nebrider

Seeing too much stuff i "need."

Whats your least favorite thing about working in a bike shop?

Creakyknees

those dang customers keep coming in and interrupting my air guitar solos.

Szczuldo

i've thought about working in a bike shop, but quickly tossed that idea out the window, maybe because the shops here don't have anything that I actually need other than rim tape, quick replacement spokes and patch kits

not to mention it seems like a perfect way to ruin the fun of fixing your own bike since you have to deal with people who do not know how to fix their own bikes.

merckx89

The fact that I never seem to leave with any of my paycheck.

Cdy291

I don't have to deal with costumers

I can wear just about what ever I wan't

I can come and go as I please, lunch at any time

Make up to $20 an hour

Get an employee discount which greatly helps my racing needs


Whats not to like.

Frunkin

+1
And even as a part timer I got my prime riding hours cut down. As soon as it starts to get warm here work hours go WAY up and riding time unfortunately goes down.

The other part I hate is when I have to smile and go along with the customer even though they're wrong and I've already told them. I go crazy with all the guys that come in and can barely stand over a bike but "thats their size" when the bike is actually way to big. Every day all summer long.

nebrider

I LOVE my job

carbonjockey

+2- although cheap **** and a pass to interbike are nice. i fully appreciate the dibs on the free parts bin, no dress code, ep, and living vicariously through other ppls bikes. i dont like working on mongooses, nexts, and the like, and i hate stripped crank arms! with a passion

carbonjockey

there are however times when i dont want to touch my bike after a long day, or where i feel like a dick for charging what we do for tuneups and the like on bikes in good shape

travkat

I didn't like the:
Pay.
Some of the customers.
Especially the customers who asked for my opinions and expertise and then ignored it.
The owners not letting us pro deal very often. (why else work in a shop if not for the deals)
The prime riding time being cut into.

I did like:
my co-workers
the products we carried
working on bikes (sometimes)
bike fits and pro builds

kelsey by metro

worst part about working at a bike shop? it's probably dealing with newbies like me

urbanknight

Kids coming in with their 10 year old BMX bikes bought somewhere else saying they should be sponsored even though they don't race.

vic32amg

favorite things?

when Francesco Fondriest stops by and says lets do dinner tonight.

when Landis comes and has his new girl buy a bunch of stuff from us. and we get to talk about racing.

When one of the most critical people ( Victor Menayan ) comes in and say that we are the only people qualified enough to work on his stuff.

NOT selling specialized or Treks.

Drinking some coronas and playing guitar when it's slow.

the bad:

Drinking some coronas and playing guitar when it's slow.

The pay. Customers 90% of them. Watching everyone buy bikes that I know I can't afford for myself. EX: Prince , Addict LTD , Colnago C-50 ,

gluing tires. packing a bike to ship. anything shoe related. trying not to eat the gingerbread cliff bars.

trying to compete with ebay.

roadwarrior

Scan through some of the threads and posts in this forum.

Then imagine dealing with those people face to face.

For a while, it's painful. Then it's funny. Pretty damn funny as a matter of fact.



Also, the "expert buddy". He's the guy that talks a lot about bikes at work, for example, and has his friend convinced he's EddyGregLance...it's usually a 15-30 minute proposition to undo all the crapola he's filled his friend's head with...and the trick is doing this with diplomacy so that the "expert buddy" does not get pissed off.

"Can you tell me what bike size I need?" Sure, which bike are you interested in buying? "Oh, I just want to know what size I need." That's a favorite of mine. It's even better when the "expert buddy" is there.

BackRoadsBiker

I completely agree with the POS BMX and crank arm repairs! And the customers that own them. It's not MY fault a crank arm costs more than your bike is worth.

It is all OK though- I found out my shop might become a Zipp dealer. EP baby!!!

blueturtle241

People strolling in with bikes from various department stores, and then getting irate that the repair will cost more than the bike did new...

