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The Water Cooler, Scuttlebutt, Chit Chat Thread

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The Water Cooler, Scuttlebutt, Chit Chat Thread

Old 07-28-21, 05:07 PM
  #6351  
big john
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Originally Posted by carpediemracing
Yes. I'd like to think that most of us are the former, at least at the store where I work.
I was at my last dealer for 21 years and they usually kept the advisors in check and would always lean toward honesty with customers and we all worked hard to build a large customer base. We would help them out when needed, tell them when things could wait, etc.

Then a new general manager came and brought with him several techs, 2 advisors, and a service manager. One of the advisors started before the manager and started screwing customers right away. It was shocking what this liar did to people and when some of the techs reported it to the parts manager who was filling in until the new service manager showed up we were told "the new manager will fix it when he comes". Of course, they were friends from their old place so screwing customers was encouraged and when the other advisors couldn't keep up, they were threatened with being fired. So they were forced to start lying and overselling even though they had spent years trying to be fair and honest. It made me sick and I'm glad to be out of there.

The guy was so outrageous that several times men who found out what he did or tried to do to their family members came down and threatened to beat his ass and some called him out to the parking lot. A few times the police were called. The store lost a lot of customers and had to give refunds a number of times. He's still there.
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Old 07-28-21, 05:32 PM
  #6352  
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Originally Posted by gsteinb
I had two retul fits with two different fitters. Each fitter came to a dramatically different assessment and my position ended up in a very positions.
Not a lot of responses like this, but I see this all the time with other tools. We make [software] tools and there are very different results based on who is using them.

I like folks with experiance that guess the best. My bias when it comes to most things.
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Old 07-29-21, 07:21 AM
  #6353  
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Originally Posted by Doge
Not a lot of responses like this, but I see this all the time with other tools. We make [software] tools and there are very different results based on who is using them.

I like folks with experiance that guess the best. My bias when it comes to most things.
I agree with this. The system is only as good as the person using it.

Hermes and I have used Ero, and they have done hundreds (thousands?) of fits. So, it is that level of experience that I am really paying for.

I have had fits done with several different people over the years. Ero is the only one I am recommending to others. (If aero fitting was your goal, I have one other I would also recommend, but that is not the case here.)
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Old 07-29-21, 07:24 AM
  #6354  
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Originally Posted by big john
I was at my last dealer for 21 years and they usually kept the advisors in check and would always lean toward honesty with customers and we all worked hard to build a large customer base. We would help them out when needed, tell them when things could wait, etc.

Then a new general manager came and brought with him several techs, 2 advisors, and a service manager. One of the advisors started before the manager and started screwing customers right away. It was shocking what this liar did to people and when some of the techs reported it to the parts manager who was filling in until the new service manager showed up we were told "the new manager will fix it when he comes". Of course, they were friends from their old place so screwing customers was encouraged and when the other advisors couldn't keep up, they were threatened with being fired. So they were forced to start lying and overselling even though they had spent years trying to be fair and honest. It made me sick and I'm glad to be out of there.

The guy was so outrageous that several times men who found out what he did or tried to do to their family members came down and threatened to beat his ass and some called him out to the parking lot. A few times the police were called. The store lost a lot of customers and had to give refunds a number of times. He's still there.
CDB and John, this has been helpful for me as someone who does not come from a car background to understand things a bit better, particularly in retrospect.

At this point, my wife and I take our cars to an independent repair shop. We had heard good reviews about them, but we were sold when the guy took a look at my wife's Prius and told her: yeah, the care is doing exactly what she said it was doing; he had seen that on a few other Priuses from the same year; Toyota knows about it but doesn't know how to fix it; sell it and buy a new car while it still has value, and then didn't charge her for his time.
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Old 07-29-21, 08:09 AM
  #6355  
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First ebay deal used San Remo came in. Man, might be new favorite for $50. Solid kit. I can't swing over $200 new for that. But I can try to steal used deals on a couple. Those will be ****** for TT training or faster non-team road rides. I say non-team as team kits are required. But the fit is just right for comfy ripping around. With pockets. Also have the Assos equivalent coming, maybe.

