webist

The owner of my LBS was fitting a bicycle to a customer. Since he's been doing this for 30+ years, he can usually select the correct frame size for a normally proportioned person by sight. Then he does the standover check and has the person sit on the bike while he holds it to make the initial seat height and for and aft adjustments as well as stem height and such.

Several weeks ago he was doing this for a customer when the customer unexpectedly moved and lost his balance while the owner was checking the plumb line from his knee to the center of the pedal. He grabbed for the owner and fell on him and broke his foot!

Inkwolf

Now that's just weird! I hope the store's insurance covered the injury....I could see all sorts of possible nutcase lawsuits coming out of an incident like this!

webist

Sorry. Perhaps not clearly enough said. The customer broke the owner's foot!

Inkwolf

No, no, I understood that! Still, will the store's insurance pay for the on-the-job injury? I've heard of vets who've tried to sue because their patients bit them.....

I mean, since it happened because the customer moved, lost his balance, and fell on the owner, I could see the insurance insisting it was the customer's fault and trying to sue them for the damages.

PrimalQ

I always thought they put the bike on some type of rack. That's the way I've always seen it done. so did the Customer fall off the bike or did the bike fall of the rack and make the Customer fall. Just curious???

Trekaholic

Sorry, friend, but this isn't an "unusual cycling accident." It's an unusual shopping incident. Maybe this should be posted on ShoppingForums.com?



Trekaholic

MediaCreations 

If the customer lost his balance standing in the shop, just let us know when he goes out riding so that we can all stay indoors.

Ritalin

"the customer" was webist

webist

No chance of a lawsuit here at all. Owner is coverd by health insurance. No such thing in Arizona as Owners' Comp.

Customer was not webist

Haven't seen any kind of "rack" for fitting bicycles in this shop. Only racks I see bikes in are the maintenance stands. Or flimsy little stands to keep road bikes upright on the floor.

My suspicions are that the customer probably did something really stupid, but that the owner is too gracious to include that detail in telling the story.

As to the identity of the customer, it was kept confiential. I'm not too worried about encountering him on the road though. As I understand it, his average speed was "zero" when he crashed

P. B. Walker

The LBS where I am will put the bike on a trainer and then have the customer get on it and pedal for awhile. The person doing the fitting will then make adjustments as they see fit. Plus they can watch the person pedal from all different angles and sides. I've been in the shop a few times where they took as long as 2 hours to fit someone to a bike. There is no way they could do that if the customer wasn't on a trainer. Heck.. if I remember from when I got fitted, I think I had to make an appt. and they told me to bring my bike shorts and shoes because I'd be on the bike for awhile.

Sounds like this was one of those quickie fittings that turned bad. He (the owner) should have known better... I'm betting he doesn't try this again...

Too bad too... a broken foot isn't a laughing matter.

PBW

Ritalin

speaking of average speed of zero... I got stopped by a cop once for speeding. 78 in a 45.

He was pretty upset with me since he had to stop eating dinner to ticket me.

Anyway, long story short the guy that stopped me was a different guy than the one that clocked me so he didn't know how fast I was going.

Since it took him a while to catch me he said, "How fast where you going the last time you looked at your speedometer?"

I gave a quick glance to the speedometer, looked back at him and said, "Zero."

He then handcuffed me and took me to jail.

psycholist

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