Also the blatant lies "I was just riding along and-(fill in the imposible here).

And the sneaks that try to buy a bike rack for the weekend vacation with the fam and then try to return it a few days later....oh yea, we may be bike mechanics, but not idiots.

banerjek

You should try selling large screen TV's. You'd be amazed how many people buy a giant screen TV for a big game party and then return it afterwards.

carpediemracing 

The worst part was finding out the guy stealing bikes from us wasn't a guy, it was a couple of kids (figure middle school or early high school). My manager found them (he lived right near them and learned they would get a few bucks from one of their older brothers or something, a drug addict, and the older/adult guy would sell the bike to feed his habit), confronted them.

"Look, we're a small shop. Someone steals a bike from us, we lose money. If we lose money then we have to close the shop. Then we lose our jobs."

The kids looked uncomfortable so I hope they felt bad about it. We closed a couple months later so I hope the kids think they "caused" it. They didn't, of course, but giving out a few free bikes didn't help us any either.

But in normal bike shop life, it's the hours and money. Working Saturdays and Sundays is terrible enough, but if you don't get paid much for it, it's worse. My last IT job made me work pretty much all day M-F+Su, or at least be available and therefore unable to go out (and ride or have dinner or go shopping or whatnot). But I got paid enough to ease the pain. If you work in a shop it's got to be for the love of the sport.

One more thing - my last boss in the shop was a very tempermental guy. Watching him scream at customers who were right didn't make me feel very good about the shop.

cdr

Doolittle

I've always really enjoyed the bikes people bring in and there is simply no explanation for what has happened or been done. I recently started changing a flat and a bunch of water started spitting out the valve. That's not terribly out of the ordinary, but once I removed the tube from the tire I found that it was actually full of water.

When the guy came in I asked him out of curiosity why his tube was filled with water. He replied that his friend did it and he followed suit. I see.

My least favourite part is dealing with people who have left their bikes outside for extended periods and seem surprised that it is both very expensive to repair and will require almost all new parts. Bicycles that have been to Burning Man are another fun thing to appear in the shop. "No, I don't need either of the brakes to work, can you just oil the chain?"

patentcad

I figured it was my incessant stupid questions about high end bike crap.

Dale-Murray

Worst parts (I was a mechanic):
-Working on Saturday while everyone is riding.
-Working during prime riding season.
-Customers who come in one minute before closing time and hang for an hour.
-Sales and jr mechanics that do not have an F'ing clue on writing up a repair correctly.
-Endlessly explaining to customers NOT TO WASH THEIR BIKES WITH GARDEN HOSES!
-Standing all day long!
-Any customer who is a mechanical or automotive engineer (THEY KNOW EVERYTHING! yet still need us to fix things?)
-SLOW DAYS!
-Fighting over the radio.

roadwarrior

Yep...another fun one...it's always tough to keep from bursting out laughing when they do this.

On the last...lights. Twenty four hour race, buy a big light system. Bring it back on Monday.

The best...guy buys a light system, brings it back on Monday, "It does not work." Really? Did you charge it up like we told you on Friday?

Blank stare...



One really wonders how some of these folks make it out of bed in the morning without killing themselves.

Foofy

I almost got a job at a bike shop, which would have been great for me. In addition to doing a job I actually care about, it'd accelerate my learning about bikes and get me meeting more cyclists. Didn't get the job, but maybe in the future. I'm a college student, and I'd sure rather work at that shop than making pizzas for lazy fat people.

heyguys

Since your "favorite things" are composed of some elitist bs that nobody cares about, especially not selling specialized or trek....why would you brag about drinking piss water coronas? I just figured youd have much better taste in beer.

vic32amg

Because the the shop lurkers bring them. And I hapen to like corona. And pabst.

BTW: have you ever been in a Specialized " Concept" store? Not my idea of a very good shop.

Nothing wrong with specialized or trek bikes. I just think those stores are very generic.