I worked at a traditional bike shop for 8 or 9 years before coming to where I am now. My thought when I took this job, "Nice no more muddy and mangled mountain bikes!"
Now I miss those mountain bikes daily.
I worked at a traditional bike shop for 8 or 9 years before coming to where I am now. My thought when I took this job, "Nice no more muddy and mangled mountain bikes!"
Now I miss those mountain bikes daily.
i am NOT doing a triathelon now!! I refuse to wee in my clothing!!!!
i'm going to deuce inside the seat tube of my MtB and bring it to Carson's shop.
no, no i'm not. it's sick and wrong to do that to a bicycle.
Hahaha, thanks Angry.
I don't really understand the people that piss/ crasp themselves rather than stop, especially when they don't have the slightest chance of winnning. It does make me wonder what some of these guys like BAJA racers do. They stay in the car for 15-20 hours straight after spending a week in Mexico. that has to be hell on a pair of shorts.
Jensenman wrote: And I ain't drinking coffee at your place. EVAR.
Coffee is on Jensen, c'mon you know you want it....
Remember how much attention was on that psycho astronaut from a couple years ago that wore a diaper to go on that kidnapping road trip? Imagine if the general public found out about these triathletes. They don't even bother to diaper.
A little Craigslist rant for you bike shop guys...
Date: 2009-05-27, 4:05PM PDT
Whoo-hoo Seattle, the sun is out! Let's discuss a few things before you fumble with swapping the unused ski rack for the unused bike rack on the Subaru.
So yes, you've noticed the sun is out, and hey!- maybe it would be cool to to some bike riding. Let's keep in mind that the sun came out of all 600,000 of us, so for the most part, you're not the only one who noticed. Please remember that when you walk into my shop on a bright, sunny Saturday morning. It will save you from looking like a complete twat that huffs "Why are there so many people here?"
Are we all on the same page now about it being sunny outside? Have we all figured out that we're not the only clever people that feel sunny days are good for bike riding? Great. I want to kiss all of you on your forehead for sharing this moment with me. Put your vitamin D starved fingers in mine, and we'll move on together to some pointers that will make life easier.
SOME POINTERS FOR THE PHONE:
I don't know what size of bike you need. The only thing that I can tell over the phone is that you sound fat. I don't care how tall you are. I don't care how long your inseam is. Don't complain to me that you don't want to come ALL THE WAY down to the bike shop to get fitted for a bike. I have two hundred bikes in my inventory. I will find one that fits you. Whether you come from the north or the south, my shop is downhill. Pretend you're going to smell a fart, ball up, and roll your fat ass down here.
Don't get high and call me. Write it down, call me later. When I have four phone lines ringing, and a herdlet of people waiting for help, I can't deal with you sitting there "uuuuhhh"-ing and "uuummm"-ing while your brain tries to put together some cheeto-xbox-fixie conundrum. We didn't get disconnected, I left you on hold to figure your E36 M3 out.
-I really do need to see your bike to know what is wrong with it. You've already figured out that when you car makes a noise, the mechanic needs to see it. When your TV goes blank, a technician needs to see it. I can tell you, if there is one thing I've learned from you berkeleying squirrels, it's that "doesn't shift right" means your bike could need a slight cable adjustment, or you might just need to stop backing into it with the Subaru. Bring it in, I'll let you know for sure.
FOR YOU INVENTIVE TYPES AND DO-IT-YOURSELFERS:
Just because you think is should exist, doesn't mean that it does. I know that to you, a 14 inch quill stem makes perfect sense, but what makes more sense is buying a bike that fits you, not trying to make your mountain bike that was too small for you to begin with into a comfort bike.
If some twat on some message board somewhere says that you can use the lockring from your bottom bracket as a lockring for a fixie conversion doesn't mean that A: you can, or B: you should. Please listen to me on this stuff, I really do have your best interests at heart.
I love that you have the enthusiasm to build yourself a recumbent in the off season. That does not mean however, that I share your enthusiasm; ergo I won't do the "final tweaks" for you. You figure out why that Sram shifter and that Shimano rear derailleur don't work together. While we're at it, you recumbent people scare me a little. Don't bring that lumbering berkeleying thing anywhere near me.
A DEDICATION TO ALL THE HIPSTER DUCHEBAGS:
-If you E36 M3heads had any money, you wouldn't NEED a vintage Poo-zhow to get laid. Go have an ironic mustache growing contest in front of American Apparel, so that I can continue selling $300 bikes to fatties, which is what keeps the lights on.
SO YOU'RE GONNA BUY A BIKE:
Good for you! Biking is awesome. It's easy, it's fun, it's good for you. I want you to bike, I really do. To that end, I am here to help you.
