Having decided not to buy a car because of the expense of operating and maintaining the thing, I was slightly distressed to hear that my bike needed to go into the shop for work. Just as with a car, I have absolutely no idea whether it actually needed the front hub realignment they gave me along with the replaced spoke I came in for. The nice thing is, though, that at worst my ignorance cost me $15, rather than the $1400 I was taken for the last time I went to see a mechanic.
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Don't tell people that reason for not owning a car. Tell anyone who owns a car that he or she is a planetary criminal who will one day be put on trial for those crimes. Tell them that you are purer and holier than they are and that everything you say therefore must be correct because of your moral superiority.
That's what I do, anyway. This approach tends to cause conversations to shift quickly from politics or the environment to the weather or the market.
Well..."front hub realignment" could mean two different things, neither of which would be called "front hub realignment" unless they thought you were an idiot and/or were stealing your money. Neither of them would likely cost you $15, either -- about twice as much, or nothing at all.
Best case: You got your crappily built wheel "dished" properly, and you got a deal, probably because bike shop dude is into you. Is it worth $15 to think so?
"Front hub realignment" ? WTF?
Perhaps you mean, they re-trued your front wheel, which it certainly needed if you busted a spoke.
$15 is cheap for a good truing, actually. Pick up the bike a bit so you can slowly spin the front wheel. Look between the front brake pads and the rim - the gap should be nearly constant as the wheel rotates.
Good call from Bike Dork. DC seems to have a few more women riders than most places I've been, but primarly a woman under 40 with no kids walking into the shop would have been the highlight of any mechanic's day.
I'm familiar with the DC area and have several female coaching clients there. If you want me to poll them about shops let me know.
BTW, what size frame do you ride? I ask out of sheer curiosity.
Any bike needs maintenance, even when you don't take a spill. Tires and brake pads wear down, gear teet can be folded out if you shift under load, various brackets can gradually come loose from wear and vibration, shifter assemblies and cables need cleaning and adjustment, and eventually, the gears and chain may need replacing.
Best thing you can do -- just like any other business transaction where the quality service is at least as important as the quality of the parts -- is establish your face in a locally-owned bike shop, and stick with 'em for both maintenance/adjustments and accessories (provided, of course, you don't start turning up evidences of dishonesty). In your case, being a younger and very tall brunette, it should only take two or three visits to establish visual recognition. After that, you'll always get the A+ treatment because they know that (1) you're willing to come back and (2) probably somewhat "into" your bike and therefore a probable source of recommendations among your circle of friends.
Bike mechanics in locally owned shops are usually pretty hardcore riders themselves, so they've already seen more hardware and spent far more money on it than you can imagine. They'll also be able to provide good advice on styles and accessories when you eventually decide to upgrade.
Tell anyone who owns a car that he or she is a planetary criminal who will one day be put on trial for those crimes. Tell them that you are purer and holier than they are and that everything you say therefore must be correct because of your moral superiority.
Heh. Tell me that -- and I'll tell you that you deserve to have a 1960-vintage diesel truck (doing 20mph, naturally) in front of you anytime you ride your bike on a public road.
Coming to think about it, a bike rider in a predominantly car-oriented megalopolis (such as Dallas, TX -- I appreciate that some areas of BosWash are indeed different) causes much more negative externalities by holding up traffic than any one of SUV owners thus slowed down.
Thank you Max.
I was starting to tremble at the moral purity and what not from y81.
I should say that I was nearly a miscarriage due to my mother being hit while pregnant with me by a bicyclist on the sidewalk in Manhattan.
No brain damage jokes, thank you.
Those of you who have fantasies of engaging in vehicular wreckless endangerment of cyclists...I advise you to stay out of Colorado. And Oregon. We won't treat you with kid gloves here, and those Oregonians haven't even heard of the Marquis de Queensbury.
vehicular wreckless endangerment
That's actually a fair description of my proposal, you know! :-)
You broke a spoke in the front? On a bike less than a year old? Bad sign-- good wheels don't break spokes. You'll be back in the shop in a few weeks with more broken spokes. Might as well get a new wheel or a rebuild right now.
