mpetry912 

thought this was a pretty good list of items that are too complicated, fragile, or hard to work on.

worth a click


/markp

ScottCommutes

Didn't watch the video, but I would guess programming bike computers and breaking off wheel reflectors when truing wheels.

Andrew R Stewart 

I don't think I posted this on this forum before but I came up with these lists way back in the 1990s. Andy

2_i 

Japanese mama-chari with front child seats are very common. I would see mothers with two children, one in front, one in the rear, at the rate of a few per day. I think I saw the case of three children + mother. Don't ask me how to balance, especially when starting or stopping, but it apparently can be done and, yes, there were rain covers in use when it rained.

JohnDThompson 

Hate the plastic spring shrouds on low-end Shimano V-brakes. They inevitably crack, then spring tension is lost. Worthless POS design choice to save a couple pennies in manufacturing.

nomadmax 

Number one on my list is crybaby videos

13ollocks

this guy’s pretty entertaining - South-African dude who runs a bike shop in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the Northeast.

Dan Burkhart 

From his list of hateworthy stuff, I have to go along with TT bikes and their hidden aero brakes. Tucked in behind the bottom bracket and nearly inaccessible, Almost always accompanied by internal cables, the worst of which are routed inside the handlebar and even down through the headset. What a horror show.

Homebrew01

What types of BB are bikes using now ? All my bikes are BSA threaded, and haven't paid much attention to current trends and specs.
I did see lots of threads about problems with the various BB press fit varieties.

RCMoeur 

I used to wonder why there was so much seething rage directed at Shimano Tourney and other "entry level" componentry. After all, I'd used Alivio and other basic parts for decades, and back in the day saw no shame in using all-steel derailleurs such as the most honorable Suntour Honor. I saw them as just less-finished and heavier versions of the higher-end stuff. And when I was a paid mechanic back in the 80s, the low-end stuff was a lot of our shop's business, and people seemed happy to have it because it worked at a price they were wiling to pay.

And then I started volunteering regularly at Rusty Spoke and Recycle Your Bicycle in recent years, and began to understand the animosity. What I had experienced for decades as "low end" was orders of magnitude better than the stamped-steel carp I was being asked to try to fix. Shimano had carefully designed these parts to hit a precise price point in terms of materials and workmanship, and that did not include durability or performance. The word "Tourney" began to elicit subconscious (and maybe even conscious) revulsion once I dealt with the Sisyphean task of carefully adjusting these derailleurs, only for them to bend when sneezed on and go out of adjustment in microseconds. And deal with customers commenting on how my mechanic skills must be deficient if I couldn't keep their bike in adjustment.

It's hard to believe the same company that produces Dura-Ace also manufactures and puts their name on these nightmares. But at least I have working on nice older bikes with actually functional components as a form of therapy.

This rant is complete. You may go back to your regularly-scheduled BikeForums browsing.

zebede

I hate low quality ill fitting accessories that customers have put on there bike.

Do you really need that phone holder (now broken) on your handlebars, next to the loose bell (with sharp edges and bolts), next to the cheap (broken) cycle computer next to frame bag that you decided to to mount on the handlebars.

Camilo

"Bicycle MechanicS" How does one mechanic's personal opinion - wrong on several accounts - serve for mechanics plural? Pfft.

TiHabanero

That's a fairly comprehensive list you have there, Andy. I wrenched for almost 40 years and there is only one lasting absolute hate I have; internal routing of brake hoses/housing and shift housing through handlebar-stem-frame tubes. Turns any line replacement into a PIA that takes significantly more time than anything that is external. From a shop manager's perspective I didn't let it bother me too much since I charged more for the work to cover the labor time.

Yes, I understand it has aerodynamic advantages, we all know the weekend warrior certainly needs that! Yes, I understand it is totally rad looking and elevates the bike and rider to the next level of sweetness.

Andrew R Stewart 

My 10 best and worst lists were formed during the hours sharing a work stand with other likeminded mechanics. When I first officially shared the written lists the local bike club members (it was their winter meeting) asked why not clipless pedals or indexed shifting. I replied that they were only refinements on what were the initial innovations. On the 10 Worst list I really like the See A Head. The foolishness of it is overwhelming IMO. Yet it was only a few years ago that I saw a rehashing of the idea trying it's turn at marketplace failure. History really can repeat itself, especially for those who don't care to understand it

Internally routed cabling and "hidden" spoke nipples are among my top hates. I also agree with zebede about poorly mounted accessories (can you say "rattling locks"). One thing I've been annoyed about for decades has been the inability of the accessory arms of the same company that makes bikes to make their accessories fit their bikes. (Case in point was GT and their Triple Triangle design not fitting the racks that Riteway offered), but this starts to drift to my dislike for proprietary designs in general. Andy

cyccommute 

One way to avoid the problem of complaining customers is to make them do the work themselves. That’s what my local co-op does. We aren’t supposed to do the work but to guide the customer in how to do the work. It doesn’t always happen but, for the most part, the customer works on their bike and they learn all the wonders of trying to make a piece of crap work properly.