I had bought a lot of my training jerseys when I was more like 165 lb instead of 155 lb. So, they kinda ugly now.
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Old 07-29-21, 08:11 AM
  #6356  
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Another comment about fit that I expect most know is that it should be tested with power at what you want to do.
One fit is not best for everything.
Your position might vary a bit based on the power you put out. It also might vary a bit based on how fast you want to go.
A static fit may get you the best for power, but not the best for speed. Then the fastest may be too fatiguing.
The rather obvious point is fit to what you need to do.
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Old 07-29-21, 08:49 AM
  #6357  
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Originally Posted by topflightpro
CDB and John, this has been helpful for me as someone who does not come from a car background to understand things a bit better, particularly in retrospect.

At this point, my wife and I take our cars to an independent repair shop. We had heard good reviews about them, but we were sold when the guy took a look at my wife's Prius and told her: yeah, the care is doing exactly what she said it was doing; he had seen that on a few other Priuses from the same year; Toyota knows about it but doesn't know how to fix it; sell it and buy a new car while it still has value, and then didn't charge her for his time.
It's great if you can find someone you trust. A lot of the bad things you hear about the auto service industry are true but there are good people out there, even at new car dealers. I worked at one dealer for 5 years and it was family owned. They watched things closely and if there was anything shady going on, people got fired. I thought that was how dealers were until I worked at another one which was like the Wild West. No management to speak of, no solid customer base, and tons of warranty fraud. Just stupid.
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Old 07-29-21, 09:12 AM
  #6358  
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Personally, the only work a dealer would ever do to my vehicle is warrantied work with no out of pocket. Or a recall.

Otherwise I depend solely on word of mouth close connected friends. "So and so who owns a VW shop referred me to you". I do most of my own work outside of major major stuff. If I can do it over a weekend and avoid the whole dropoff pickup no car for half a week thing, I'll do it.

Biggest minor scam we came across was I didn't have time to get car inspected one year so wife took it. She called me about it failing for a tail light out. The shop wanted to charger her like $110 to take 30 seconds to put in a $5 bulb. They tried to play the "book hours" game with me on the phone and I replied "so you can honestly say the book says an hour for the 30 seconds to open the flap and change it?". I came and picked it up, drove to Autozone, and was back with the bulb installed in 5min. I made a scene in the lobby in front of their customers about trying to take advantage of a woman who didn't know how these things work.
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Old 07-29-21, 10:26 AM
  #6359  
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File this under "gotta share it somewhere":

Sunday's finale of Intelli - men's "fixed gear crit". I hear whistles go off and see our chief ref walk out and stop the field to neutralize the race. Not common but not unheard of around here (neutralized a field a couple of days before in lake Bluff for a bad wreck).

I'm a nosey guy. I'm sure it's because I feel some sense of obligation. I have put on roughly 30 races in the last decade. I've worked as Neutral support for probably 40 others. While I'm not an official I am the president of our USA Cycling Local Association. I tend to often be the first one on the scene when people fall down and go boom. So I started walking to where I believed the wreck to be. Sure I didn't need to be there, like I said I guess it boils down to me being nosey and thinking if needed I could step in and help (traffic, pulling barricades, running for a person because I know who it is, etc).

I come up on it and it's bad. Not life threateningly bad (I've seen those and they are hard to shake) but enough I had to leave or I'd lose my lunch. I'll spare everyone the details. but let's just say the rider was tangled with the fence and there was a bit of a "Joe Theismann" leg thing going on. Guy was calm and talking and was most upset no one took a picture. I left and opened up the course for the ambulance.

Still can't fully shake it. Count your blessings and enjoy your day. Also: avoid fixed gear crits. Sure this could happen in any race but can't help but feel like with fixed gear crits it's just kind of fulfilling a prophesy when this stuff happens.
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Old 07-29-21, 11:27 AM
  #6360  
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Originally Posted by Psimet2001

