in my LBS employees.

lostarchitect 

Maybe it's the same guy.

jimmuller 

Unfortunately the job market looks a lot like this in other fields as well, especially the modern hip version of high-tech. Ever seen the book Are You Smart Enough To Work At Google?"? If half of what it describes is true then I pity both modern industry and the folks trying to find work in it. I've seem some of that nonsense myself. It makes me want to throw away my thinking cap, except that my head would get cold (and I'd die of boredom too).

Henry III

Geez I didn't have to fill out an application for my shop position I just landed. Dropped off a resume and a minute long phone interview. The only Campy I see is the one or two customers or my own bikes I ride to work. We get paid a dollar a day to ride to work. Not much but it's a cool little incentive.

banjo_mole 

Woah. Resurrected thread.

My thoughts on a thing I wrote a million years ago, and my perspective shift since:

Past - to - present:

Shimano is everything. It dominates the bike world. If I didn't have hundreds of Altus 7/8 RD units available every year I don't know how we'd keep all the crummy bicycles people buy functional. I think what Shimano does very well (and it works for them!) is that they make really good low-end componetry, esp. compared to their competition:

1. SRAM, which makes pretty lame entry-level stuff and decent high-end stuff, and
2. Campagnolo, which makes high-end stuff that's proprietary as hell and only offers awesome performance at the highest level now. They dropped the lovely ratcheting mech in their LH shifters for all the low-to-mid range groups. I disliked that. Also, 11 speeds may be the way of the future, but I prefer some kind of chain life and less perfectionist cable tension of 6/7/8sp to the poor chain life and infinte cadence adjustability of 10/11sp groups.

Only the idealist would think running a shop full of vintage and Campy would survive, as Miamijim said a trillion years ago.

That aside, it would be neat to see OEM bicycles being made again with better stuff. Friction shifting, alloy parts and steel frames only face extinction because of marketing. Maybe, too, because people can't find the brain cells to rub together to figure out how any non-index shift system even works. Customers struggle with 7-speed GripShift, and I die a little inside every time.

I guess my point is that I'm no longer such an idealist, and I'm one more embittered, jaded bike wrench somewhere that doesn't care about anything except making my own bike a fascmille of my Personal Bicycle Agenda.

Chrome Molly

Any shop that makes you apply online vs in person is just wrong, so very very wrong...

All my bikes are a fascmille of my Personal Bicycle Agenda. I wasn't aware of any other agenda.

CenturionIM

the spoke count choices are way on the high side. Nothing < 30, seriously? my 90s centuiron accordo had 20/24, lol. Surely this shop is c&v?

noglider 

It's not the orientation of the quiz that's absurd. It's the great detail they go into, using such rigor for a stinking $10/hour job. Do they have that many unqualified applicants that they have to screen people this way? I think they wrote the quiz to make themselves feel smart, not to find the best candidates.

thedevilisbad

Maybe they don't mean clincher. Maybe they mean tubular or tubeless.

It's a dumb application, and perhaps the worst part about it is that there are no questions about one of the most valuable skills for a LBS to have, and that's customer service.

I've worked at two very nice and very modern shops. We had to know about C&V stuff as well, and we appreciated it, but the sales that kept us in business were the new parts and new bike sales. Bicycle knowledge was only part of it, that can be learned (many of us are still learning!), but the customer service side of things isn't as fast to learn or pick up on.

WyoCyclist

Apparently this is a pretty common application form that bike shops are still using in 2016. I am looking for summer work when I am home from college and two bike shops I have looked at applying to both have these identical questions. Now I am thinking they are just being lazy.

willie52

I know this is an old thread , but it's Saturday, it's raining, my shop was kinda busy today, but not too bad, and my g/f is playing on her phone.... so I can do something constructive, or reply to this. 40 years running a bike shop, and I can promise that online application isn't worth the energy your eyes use to read it.
My application is a long conversation with you. My concerns are, in no particular order, are you human? Are you somewhat clean? Can you speak in complete sentences? Do you like bikes? Do you want a job? Do you understand what a job is?( I tell you what to do, you do it properly, and I give you money, plus you will work when I tell you to work, NOT when you have nothing better to do. I'm no hardass if you want time off, fine, but do NOT tell me in our first conversation that you can't work on Saturday because there's too many cool things happening on the weekend. That will, and has ended the interview )
I hired guys 20-30-40 years ago that are friends of mine for life. They all moved on to bigger, better things after a few years, but they were smart, good mechanics, honest with everybody,and willing to put up with my **** until they learned the ropes.
I don't hire pretty boys, or condescending losers with bad attitudes. I hire good guys, we have a lot of fun and we all respect each other. I will teach you a lot, and you should remember that you're worth nothing in the beginning, but will be worth more to me every day. If you're smart and good, I can't afford to keep you forever. But a lot of my guys tell me years later that this was the best job they ever had.
If shops are really using that application, then no wonder a lot of you hate LBS. If QBP did that,they should be ashamed.

lotekmod

Old thread indeed, but I find it interesting reading the two pages of responses because I feel like everyone completely missed the point. If this is an online application a shop could get hundreds of responses and probably half or more of them are from people that know absolutely nothing about bikes. They are people desperately looking for work, any work, because the economy is still very bad. I know this because I review applications at my company I can tell you there are applicants that are so far off the mark from the listed qualifications it makes you laugh out loud. Online applications make it easy for people from all over the world to apply to any job and weeding through the junk is very time consuming.

This seemingly ridiculous application might reduce the applicants from 200 down to 20, or 50 down to 5 (depending or the local job market). For me, if you simply answered all of the questions then that shows you know -something- about bikes and can follow directions. If you answer them all intelligently and add a sense of humor, you move to the top of the list. If you answer them all arrogantly or sarcastically, no thanks. It's just step one of the process of hiring and I actually think it's a decent one.

TiHabanero

Having over 30 years in the bicycle retail industry, I am in complete agreement. This shop is apparently a modern store and they are attempting to weed out non-enthusiasts and possibly "racers" before the interview process. Not so sure this is smart, as two of the best salespersons I ever hired were non-enthusiasts. She was able to sell ice to Frosty The Snowman. It was her enthusiasm that sold me to hire both of them. Both were very good hires!

kunsunoke 

I ride old junk, and I ride it poorly.

Greenpoint-based Frischknecht wanna-be types riding over-priced cyclocross bikes they purchased with their trust-fund checks.



duh

Tubeless tires are ridden by mountain-bike poseurs. Tubulars are ridden by road-bike poseurs.

big chainring 

The number of spokes question is worded incorrectly. It should read what is the average number of spokes in a wheel, not what is the number of spokes in an average wheel.

With your basic 40 hole rear wheel and 32 front combination, the average number of spokes is 36. I think that's a question they thru in there to trip people up.

My son recently had an interview for a job. A lot of metaphorical questions like, "Do you consider yourself more of a hunter or a farmer?" Yikes!

OldsCOOL

Just loving this zombie thread.

wphamilton

I am curious whether any of the respondents on this thread who filled out the application got the job.