In my experience, there are also levels of Tourney that are bad and really bad. The ones that are showing up more and more often on $600 bikes are the former. They are actually a bit functional and can be made to work for at least a little while. The other level is what you find on the $100 HellMart bikes and are simply too floppy to work even new. I strip them off any bike that they are on…mostly kids’ bikes…and put on one of the nearly endless supply of Alivio or Acera that we have in the parts bin.

Funny thing is that retail Tourney is 1/2 the price of an Acera ($9 vs $18) but the Acera is about 100 times better.

RCMoeur 

That is indeed the goal. With some customers, it's quite successful. With others... not so much.

There is a big jump in quality at that point where stamped steel is replaced by at least a few aluminum castings.

Troul 

random hardware with same thread specs used, yet requires a different size/type of tooling.

wheelreason

I don't know if his name is Item, but it's that guy that walks in rolling in a "just needs a little adjustment" bike...

Darth Lefty 

At the price point where things are good enough, bikes are really not at all frustrating. I put together my newest bike, a Canfield, with Deore level Shimano bits and it was honestly a pleasure. It's at the extreme ends where things are either weird and expensive, or too cheap to function, where we get problems.

For a metal bike with internal cables, it helps a lot to run the housings before you put the headset in. Even just having the fork out helps, especially if you have a tapered fork because you can still get fingers and tools in from the bottom. I think a better justification that gets mentioned less often is tailgate pads.

CrimsonEclipse

Marathon Plus: From my cold dead hands. When you first learn to mount a tire, it should be a Marathon. After that, everything is easy. Think of it as learning to drive in an old stick shift pickup without power steering.

Press fit BB: Preach it brother! Press fit is an abomination to the cycling world and should be purged from our history.

27.2: Also from my cold dead hands. (who needs a dropper)

Russ Roth

Top tube mounted baby seats are something I refused to install, thankfully I never worked in a shop that sold them, and the owners weren't ever resistant to my refusal to install them. I liked telling people who brought them in that it turned the kid into an airbag should they run head first into a car, and just like an airbag they had the benefit of being single use. One lady countered that they were all the rage in Europe so they must be the best, I simply pointed out that in Europe where they were popular the locals didn't drive oversized American cars and didn't drive like entitled Americans who felt they owned the road. If she wanted to kill her kid when a truck pulled out in front of her that someone else could install it for her.

Bike Gremlin

I work in a relatively poor country (not as "bad" as some parts of Africa and Asia, but poor compared to most of Europe).
Tourney is considered to be "decent" compared to "no-name" stuff.
It's an improvement ("upgrade") compared to the lowest quality stuff I've worked with.

As far as "hate" goes, I don't hate, but think that many of the heavily-marketed "inventions" are unreasonable.
If your goal is to just enjoy cycling - what you see and experience.

If I had to pick favourites, it would be the internally routed stuff (rims with no nipple access on the outside, and internally routed cables and housing, some electric bike wiring routing designs etc.).
Especially if your goal is to get folks back on the road, not make money, it's a complete nonsense and waste of time - turning a 15-minute job into hour(s) sometimes.

Relja RetroGrouch Novović

jgwilliams

I thought that was a pretty good list. I have to disagree with him on the SRAM Double-Tap, which I really liked; I far preferred it to the idea of a brake lever which moved inwards. Now that I have Di2 with no swinging brake lever I'm happy with Shimano again - although I still think the chainsets are hideous.

I'd never heard that about the Cannondale power meter. I believe some car manufacturers have tried the same trick - e.g. your car comes with heated seats but you have to pay to enable them. I think all such attempts are doomed to failure, ultimately.

wheelreason

My goal is to make money, getting folks back on the road is just bycatch, like dolphin in tunafish...
"Difficult" stuff is what roadies bring in, so I price the vaseline as a loss leader...

2_i 

I rode on bikes borrowed from locals in China in the early 2000s and was able to straighten their bent chainrings with bare hands - no rocks or even door frame involved. I think these were the lowest-quality bikes I ever rode on. All steel on them was soft, and I could not see signs of any maintenance. In one shop, I saw a 'Western' department-level bike displayed in a window in an altar-manner fashion - the price was humongous relative to the salaries. The Indian-made bikes I rode in Eastern Africa were tough in comparison, even though they might employed unusual solutions for me, such as rod-operated brakes, double-top tubes, and Dunlop valves. Bikes used there as taxis still today continue to be of this type.