My Emonda and the Shop

jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, April 12, 2020 at 3:29:46 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 4/12/2020 4:36 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, April 12, 2020 at 11:15:54 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 4/12/2020 1:09 PM, jbeattie wrote:

Small shops haven't gotten my repair business since about 1975 or
1976, so I guess I've been putting them out of business for 44 years...

I think the last time I paid for a normal bike repair was about 1982.
And they said it couldn't be repaired. (Headset problem on a used bike
that had apparently suffered a crash.) I ended up shimming the lower
fork race on one side. It's not perfect, but it's good enough.

I did pay for a repaint plus some braze-ons once.

Well, that was kind of the whole point of this NG. It wasn't
rec.takeyourbiketoashop.tech. I did my own brazing (ham-handed, but
adequate) and rattle can paint jobs and paid for a powder-coat on one
bike. Insurance companies paid for steel repair and repainting back in
the '80s after getting whacked by cars. Ruckus did an amazing carbon
repair and paint-matching on my Norco Search after my son had a nasty
chain-suck incident. Those guys are artistes.

I really wanted to take the UBC frame-building class here in Portland
and TIG weld a Ti bike, but they shut-down the Portland location and
moved everything back to the Ashland location (Portland rent too high).
I also wanted to do a real compressor or HVLP paint job with some PPG
or DuPont product, but that stuff is ridiculously expensive, and I
would end up with 50 times more than I needed to spray a bike -- but I
would still like to do that. Maybe get a super air-brush. I have a
compressor. I don't have Lou's machining talents or access to machines
and never really wanted to make arcane doo-dads, but that would be fun.
Some super-machined ringy-bell.

Most everything else on a bike is plug-and-play these days -- or buy
proprietary tool and plug-and-play-and-pay. Arcane knowledge is not
grease/no grease on the tapers but is programming Di2 on the E-tube or
setting trim on ETap.

-- Jay Beattie.


I have painted out of doors, no booth[1]. Plan for a dry
warm calm day (do you have any in PDX?) just after dawn when
there's no wind, shoot as soon as you have 65 degrees. Move
it to a garage out of the dust etc after spraying.

You need a regulator for your compressor but a basic siphon
gun is under $30 and you can buy primo PPG or DuPont product
by the pint for color and 1/2 pints for activator so, yes,
it's a project but not ridiculously expensive.

[1]The occasional car for friends

I heard that there was some prohibition on selling auto paint to
civilians, but maybe that is just lore. I might do it one day.

And is it dry in Portland? Pffff! Today's ride:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jp7FqGs5sMCgXPQR9 Out in the heart of
Clackamas county, going toe-to-toe with the Easter pick-up truck parade. Yeehaw.


Yesterday's ride was a gravel grinder, getting throttled by a friend who
has decided to get back into race-shape, and today I mistakenly
throttled myself by missing a turn and deciding to take the long version
of a frequent ride out to booming Redland. https://tinyurl.com/vt8j86p
There is an ancient gas station across the street that sells ethanol free
gas. Live ethanol free or die! The bummer about all rides coming back
from the east is that I have to climb just to get back to my 'hood. If
Portland really supported cyclists, they'd put in rope tows.

-- Jay Beattie.

I’m pretty sure civilians can still buy auto paint, but my feeling is that
while the formulations have improved in so many areas, they are much more
“kill you dead� than they used to be. I’d love to use the modern
formulations for spraying bikes and electric guitars, but I just don’t have
the PPE or an outdoor facility in order to do it without taking years off
my life.

On Monday, April 13, 2020 at 2:55:40 AM UTC-7, sms wrote:
On 4/12/2020 10:09 AM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

I have, however, spent oodles of money on bikes, components, tools, parts etc. from real bricks-and-mortar shops including Western Bikeworks, River City, Universal Cycles and Bike Gallery and Bike Tires Direct.

No such shops in the Bay Area. I bought my Burley trailer from Bike
Gallery during a business trip up to Intel in Hillsboro. I did order a
part for my Dahon folder from Andrew Muzi, after trying to buy it at
five different local store without success.

One reason Amazon and other online stores are taking business from the
LBS is that it's often so exasperating to find what you need at a local
shop. They'll often offer to order it for you from QBP or J&B, but that
means yet another trip to the shop to pick it up, and many shops have
"bankers hours." I know people ragged on Performance Bike, but at least
you could go there after work, ditto for REI. I used to go to Chain
Reaction in Los Altos and they were pretty knowledgeable, at least if
Steve Jacubowsky was in the store. That store closed two years ago due
to rent increases──the space is still empty and unleased.

What about all the shops in SJ? Mike's Bikes? You do a Google search of shops in SJ and a bunch pop-up. And certainly Palo Alto Bikes has to be going strong. Where do all the uber-wealthy Silicon Valley tech people waste their money?

-- Jay Beattie.

On 4/13/2020 12:56 PM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

What about all the shops in SJ? Mike's Bikes? You do a Google search of shops in SJ and a bunch pop-up. And certainly Palo Alto Bikes has to be going strong. Where do all the uber-wealthy Silicon Valley tech people waste their money?

In Palo Alto they are riding their mixte framed Peugots and Panasonics
to Peet's Coffee and then over to Whole Foods and returning home with a
baguette and a bouquet of flowers in wicker front baskets.

Seriously, for most of the shops, finding the optimal parts and
accessories is just not going to happen in a store around here and you
could (and I have) spent hours driving around to do so then giving up.
Not doing that anymore.

The local shops sell bicycles and have a limited stock of the highest
margin accessories, tires, tubes, etc., but generally not the highest
quality or best designed stuff. This is especially the case if a store
is a "tied shop" and sells primarily (or exclusively) Trek or Specialized.

The best local source for parts and accessories that I've found around
here is Sports Basement. They have a large bicycle department and a good
service department. In Sunnyvale they took over an old Fry's store, in
San Francisco they took over the old PX on the Presidio, in Redwood City
they took over the old Toys R Us, and in Campbell they took over
something in the Pruneyard.