People suck. Seriously. Honestly, I thought you made that story up just to be a jerk I think it must be easier to just pass judgement on someone based on prior experiences, than to assess each person on their individual merits. So then you have a customer who comes to YOUR bike shop looking for straight up info about her bike from a living, breathing interactive source instead of trying to become an armchair internet bike "know-it-all" that every mechanic hates, confused with some idiot customer who switches a $3000 price tag.

It sucks on both sides of the counter. But give me a chance to prove incompetency before it is assumed.

You caught me.....But, I will get away with it at another store. No doubt.

See that is the thing(I know there are shops that have poor help) all of the shop people I know, and it is a bunch, want to help the customer, no matter their level of knowledge. We want to make you bike as good as possible. We want you to be able to do repairs on your own. We want to be able to be honest with the customer about their problems without them thinking we are trying to screw them. BikeForums is one of the places that makes this hard to do. There is a pretty steady bias against the bikeshop. This is interesting because there is also a steady call for industry people to help out(As well as LBS fans but they almost never post). The industry guys pretty much decided that it was not worth it to work all day and then get called a crook while trying to help people for free. I know that is how it worked for me. I just have not managed to quit the forum completely. So every couple of days I look and if there is an anti shop thread I troll on it.
Personally I wish you had recieved a great shop experince, but it is my obligation to be a jerk in retaliation for all the jerk customers(Jerk customers far outway crappy shop employees, altho it would be interesting to see it as a percentage. That might be more telling)

I am beginning to get the feeling you were a jerk long before you ever set foot in a bike shop, or on the Internet.

I agree w/ that. He's a customer until he proved himself otherwise. Now I no longer consider him a "customer" b/c of the act he tried to do.

Imma tell you what. This is the first serious interest I've taken in riding. "Go to a bike shop? What the hell for? These things last forever, right?" AND I was a messenger at that time. I abused bikes before; didn't respect them (How I would love to have my Univega back) and as such I am totally bike shop ignorant. I didn't know what to expect, but I did get the idea from the forums that people aren't necessarily pleased with their LBS experience.

There are some great shops here in Chicago, so I was shocked and disappointed with this guy. I didn't feel respected or worthy of his attention. FWIW, I wasn't being anti-shop. At all. I need them. They're the best source of information. So imagine this: I teach. 8th grade. Imagine if a student asks me a question and I look at them and say, "what they f* are you talkin about. Figure that sh* out". He'd feel dejected and jaded and defeated. And that's
not cool. And that's exactly how I walked outta there.

The thing is you can't let your biases influence the way you view each new LBS or customer. Keep doin you and working towards advocating cycling self sufficiency. Those who can, will listen. There's not much to say about those who won't. If we continue to pigeon-hole each other nobody well every have a pleasant anything.

Seriously!

A few years ago, my co-worker caught a guy at the bike rack at WM; he had carefully peeled the barcode sticker from a $50 bike, and was just as carefully applying it to the $200 bike he wanted. My friend walked right up on him, quietly suggested he not do that anymore, and to leave the store. Of course, my friend is of mixed heritage (good luck telling what -- I never have figured it all out!), and a bodybuilder in his spare time.

The lamebrains at the store I work in now just think they can pull an expensive bike from its spot on the rack, park it in a cheap(er) bike's spot, and get that price by hollering for a manager. Hasn't worked yet in two years, and they try it about 5x a week.

I would think that only works with packages of cookies.


Slackerprince