I'm as much a bike freak as I am a bike mechanic. This being the case, I've never understood why anyone would want to throw a bike. Especially one that you most likely bought with your own money and will have to inevitably fix on your own time after (insert expensive component here) breaks because of your unwillingness to count to ten before shoving your bike into a pile of rocks in a moment of frustration and rage.
Then there's this way:
Sure to appreciate. Hard to replicate.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
It's 2015
Though your calender may beg to differ, it's 2015 as far as the bike industry is concerned.
Most people think of the Sea Otter Classic as a bike race, but with 450 exhibitors on hand at Leguna Seca it's just as much a bike show as it is a bike race. For years, companies have been using the Sea Otter as an unveiling period to show us that even though you just took out a second mortgage to put that dream bike together two weeks ago, it's already starting to get outdated.
As an industry dude, I'm always trying to educate myself on what's happening in "bike world" so I can be as informed as possible when y'all come asking about doo-dad to nic-nak compatibility and when the latest something or other will be available.
Wanna waste time in the morning like I do? Then grab a cup of coffee, get your clicker warmed up and surf around on some of the links below.
Bike Rumor: This is a daily stop for me. Updated frequently, contains descent photos and some classic comments. (note: i actually hate the comments section, but some can be quite entertaining)
Pink Bike: Pretty similar to Bike Rumor. Some minor differences here and there.
Bike Magazine: In case you don't like the other two.
MTBR.com: Again.... lots of the same, but you can't waste an entire morning unless you visit multiple sites.
After a thorough perusing of the interwebs you'll surely be late for work because you just had to know what an "automatic adjusting negative air chamber" did, how many parts will you need to convert your Chris King hubs to 11 speed and your brain will probably hurt from reading about such technological wizardry such as Shimano's new "four-piece chainring, bonded from aluminum, carbon fiber and capped with titanium teeth"....those sound cheap?
Wondering what I've seen at Sea Otter that I like best? Well, it's probably not something I'll buy anytime soon, but ya never know.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
nice
The bike industry. What a place. Talk to any shop owner/employee and you're sure to hear frustrating stories of parts that weren't shipped, companies that don't call you back, orders that got "held up" and the ever popular "blame it on the other guy" scenario.
I used to do the parts ordering and warranties at a shop years ago and had an item in need of warranty service. Every morning for three mornings in a row I'd start my day by calling our rep (lets call him Tom) and leave him a message about said warranty product. All day the shop phone would ring, but it was never Tom. On the fourth day, I made my daily call to Tom but instead of leaving a message about needing help with a warranty item I said that we were doing a sale to a "huge group of people" and I needed to place and order that would be "very large", possibly even requiring freight service. Of course, none of this was true. There was no "huge group of people" or "very large order". I hung up the phone and walked to the bakery behind the shop. That trip for a cup of house blend coffee and a glazed doughnut of epic proportions took all of 6 minutes. Upon my return to the shop I was told that Tom was on hold on line 1. Hmm. I picked up the phone with an anxious Tom on the other end of the line inquiring about our "very large order". Five minutes later, I had a return authorization number for my warranty item and a heartfelt talk with Tom on his lack of customer service skills as our rep. Bastard.
Fortunately it's not always like this. If it were, I'd go postal! This week I was in contact with Woolf Tooth components about setting up an account. Within an hour I had a response from sales (Brendan) and after going through the normal process of credential verification and whatnot I placed an order. The parts arrived in a timely fashion, the order was complete and my customer had his bike back for the weekend... just like it's supposed to work. That being said, Mighty Mobile Bicycle Repair proudly is a dealer of and highly recommends Wolf Tooth components.
I used to do the parts ordering and warranties at a shop years ago and had an item in need of warranty service. Every morning for three mornings in a row I'd start my day by calling our rep (lets call him Tom) and leave him a message about said warranty product. All day the shop phone would ring, but it was never Tom. On the fourth day, I made my daily call to Tom but instead of leaving a message about needing help with a warranty item I said that we were doing a sale to a "huge group of people" and I needed to place and order that would be "very large", possibly even requiring freight service. Of course, none of this was true. There was no "huge group of people" or "very large order". I hung up the phone and walked to the bakery behind the shop. That trip for a cup of house blend coffee and a glazed doughnut of epic proportions took all of 6 minutes. Upon my return to the shop I was told that Tom was on hold on line 1. Hmm. I picked up the phone with an anxious Tom on the other end of the line inquiring about our "very large order". Five minutes later, I had a return authorization number for my warranty item and a heartfelt talk with Tom on his lack of customer service skills as our rep. Bastard.