-Your co-worker that's "really into biking" knows berkeley all. Stop asking for his advice. He could care less about you having the right bike. He wants to validate his bike purchase(s) through you. He also wants to sleep with you, and wear matching bike shorts with you.
You're not a triathlete. You're not. If you were, you wouldn't be here, and we both know it.
You're not a racer. If you were, I'd know you already, and you wouldn't be here, and we both know it.
So you want a bike that you can ride to work, goes really fast, is good for that triathlon you're doing this summer (snicker), is good on trails and mud, and costs less than $300. Yeah. Listen, I want a car that can go 200 miles an hour, tow a boat, has room for five adults, is easy to parallel park but can carry plywood, gets 60mpg, and only costs $3,000. I also want a unicorn to blow me. What are we even talking about here? Oh yeah. Listen, bikes can be fast, light, cheap and comfortable. Pick two, and we're all good.
ABOUT YOUR KIDS:
Your kids are amazing. Sure are. No one else has kids as smart, able, funny or as good looking as you. Nope. Never see THAT around here.
I have no idea how long you kid will be able to use this bike. As it seems to me, your precious is a little retarded, and can't even use the damn thing now. More likely, your budding genius is going to leave the bike in the driveway where you will Subaru the bike to death LONG before the nose picker outgrows the bike.
Stop being so jumpy. I am not a molester. You people REALLY watch too much TV. When I hold the back of the bike while your kid is on it, it's not because I get a thrill from almost having my hand on kid butt, it's because kids are unpredictable, and generally take off whenever possible, usually not in the direction you think they might go. Listen, if I were going to do anything bad to your kids, I'd feed them to sharks, because sharks are berkeleying AWESOME.
I hope this helps, and have fun this summer riding your kick-ass bike!
* Location: Seattle
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 1192150038
I am printing that and posting it back in the shop for the mechanics. They will LOVE it.
a most awsome CL post. That makes it worth it to go out there just to visit the shop of the guy who posted it
do you have the link for that CL rant? or a copy of it without the GRM edits?
gota send that to my shop buddy :)
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/1192150038.html I originally found it linked/posted on www.advrider.com
I want a unicorn to blow me? Bwhaaahaaaa!!
I posted that in the shop as soon as I saw it last month. I've made all of the employees read it as well as a few customers.
That right there is gold and is true for Seattle-lite aka Portland.
The fixie douche-bags are a menace around here when you mix them with traffic and the casual riders. At the very least, they could yell ahead and warn us they are coming through. Instead they like to zip by with their vintage clothes and headphones. That makes the annual Providence Bridge Pedal a bit of an ugly situation at times since the folks who aren't used to riding on the street with traffic are now tossed into a situation with 20-30,000 riders all riding at different speeds.
Remember the footage of Top Gear in Vietnam? Yeah, only not so much cargo.
the fixie guys around here are pretty kewl... they are still hipsters but the ones I talk to are always up hanging out at the bike shop... sure their clothes are ratty and they look and smell like they haven't bathed in a week... but they are nice guys...
Not too many fixie hipsters in my neck of the woods. I guess that's one of the benefits of living in outer suburbia. Most of the fixie riders I know are IT dorks and the fixie is a commuter bike, winter trainer, or mountain bike.
Downtown DC is another story altogether. The Critical Mass[holes] are as bad as anywhere else.
If you E36 M3heads had any money, you wouldn't NEED a vintage Poo-zhow to get laid. Go have an ironic mustache growing contest in front of American Apparel, so that I can continue selling $300 bikes to fatties, which is what keeps the lights on.
berkeleying brilliant. Still laughing.
poopshovel wrote:If you E36 M3heads had any money, you wouldn't NEED a vintage Poo-zhow to get laid. Go have an ironic mustache growing contest in front of American Apparel, so that I can continue selling $300 bikes to fatties, which is what keeps the lights on.berkeleying brilliant. Still laughing.
That's great, they could have written that where I work. I think for lunch tonight I'm going to sit with them in front of American Apparel and compare shirt stains.
even though I am an avid [mountain] biker, I have seen less than 10 fixies in my 15 years of being alive. or at least I didn't pick up on that it might be a fixie until it was way past and thus out of eyesight. one of them was a guy I mountain biked with. mountain biking on a fixie. with a Surly Endomorph 3.7 up front, no less. insanity. simply insanity
This reminds me of the bus we fixed up as Boy Scouts. We removed the last 4 rows of seats so we could store camping carp. Someone had the bright idea to put a funnel with a hose attached that went thru the floor. I would hate to have followed that bus down the interstate.