I second the recommendation of establishing a relationship with a bike shop. My local shop does my minor maintenance for free, if I smile pretty at them (or perhaps it's because I spend many hundreds of dollars there every year).
The front hub re-alignment, may just have been an adjustment of the hub cones. A nice simple job if you have the tools - as most things are on a bike!
The bike is ten years old; I bought it from a friend who's the same height as me. It's not the spokes, it's the nipples, and I'm mulling the wheel-replacement v. bike replacement thing now.
The old bike is less of a theft-loss risk, might be better off getting it the 100,000 mile once-over and saving your purchasing power for something more than a new paint job...
Fred the 4th hits it w/ ""Front hub realignment" ? WTF?"
Did they explain that to you? please expound, if possible..
I'm with Fred 4; I'm guessing the "front hub realignment" was a wheel truing. They replaced a spoke and trued the wheel. It's normal to true a wheel after a spoke replacement; a shop that didn't do that would be incompetent. It's not normal for a spoke nipple to fail, however.
A ten year old bike should be fine for commuting. The frame should be fine if it hasn't been crashed. It might be cheaper to find a good used bike than to buy brand new wheels, though.
A Modest Proposal:
Why stop at bicycles? The manufacture of their tires relies on partial petroleum combustion. Instead, replace every car with a saddle-mounted cow. In addition, you'll be saving a cow from the brutal slaughter for mass consumption. Oh, wait ... cows emit methane from flatulence. That contributes to global warming too. Well, Christ, why don't we just all leave the cities, give up our homes and cars and live in the woods like our cave-dwelling ancestors did. Now THAT would be REAL progress.
? Megan, spoke or nipple it is a very unusual part to break, unless you bend/break the wheel first... I have a 25yr bike and I haven't worn any of those types of parts out even after all these thousands of miles [10 years of it in Chicago]... and I put substantially more stress on them, because I weigh far, far, more than you [250].
The base question is did you curb, or otherwise whack the wheel, or was this something that just gave way? If it happened with no input from you, then it may be that the wheel has poorly made parts. EVERY manufacturing plant has bad runs on occasion, and it may just be 1% of the total, unless YOU get the product that is one of them, and then it's 100% for you. So while we can't imagine something like this, it's possible that you have a chevy made on a monday.
In any case for one, riding in the city, is to expect to smack your wheels a lot... they aren't going to stay true, and you'll learn to live with it. So, no matter how disinclined you are, you should learn how to maintain the wheels. It isn't any big deal, but it will break you if you take it to a shop all the time. I recommend Performance Bike as mailorder... to get some basic parts and such, and learn how to make it work...
I wouldn't get a new bike. You will have the same problems that are related to wear/tear...
I disagree about whether a commuter's wheels go out of true a lot. I ride my bike everywhere and abuse it a lot. I ride both around town and on long mountainous day rides that involve some dirt. My wheels don't go out of true, and my spokes don't break. That's because I ride tough, well-built wheels with good tires on them (Pasela Panaracers for me, but Schwalbe also has an excellent line of tires).
If you're riding around on the same wheels Lance uses, they'll be finicky, but if you buy good wheels meant for commuting, with tires meant for commuting, then your wheels will be reliable.
yeah, Cardinal... it must be one of those YMMV things then... When I lived in Chicago I was pretty regularly run off the road or in to potholes that were unavoidable. Unavoidable as in a row of parked cars on the right and a stream of uncaring traffic on the left, with a foot or two for me between. It wasn't so much that people actively aim for you, just that they don't care, and potentially don't think you should be riding in the street.
So? both my roadie, and my mtn needed to have their wheels checked fairly often, and re-trued when too far out. Perhaps newer wheels are much better on that score, since my newest bike is only 20 years old. It's straightforeward, a spokewrench in one hand and holding the bike up in the other, and a regular re-true once a season...