Fortunately it's not always like this. If it were, I'd go postal! This week I was in contact with Woolf Tooth components about setting up an account. Within an hour I had a response from sales (Brendan) and after going through the normal process of credential verification and whatnot I placed an order. The parts arrived in a timely fashion, the order was complete and my customer had his bike back for the weekend... just like it's supposed to work. That being said, Mighty Mobile Bicycle Repair proudly is a dealer of and highly recommends Wolf Tooth components.
So, this morning... I raise my coffee mug to Brendan at Wolf Tooth for doing something as simple as filling an order, putting it in a box and shipping it out. Amazing. Thank you.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Not doing that anymore
My ears are still ringing from yesterdays tire explosion.
I swore off messing with Stans tubeless kits a couple of years ago after the hissing of air and the pissing of white sealant had me "in the red" while attempting a conversion to an old clapped out Cannondale ruining an otherwise nice typical summer day in Tahoe. I haven't thrown a tool for a long time, but I was close that day.
Now, don't confuse a tubeless "conversion kit" with some other misc industry nomenclature for products that actually work such as TCS, TR, 2BLISS... the list goes almost as deep as the marketing people that dream these names up. The heart of a tubeless conversion kit consists of a rubber rim strip with a valve stem attached that is supposed to allow an older non-tubeless rim to be set up tubeless. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the kits can't work. I will, however, say that they are hard (sometimes impossible) to get to seal and most tire and rim affiliated people (other than Stans) that I've talked to cringe at the subject when it's brought up.
So yeah, back to yesterday. When my old neighbor asked me to get some tires mounted up for him on his one speed, I almost turned him down after noticing that his rims had the dreaded tubeless conversion strips in them. But, with his other bike requiring some parts that needed to be ordered I wanted to get him back out on the trails.
One of the curious things with the tubeless conversion kits is that the tires can be difficult to seal while simultaneously being really hard to get the bead of the tire to "seat" properly on the rim. It was a the "bead seating" stage of this nightmare job I never should've taken on in the first place where the 50psi I had in the tire proved too much for the bead of the tire to handle as it exploded off the rim. Aside from ringing ears, the other nasty side of something like this happening is that the white tire sealant mixes with the exploding air and anything within 10' of your workstand is subject to a good splattering of tire sealant.
That being said, I'll leave you now so I can go spend 20 minutes cleaning up what took less that a second to explode over my bench, tools, workstand, other bikes, floor mat and probably some other places that I'm not thinking could possible be effected by the incident.... but surely will be.
I swore off messing with Stans tubeless kits a couple of years ago after the hissing of air and the pissing of white sealant had me "in the red" while attempting a conversion to an old clapped out Cannondale ruining an otherwise nice typical summer day in Tahoe. I haven't thrown a tool for a long time, but I was close that day.
Now, don't confuse a tubeless "conversion kit" with some other misc industry nomenclature for products that actually work such as TCS, TR, 2BLISS... the list goes almost as deep as the marketing people that dream these names up. The heart of a tubeless conversion kit consists of a rubber rim strip with a valve stem attached that is supposed to allow an older non-tubeless rim to be set up tubeless. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the kits can't work. I will, however, say that they are hard (sometimes impossible) to get to seal and most tire and rim affiliated people (other than Stans) that I've talked to cringe at the subject when it's brought up.
So yeah, back to yesterday. When my old neighbor asked me to get some tires mounted up for him on his one speed, I almost turned him down after noticing that his rims had the dreaded tubeless conversion strips in them. But, with his other bike requiring some parts that needed to be ordered I wanted to get him back out on the trails.
One of the curious things with the tubeless conversion kits is that the tires can be difficult to seal while simultaneously being really hard to get the bead of the tire to "seat" properly on the rim. It was a the "bead seating" stage of this nightmare job I never should've taken on in the first place where the 50psi I had in the tire proved too much for the bead of the tire to handle as it exploded off the rim. Aside from ringing ears, the other nasty side of something like this happening is that the white tire sealant mixes with the exploding air and anything within 10' of your workstand is subject to a good splattering of tire sealant.
That being said, I'll leave you now so I can go spend 20 minutes cleaning up what took less that a second to explode over my bench, tools, workstand, other bikes, floor mat and probably some other places that I'm not thinking could possible be effected by the incident.... but surely will be.
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