Thursday, June 13, 2013

in praise of our Local Bike Shop

Our Local Bike Shop is small. So small that you can barely get your bike in the door and wheel it to the counter. You can barely turn around without bumping into something.

But talk about great service.

This is the shop where the guy ordered the special fender-rack combination for me and charged a mere $10.00 to attach it. This is the shop where the other guy attached my clipless pedals and gave me a lesson on how to use them.

And now this is the shop where the guy made a quick adjustment (again, $10.00 charge) to something on my shifters so that I wouldn't need to break my thumbs shifting from the middle ring to the big ring. Last summer I took this bike to another bike shop (which shall remain nameless) for a tune-up. The mechanic there said I should plan on replacing the rings to improve the shifting. So, I thought that was what I'd have to do. I was ready to pay $100 or more to have this done, but no. Local Bike Shop Guy puts the bike on the stand, tries to shift, looks at the rings, takes a tool and does something, then tells me, "You try it." I tried it. It was easy. "Bring it back if you still have problems," he added, as he took my ten dollar bill.

Well, guess what? This was two weeks ago, and there have been no problems!

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