Moar awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn29DvMITu4
On the pee subject, anyone remember that German woman who uh, bled in a womanly manner in the marathon at the olympics several years back? I remember reading about it with a mix of horror and intrigue as to how she pulled it off.
Back to bike rants. Another reason I hate specialty guys- hey, berkeley-you, just be nice and help me buy a bike. You know anything about C-130's? No? Exactly. This is your job (and be by god happy you have it) and that's mine (and I'm by god happy I have it, but I'm not going to treat you like E36M3 while I'm dropping you a lifesaving device or medevac'ing you somewhere).
Luckily I just bought a bike and had a great experience with a seemingly knowledgeable character. Past experience has held that people who make very little money doing something they love can be less than hospitable to someone who desires to purchase the services and does not share the same passion. Bike hipsters. I just commute every day. It's an appliance, not a passion.
Brust wrote: It's an appliance, not a passion.
Therein lies the rift.
some guy on craigslist said: A very funny, entirely bitchy rant about doing his job, which is apparently a big problem for him.
Ok, cute rant. Fixie riders and people in general are indeed silly.
But.
Remind me to spend as little money as possible at my local bike shop from now on.
No panniers, no tires, no wheels, no nuthin. It's Walmart for me, or the internet in a pinch. Definitely need to buy me a bike book. I mean, christ, I can change a cylinder head successfully, I don't need to give a nickel to somebody who whines that much about working on something that bloody simple.
Seriously, you can pick up a heavy bike one handed. If it falls on you, you get a scrape and go ouch. Car falls on you you go straight to the morgue. There's LOTS of jobs where you can go straight to the morgue if you aren't careful. You work on frickin bicycles, Seattle guy. If you hate it so much, STFU and go find another job you don't despise.
I guess I'm growing up. I'm pretty much sick of whining about my own job, since it's pointless and only ruins my frame of mind, thus making my job even harder. I try to stay up soze I can get up. So I run quickly out of patience for standup comedians who insist on working in bike shops when they don't want to. Go to the bar on open mic nite, do a little act, get your career going, get out of the bike store.
Wake up, Seattle Bike Guy. I work in godforsaken food service. Weddings, parties, corporate events. I get to deal with food, drunks, cranky brides, kids, manual labor, grumpy kitchen staff and demanding people. The BS flows like wine when I clock in. If I can keep my chin up, you can just shut right the berkeley up.
I rant, myself, because right now I use a bike for EVERYTHING. I intend to do so for at least a year. I intend to ride in rain, traffic,in the morning, noon, and nite, and even in the winter as much as possible. I'm a fricking bike shop cash cow, because that bike is gonna need parts, and I'm gonna need equipment, since I intend to bike like other people use cars. I haven't driven my car in a looooong while now.
I've been to all three bike shops in town, and I've never failed to feel awkward. I ask for things I need to actually USE my bike, and I get dumb stares or overpriced wares. I ask for help and get sullenness. I found one shop where the guy sold me a freewheel and treated me right, but I'm sure now that he hates me, so he can go take a flying leap with the rest of em.
My back wheel is coming out of alignment right now. Wobbling from high mileage spokes needing adjustment. I bet a bike shop could true that right up, real bread an' butter work, but instead I'm gonna swear and figure it out myself. And I bet the shop wouldn't even charge that much.
Look, don't everybody here take it personal. People who whizz all over thier bikes are pretty gross, and you ought to be kvetching about them. I'm not typing this while foaming at the mouth, I'm just disappointed. The guy's job is easy. Seriously easy. Go work on cars for forty straight hours and then come tell me it's not. The guy's job probably pays better than mine, at least.
Jesus, what a cybaby. Waaaaah! I had to do my job today! Waaaah! There's lots of people in the shop who want to spend money! I HATE that! Waaaaaaah! I don't actually understand where my paycheck comes from! WWWWWAAAAAAAHHH!
You know what? Screw him altogether. I'll take his job. I bet I could do it better and faster than him. I once yanked apart a 5 speed transmission, figured out where to put the roll pin (that fell out), buttoned it up, put it back in the car, adjusted the clutch cable, and drove away. No I didn't have the manual, I just had cusswords.
I bet an employer could show me how to do everything on a bike in the course of a workday, and never worry about me again. Just keep handing me bikes to fix and sales to ring up all day long. But alas, I am not as funny as Seattle man, and would make an uninteresting coworker, so I know it's not meant to be.
It's just annoying as hell. All damn day I bike around in traffic, trying to have 18 eyes so I don't get creamed, literally splattered, by all the car people who probably think I'm a nuisance. All I'm trying to do is get around in tight times, and what the hell, lose some weight, and you'd hope that bike shop people would be happy to see my wallet coming. I mean really? Who the hell rides a bike? Maybe 500 people out of every 10,000? And I gotta get the "Oh.my. gawd. Here comes another stoopid fattie with a bike, oh groan and sigh." treatment?
