Had to laugh at this. Only this afternoon I stopped by my LBS to pick up a spare inner tube - I had the kind of slow puncture that results in a tyre going from 100psi to about 30psi over the course of 24 hours, so hard to find just where the leak is and I really CBA to fuss with it.

As I was leaving with my newly purchased spare tube another guy came in with a bike with a flat front tyre, left it there and cleared off. Obviously too much effort to fix a flat himself. I wonder what he'd do if he were any distance from a bike shop and got a flat.

Call AAA? :lol:

Just for what it's worth mprelaw, there is a business in Albuquerque that seems to survive on transporting motorcycles. I assume it involves flat tires and whatever else might incapacatate a motorcycle.

When I go to the LBS and talk with the guys there, someone always walks in with a bike with a flat tire. If it were up to them, whenever they have a flat..they would throw the bike away.

A while back a friend of mine was talking about possibly needing to get a new bike because her brakes were a bit sticky and the gears didn't shift very well. It didn't even occur to her to get it serviced to fix the brakes and the gears. I suspect all it needed was a bit of TLC, maybe a new brake cable or two and perhaps a bit of tuning on the gears.

I don't know what she did in the end, sometimes it seems like the throw away society has really gotten out of hand. I often wonder what kind of living could be made getting hold of bikes that just need a quick tune but the owner can't be bothered, giving them a tune, and reselling them as working bikes.

A few per city here in the USA's larger urban areas :beer:

this is pretty good advice, especially if you tend to work on your bike only when something breaks. I don't follow it, necessarily, but the disc doesn't hurt anything and it can save you an expensive disaster.

Well, I would assume that it's a little more complicated to change a tube on something that weighs several hundred pounds, than a 20 pound road bike. ;)

If you work on your bike and can keep it tuned, then consider taking it off. Otherwise keep it on.

Hi,

Just push in back concentric and forget about
it, that is what I did with my latest new bike.

rgds, sreten.

As the man wrote "If you work on your bike and can keep it tuned, then consider taking it off. Otherwise keep it on." The best advice so far.

The ability to tune your own bike doesn't have much to do with it. That's like saying "if you a good car driver then you can take the seat belts out of your car because you don't need them".

If you get into a (bicycle) wreck, the rear derailleur can get bent inwards enough that it shifts onto the *next* cog.... but you may not notice that, since it will appear to work normally when you get on it and start pedaling.
You don't find out anything is wrong until the next time you try to shift onto the biggest cog,,,, and due to being bent, the derailleur was already on the biggest cog.

If the dork disk is still there, you get a grinding noise when the derailleur rubs against the disk, that tells you something is wrong. If the dork disk isn't there, then your derailleur is going into the spokes.

The dork disk weighs nothing and keeps something very undesirable from happening.

The ability to tune your own bike has EVERYTHING to do with it; cars and seatbelts are a complete strawman. Tuning your own bike is like changing your own oil, or doing a tune-up, on the car.

ANYONE who does their own work WILL, after "a (bicycle) wreck", CHECK HIS/HER BIKE THOROUGHLY FOR DAMAGE. The dork disk is there for the DORKS who think they can just climb back on after a wreck, and everything will be *****-dory.

The dork disk weighs little and lets clueless riders know something is happening that they need to have someone look at...or return the bike. (Kind of like the broken reflector that gets the bike returned...YES, it happens.)

:roflmao2:

Welcome back, DX-MAN. :thumb:

I'm nominating this for "Best Reply of the Day"....

A slightly better process post wreck than blithely riding on might be:

A) Pick yourself up and move self & machine out of the roadway.
2) Take a deep breath & check self for injuries: Broken bones, deep lacerations, concussion, general road rash and a plethora of other stuff.
B) Do # 2 again. Serious injury can easily result from even a 'minor' wreck. Get medical aid if necessary.
3) If not seriously injured take another deep breath and do a Full Safety Check on the wrecked machine:
Wheels spin? Steering aligned? (probably not) Brakes function? Gears function ( blithely riding away now assuming all is well and a pie plate will save the day is not a substitute for checking all systems yourself.) If the machine is reasonably safe and you are not too banged up:
C) Proceed.
4) Get all of the road rash debris out ASAP and wait for tomorrow when it will really smart.
D) Fix the bike.