First ride review: Schwinn Sidewinder from Walmart 20.6 mile ride.

GPSBlake wrote:
Just curious, how much does an LBS charge to fix a flat?

(am)$4 while you wait.

maxo wrote:
Is that plus materials? Or are you guys the velo-saints of Madison?
BTW, do y'all stock those groovy slot cleats for Look drilled shoes up
there at Yellow Jersey? I heard a rumour on the internets...

yes, plus tube. Plus tire, plus rim liner, plus the broken
spoke, plus plus plus.

http://www.yellowjersey.org/tocleat.html

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 00:37:04 GMT,
, maxo
wrote:
Then there's me trying to apply the bike maintenance thing to the
VW--damned if I'll let the dealer charge me 250 dollars for new rear
brakes. So I spend ten hours doing them myself (frozen bolts) and a
hundred bucks on parts. Then the local mechanic has a special: brakes 80
dollars per axle plus 40 extra for my rotors. I effectively paid myself
$2/hr to sweat under a car...
Yeah, sometimes it's more cost effective to let the pros do it.

Zoot Katz wrote:
With automobile brakes, there ought to be a law specifying that
qualified and certified pros do it.

Why? It's hard to screw up.

Although I no longer do much auto work, brake jobs are
pretty straightforward IMHO. 2 years ago I talked a woman
through discs and pads replacement in an hour. She had
never held a wrench before. (I did make sure the bleeders
moved the day before)

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

In article ,
maxo wrote:

I can fix a flat in less time than it takes me to floss. I carry latex
gloves to avoid the dirty hands.

Doing your own wrenching if you can is a huge time saver.

i don't own any gloves.

"Claire Petersky" wrote:

Concerning the maintenance requirements of a bicycle, it's a mystery to
me why more cyclists don't take the chore upon themselves.

A. It requires fine motor skills
B. It requires patience
C. It's not fun
D. Actually, it's downright BORING. Boring, boring, boring.
E. It takes up valuable time that could be spent reading posts on Usenet.
E1. ...or actually RIDING the bike.
F. Requires some degree of investment in specialty tools (like a
stand), which can be silly if the LBS will do the work for FREE.
G. Room for said tools



I hope this clears up the mystery for you.

Ron Hardin has more miles on his Huffys. I also know many roadies who
reguarly spend 100's a year just on maintenance of their $2,000 bikes. In
fact, if these expensive bikes were so unbreakable, LBS'es would be out of
business by the droves as repairs fuel the LBS, not bike sales.

That may be true in some regions, but not all. Repairs are incredibly time,
labor & space-intensive and have the potential to sink shops (economically)
in high-rent areas. Our repairs are subsidized by our sales operations; in
other words, they don't pay their way.

Also, any semi-intelligent person (of which there actually are a few in this
industry) understands that making bikes too maintenance-intensive turns many
people away from the activity. If someone gets too many flat tires, too many
derailleur issues, too many wheel problems... they're going to find cycling
too much of a hassle and take up something else.

Unfortunately, I'm not convinced the mountain bike side of the industry
truly understands this, as they constantly render each year's product
obsolete as rapidly as possible, such that an expensive fork becomes almost
a disposable item, and certainly out-of-date by the time you buy it.

I know the LBS in my area has a week long wait to repair bicycles and
nearly all of them are non-department store bikes. Sure seems to be a lot
of high ends bikes that need fixing doesn't it?

Because most people won't spend more than some percentage of the cost of a
product to get it repaired, as it's just not worth it. They could spend many
hours scouring the planet to find cheap parts to keep them running, but for
some, that time is worth something.

I am so glad you are an exception to the rule about high end bicycles.

Thankfully, he's not. Most decent bikes don't require all that much
maintenance, just a bit of care in terms of keeping the tires properly
inflated and checking the drivetrain for wear & maybe even cleaning it once
in a while (don't look at my own bike though...).

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

Concerning the maintenance requirements of a bicycle, it's a mystery to
me why more cyclists don't take the chore upon themselves. Adjusting
derailleurs and brakes; chain, chainring and cassette replacement;
trueing wheels; adjusting cones; etc.; these can be accomplished with a
minimal investment in tools and learning. A beauty of the bicycle is
its sympathy to the backyard mechanic.

True, but it's also dreadfully easy to change the oil in your car, yet I can
think of so many other ways I'd rather spend that time than messing around
with a car and having to deal with the old oil, so I spend the $20 to have
oil changers or whomever do it.

On the other hand, I'd rarely let anyone else touch my bike... I love
working on them. It's all about what you see as a hassle vs something that,
for some reason, you enjoy doing. Who knows why? But I have plenty of
customers who are the reverse. They love working on their cars, but won't do
anything to their bikes.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

You RBT types may laugh but riders are simply amazed at how fast a 60spi
MTB tire rolls compared to the 18psi they were inured to.

Andy: How often do you have someone come in with a pinch flat on a road
bike, insist that it was defective etc... you talk to them about needing to
have enough air in their tires, but they insist that wasn't the problem,
that they always inflate their tires properly before riding.

So how come the other tire has maybe 50psi in it?

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

A Muzi writes:

GPSBlake wrote:

Just curious, how much does an LBS charge to fix a flat?
$4 while you wait.

An excellent deal, and shows that the shop really knows what it is
doing. I cannot imagine a professional bike mechanic spending more
than 5-6 minutes fixing a flat, that's what it takes me to do it on
the side of the road with lesser tools.

Rema patches (in bulk) i cost something like $0.17/ea, so in reality
the mechanic is billed out at maybe $40-$50 an hour. That seems about
right given mechanic salary, taxes, storefront overhead, etc.

In fact, you might be able to judge the competance of the ENTIRE
BICYCLE SHOP simply by the amount of money they charge to fix a flat
tire. The lesser the charge, the greater the competance ...

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 02:17:50 -0600, A Muzi
wrote:

[snip]

Yes that's a tube installed. $15 is at the high end ($8.39
with tax here, $9.44 presta) and besides all that we
_air_the_other_tire_!

You RBT types may laugh but riders are simply amazed at how
fast a 60spi MTB tire rolls compared to the 18psi they were
inured to.

Dear Andrew,

Darned reasonable prices. And you're dead right about the
advantage of the local bike shop taking the trouble to give
the other tire some fresh air.

A friend of mine was so impressed when he finally tried my
suggestion about putting air in the tires of his wife's
mountain bike that he's begun doing it on his own bike.

Carl Fogel

PSB wrote:

Ron Hardin has more miles on his Huffys. I also know many roadies who
reguarly spend 100's a year just on maintenance of their $2,000 bikes.
In fact, if these expensive bikes were so unbreakable, LBS'es would be
out of business by the droves as repairs fuel the LBS, not bike sales.

This is a pretty illogical argument.

There is a WIDE range of bikes between the $68 Wal-Bike and the $2k
bike and you create a strawman argument by citing them. I suspect the
bulk of the people questioning the $68 pseudobike are in that
in-between area.

I seriously doubt that the "100s" spent is truly on maintenance and I
further question that it is "100s" every year. The person who spends
$2k or more on a (single) bike could easily be classified an
aficionado and as such, is much more seriously into riding and
tweaking certain performance type elements and/or putting better -- or
just new -- components on it.

I put nearly 4000 miles per year (Mar - Oct) on my Trek MTB and havent
spent a single dime on maintenance in 2 years. OTOH, you're already
on your second bike in 32.5 miles IIRC.