Categories: Guest Article

Guest Article: What You Don’t Know Will Eventually Kill You

Indian Bicycle Mechanic. photo: Sue Darlow

@prowrench is throwing down the greasy gauntlet. There is truth in his words. We already understand the gap between the professional cyclist and us civilians extends somewhere over the horizon. We can ride the bikes, wear nice kit and ride the race routes but that’s about as close as we can get. No one is paying us to ride. We are not Pros. But we can work on our own bikes can’t we?

Please also see the required supplemental reading, All You Bike Pricks.

VLVV, Gianni

You got a new bike a few years ago and something magical happened. You realized that when your legs aren’t languishing under a desk at the office or basking under the blue glare of the television that, by some unknown miracle, they can propel you to astounding speeds on your bicycle. You took heart, rode some more and you got quick. You joined a club, subscribed to every magazine and every blog, you learned The Rules and quickly ascended to the ranks of the initiated cyclist. Good for you!

You, the tinkerer, are one savvy fellow. You have examined the simple steed beneath you and with your god given mechanical prowess turned a few screws, fiddled with some barrel adjusters, squirted some lube here and there and tamed a few squeaks and calmed the wild mis-shifts that embarrassed you in front of your friends. You maintain your bike, your brother-in-law’s bike, your neighbor’s bike and the kids’ bikes from the neighborhood. Fueled with a few small successes and powered by the unlimited knowledge bestowed upon you by YouTube University and several forums you are now an expert mechanic. You can turn a wrench with the best of them…right?

Let me introduce you to an idea that may not have crossed your mind: You can’t.

Before you take offense, lend me your ear and I will try to help you to comprehend the vastness of all that you don’t know. As a professional mechanic of 12 years, I would like to introduce you to the subject of bicycle maintenance repair from the point of view of the greasy handed elitists who you have come to defy and will avoid paying at all costs.

Every morning I wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed and go to work; just like you. When I get to work, however, I am greeted by the aroma of tires and a spacious shop filled with expensive specialty tools and all manner of bikes. From the wobbly beginners’ bike to the bike you wish you had but probably never will, I work on them all, every day. Your hobby is my bread and butter.

I have installed thousands upon thousands of tires and tubes and threaded countless cables through more shifters and brake levers than you can begin to imagine. I have turned a million spoke nipples and skillfully negotiated the careful equilibrium of the perfectly trued wheel more times that you have tied your shoes. I remember to meticulously check the tension of every nut and bolt on your bike with precisely calibrated torque wrenches: a thought that you wish had occurred to you and a tool you wish you had. I wrap handlebars with confidence and great care so that the tape overlaps with an even, artful twist and tightens as you grip it instead of unraveling after your first few rides. I obsessively position every component just as it ought to be because every bike deserves to be in tip top shape and it is my livelihood to make it so.

I know you think you understand how your bike works. How hard could it be right? There is nothing hidden. Your bicycle sits before you baring all and yet you could take your bike to your neighborhood shop right now and they could find a thousand things wrong with it and just as many ways to charge you in order to fix it. There is a reason for that and the explanation is on its way.

It has taken me years to hone the skills involved in my craft. I can hear when your rear derailleur hanger is out of alignment by a degree or two and that has only come after listening to thousands of derailleurs ticking away in my work stand. You may as well be stone deaf when it comes to that. I know that dropping your front derailleur a millimeter or so and twisting it out just a hair will help it decisively slam and lock your chain to the big ring in the blink of an eye. You might as well be trying to pilot a spacecraft through an asteroid field with a blindfold on. The mechanics at your local shop have paid the price for the precious knowledge which you have supposed could come so easily. Rather than beleaguer you with further examples of how I am right and you are wrong, I will endeavor to make the process of outsourcing the sacred task of maintaining your bike a smooth and painless one.

Bridging The Gap

Successfully communicating with your local mechanics will be key to finding happiness in this process. Mechanics are a fickle bunch and if you haven’t figured it out by reading thus far, some of us might be a tad egotistical and maybe a touch insecure. I will do my best to set you up for success as you repent and and take your bike in for its first much needed, legitimate service.

First, take everything that you have come to know about working on bikes and stick it in your pocket. Mechanics know how to work on bikes and they don’t care much for hearing what you think it entails. From the moment the mechanic lays eyes on your bike, seeing your terrible attempt at wrapping bars, your grossly over lubed drivetrain or the hack job that you did running and ugly web of too long or too short cables and housing all over your bike, he will know, and it will go without saying, what it is that you have been up to. Don’t be too proud of your work because it will only result in heartbreak.

Second, bear in mind that time and expertise are never on closeout and it will cost you to have the pros lay their hands on your beloved bike and resuscitate it to full health. It will be important for your mental well-being to consult with your cohorts and settle on a mechanic that everyone can agree bills repair work fairly and is worth the money that you’ll spend. Since you have been maintaining your bike, you have been letting basic things go through the cracks. The mechanic will want to fix all of these before you get your bike back so your first visit could cost a small fortune. Take heart though, because once this is out of the way, subsequent visits will consist of simple adjustments mainly and will be relatively inexpensive.

Thirdly and most importantly, be kind. I provide whatever service is due to every customer based on what they pay, even if they treat me like scum. For the nice customer however, I always go above and beyond. As the owner of my shop always says, “It is nice to be nice to the nice”. Kindness is currency but even more importantly, currency is currency. A little gratuity goes a long long way at the bike shop. Cash or beer are customary.