Seriously? Bikes are life-threatening transportation. I get rear-ended in a $500 dollar car, and I get to call the insurance company. I get rear-ended on a $500 dollar bicycle and I get to die today. So give me my berkeleying respect already. You want my money? Give me my berkeleying respect. Somedays every mile I ride feels like I had to fight for it. Make no mistake, I enjoy riding a bike. As a gearhead, there's a special pleasure that comes with actually being the engine. I love the harmony of the thing, that as I ride, I also become fitter. I cruise past gas stations, they're meaningless to me. Beautiful. It's enough to make a man talk about chakras. But I earned every damn mile, and my money could be going to the car mechanic. Instead, it's you, bike shop guy, who wants me to pay your damn bills for you. So, when I walk in with a face full of road grit, senses still tweaked out from trying to negotiate a measly intersection at rush-hour, sweat everywhere, trying to give you my hard earned bread, give. me. my. berkeleying. respect.
No, I don't race. If I'm gonna race, I'll use a Mustang, thankyou.
No, I'm not covered in silly tattoos that look like they came in a kit from Hot Topic.
No, I don't have a racing shirt, to wear everywhere, how clownish that would be.
I'm not famous or pretty or skinny or even fast, and no, I'm not gonna spend 3K on a bike, because that would be silly, and it's a shame you're too dense to understand why. But I'm always gonna need something. Bike oil, racks, lights, spokes, tires, parts, advice, and riding gear, it's always gonna be something. If you'd prefer your bike shop to fail, then fine, roll your eyes and sigh when I walk in. I'd rather get my stuff firsthand, from a bike shop, but it's okay if you'd rather I just spend all my money on the internet.
Oh, and for Seattle guy, the reason someone might call in and expect you to talk about thier bike sight unseen is because it's a bicycle, stupid, and they haven't changed much since they invented the derailleur. Before you waste my time talking about "advanced" new bicycles, go diagnose an electrical malfunction in some late model luxury car. Here's an oscilliscope, here's your wiring diagram and factory manual, here's your tools, and here's your aspirin. GO.
Yes, moron, NOW you know what "advanced" means. Enjoy your time upside down and swearing you whiner. Have you found the CAN bus yet? Of course you haven't, you pompous kickstand of a man.
A week later you're still scratching your head, I'll bet. You know why? Because you're a BICYCLE MECHANIC, the dumbest sort of mechanic there is, and that Mercedes you can't even fix just proved it to us both. Next time you want to get on your high horse with me, just don't. If you were that brilliant and awesome, you'd be doing really complicated work. Farming, maybe. So save your precocious eye rolling for someone who isn't trying to pay your bills. Please understand that if you're working as a bike mechanic already, then you just aren't all that bright, and you have no business getting on any high horses, ever.
You should treat everyone ballsy enough to try and ride one of these bikes out of your shop and into traffic like precious, precious gold. Anyone who walks into your shop to put their child, their BABY on a bike and in harm's way should get all the ass-kissing you can muster. I don't care if they ask annoying questions, you're probably an idiot yourself, and this is your JOB, shut up and do it, or get the hell out of the shop.
So you've had to answer the same questions over and over? Boooo Hoo. The next time I walk into the bike store, you'd better know more than me. You'd better have the E36 M3 I need hanging right on the wall, because you're a professional, and it's your job to know what that is. Did I just ask you for something you don't have? GO FIND IT. Go look, check the catalogs, make some phone calls, get on the internet, make the sale. As long as you expect money, don't let me catch you acting like you're doing me some big huge favor by talking to me you dog, I've got your rent money in my pocket. There are soooo many options beyond your podunk little bike shop, I could get every single thing I ever need without talking to you AT ALL, and then you get your wish, no punters in the shop, and then your shop shuts down, because you're very, very stupid, and you're too dumb to even know it.
I expect good treatment no matter how many people you've got in the shop. News flash, dumbass, you're a professional, and you should know how to deal with that. Every week I deal with at least a hundred needy people all at once, I don't EVER want to hear you crying about a piddly dozen you pillow-biting sissy.
So, yeah, yeah, Seattle Bike Baby is funny and all, but anybody who runs a bike shop, and wants to keep running a bike shop, had better fire him if they find him on staff, because nobody, absolutely no-one deserves to put up with attitude from some doorstop behind a counter. I wouldn't put up with that attitude from the 'tards at Autozone, I sure as hell am not paying money to put up with that from some guy who thinks he's special because he can understand frigging simple-ass, easy-peasy bicycles.
You'll need to log in to post.