Taking your bike to the shop can be a hard step for the committed and self-assured home mechanic. Before the sum of what you don’t know piles up and results in your untimely mid-club-ride death, consider my words and come to the light! Hang up your mail order toy toolset and take your bike to the pros. You deserve it. Your bike deserves it. A-Merckx.

prowrench

I have been on bikes my whole life. I used to ride cross country mountain bikes until about 6 years ago when I fell head-over-heals in love with road cycling. I have worked in bicycle shops for around 10 years now as a mechanic and I love working on bicycles as much as I like to ride them.

View Comments

  • @xyxax

    If caring more than you do about whatever is being worked on is the defining metric for a professional, then no one would ever go to the doctor.

    Or attend lectures and believe in the value of an undergraduate university education...

  • @DwtnBkln

    Bike mechanics, like any other service professional are a necessary evil. None of them, for any amount of money or any amount of "niceness" will care as much for your or your instrument's well being more than you do. Avoid them at all cost and if you must engage them treat them as you would a learning disabled child: short concise sentences, don't ask questions, don't make sudden moves and no matter what don't make eye contact.

    While I geat your point there is a much more polite and respectful way to word your last sentence. Not funny more offensive.

  • Cash and beer are good gratuity as are bratwurst, and Campy shirts...right @Dan_R?  Loving my mechanic!!

  • @ChrisO

    Preaching to the choir here... I am very happy to limit my bike skills to tube changing and necessary cleaning and lubrication.

    Bottom brackets, derailleurs, cables, shifters, hubs and headsets are totally left in the hands of the pros.

    Agree, whilst Ive welded on cracks in Grape Harvesters, changed hydraulic lines in the dark at 3am mid harvest and "put" computers togetherand capable of putting most things back together, at the end of the day, it was, and will remain, still a hack job.

    Find a good mechanic that cares for your steed and leave the torque wrench in its packet !

    Having said that, anyone recommend a good reputable reliable torque wrench ?   (wishing to insert an emoticon here )

  • Quite a fun thread to read, especially after spending the last week taking UBI's "Intro to Bicycle Maintenance".  This is after wrenching on my own bikes for the past 25 years, but knowing when to fold and take it to someone who knew what they were doing and had the right tools.

    No amount of book reading and YouTube watching can replace learning at the hands of those that know what they are doing.  It's not hard, but if you don't know the right ways, it's hard.  And possibly wrong.

    As the quote goes - "Life is hard.  But life is really hard if you're stupid".

    The next two weeks of "Pro Repair and Shop Operation" is going to be mind blowing.

  • @Barracuda

    Having said that, anyone recommend a good reputable reliable torque wrench ? (wishing to insert an emoticon here )

    Avoid Harbor Freight, etc.

    CDI Torque is a subsidiary of Snap-On.  The quality without the price, but expect to spend north of $100.

    And if you really must only allow Italian engineering to touch your Campagnolo gruppo, look at the Effetto Mariposa, which you can get through REI.  It handles anything you'll need on your bike, unless you have the older 3-piece cranks.

  • So I'm inflating my tyres for the first ride of the season and I notice these cracks in the integrated seatmast clamp on my BMC. What I do know is they are there. What I don't know is if they will eventually kill me. I'd like to at least get a few more months out of the bike before replacing the frame. There is a crack on each side of the clamp. Any thoughts?

    [dmalbum: path="/velominati.com/wp-content/uploads/readers/Marko/2013.08.09.21.02.59/1//"/]

  • I don't have any talent when it comes to fixing my bike. I have the best mechanic at my LBS who graciously listens to my explanation of what is happening when I ride my bike. He takes the time to try and replicate the problem so I feel assured that we are talking about the same thing. I know he makes a host of other tweaks at the same time. He test rides my bike if needed and most importantly won't stop doing his thing until I am happy, which is usually way before he is. The best bit though- on the job cards for my bike he writes my bikes name, not the model or the other relevant info. That is personalized  customer service. Can't beat his workmanship or service. Happy to pay for the pro mechanic.

  • Nope. I know how to fix my bikes, I will fix my bikes, and I don't let anybody else get their hands on them, because there are way too many people in shop aprons who should not be. I've had way too many flats because the trained monkey at the LBS used a screwdriver instead of a tire lever, rebuilt way too many "custom" wheels because they lost their true on every ride, flipped way too many friends' brake pads and rebuilt way too many too tight/too loose bearings because "they're sealed, so it doesn't matter", worn out too many chains because the shop didn't have the right, non-worn out cassette in stock.  Mechanics have told me that simple replacement parts don't exist because they're not in stock, they've told me to buy a new bike from them instead of fixing a spoke.

    If I mess it up, I know what it is, why it happened and I'm usually waiting for it to happen.  If someone else messes it up (they do and will), it makes me want to choke them. Luckily, no one else ever does anymore. If you don't know how to fix something, learn and for Merckx's sake buy the damn tool.  It's cheaper than paying for someone else to destroy your bike.

1 4 5 6 7 8 17
Share
Published by
prowrench

Recent Posts

Anatomy of a Photo: Sock & Shoe Game

I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…

7 years ago

Velominati Super Prestige: Men’s World Championship Road Race 2017

Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…

7 years ago

Velominati Super Prestige: Women’s World Championship Road Race 2017

The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…

7 years ago

Velominati Super Prestige: Vuelta a España 2017

Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…

7 years ago

Velominati Super Prestige: Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian 2017

This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…

7 years ago

Route Finding

I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…

7 years ago