Still can't fully shake it. Count your blessings and enjoy your day. Also: avoid fixed gear crits. Sure this could happen in any race but can't help but feel like with fixed gear crits it's just kind of fulfilling a prophesy when this stuff happens.
I know people who ride fixed gear everywhere, events, club rides, even in the mountains. Naturally there have been some bad crashes with these guys. Sure, bad crashes happen on geared bikes but I think being fixed takes away some of the ability to avoid trouble. Plus it seems easier to lock up the rear wheel when descending in a turn, not to mention pedal strikes.
I've ridden with fixed gear riders and even track riders on track bikes and they were safe to be around but there is certainly an added danger, especially the track bikes with no brakes.
And thanks for the Joe Theismann memory. The guy wanting a picture reminds me of a line in "North Dallas Forty". One player asks another what he felt while injured on the field. "Satisfaction" was his answer.
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Old 07-29-21, 11:45 AM
  #6361  
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Originally Posted by big john
It's great if you can find someone you trust. A lot of the bad things you hear about the auto service industry are true but there are good people out there, even at new car dealers. I worked at one dealer for 5 years and it was family owned. They watched things closely and if there was anything shady going on, people got fired. I thought that was how dealers were until I worked at another one which was like the Wild West. No management to speak of, no solid customer base, and tons of warranty fraud. Just stupid.
I still have a shock sitting in my garage, for a car I no longer own, because a shady place (shoutout to Mavis!) told me I needed two new rear shocks, that they were leaking badly. Once I told them I wouldn't be doing the work there, they suddenly finished inspecting my wife's car real quick and didn't find anything.

I checked, they were dirty, I don't really know what a leaking shock looks like (I do a lot of my own work, but suspension I usually leave to others) so I ordered the parts and took it to a reputable place, who told me they were dry as a bone and shouldn't be changed. I later did need 1 changed, but the other didn't leak and was still find when I sold the car like 4 years later.

Another tried to fail my wife's car for a leaking engine mount. I took it home, checked the PA regulations, and motor mounts aren't included in the inspection requirements, so I told them to pass it, and they did. Car is still fine, I never got around to replacing it. It's a hydraulic mount but it works fine without the hydraulics, just very slightly increased NVH.

I now go to a place that replaced a burned out bulb for free during my inspection, even though I tried to pay them. They'll also rotate the tires for free during, since they have half of them off anyway.
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Old 07-29-21, 11:48 AM
  #6362  
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Originally Posted by big john
I know people who ride fixed gear everywhere, events, club rides, even in the mountains. Naturally there have been some bad crashes with these guys. Sure, bad crashes happen on geared bikes but I think being fixed takes away some of the ability to avoid trouble. Plus it seems easier to lock up the rear wheel when descending in a turn, not to mention pedal strikes.
I've ridden with fixed gear riders and even track riders on track bikes and they were safe to be around but there is certainly an added danger, especially the track bikes with no brakes.
And thanks for the Joe Theismann memory. The guy wanting a picture reminds me of a line in "North Dallas Forty". One player asks another what he felt while injured on the field. "Satisfaction" was his answer.
Track bikes with no brakes on the road is insane to me. I literally only feel comfortable on the track or apron or warm up area. Everywhere else there's just too many variables, not to mention terrain.
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Old 07-29-21, 12:18 PM
  #6363  
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I do quite a bit of training on the track bike on the road. But I am generally very intentional about where and when I do that riding. For example, I will ride on the street in front of my house early in the morning or in the middle of a week day. Or on weekends I will drive over to the local business park that has wide roads and little weekend traffic. I generally cannot fathom riding fixed gear without brakes in normal traffic or on a crit course.
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Old 07-29-21, 01:35 PM
  #6364  
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Originally Posted by Flatballer
Track bikes with no brakes on the road is insane to me. I literally only feel comfortable on the track or apron or warm up area. Everywhere else there's just too many variables, not to mention terrain.
Originally Posted by topflightpro
I do quite a bit of training on the track bike on the road. But I am generally very intentional about where and when I do that riding. For example, I will ride on the street in front of my house early in the morning or in the middle of a week day. Or on weekends I will drive over to the local business park that has wide roads and little weekend traffic. I generally cannot fathom riding fixed gear without brakes in normal traffic or on a crit course.
TBH the track bikes have been pretty rare and the last time a guy showed up at a club ride with one some of the other guys told him to stay off the back.
Another friend has done the Furnace Creek 508 twice as well as Paris Brest Paris twice on a fixed gear.

What was weird is a few times a guy on roller blades came to our short Sunday ride. It's an all city ride with lots of traffic lights so the skater could catch up at lights. This was extremely sketchy and a few riders had close calls so we asked him to leave, several times, but he didn't. Finally, a friend who is about 250 pounds unleashed a torrent of obscenities and promised grievous bodily injury if the skater stuck around. That did it and he didn't come back.

Last edited by big john; 07-29-21 at 01:43 PM.
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Old 07-29-21, 06:58 PM
  #6365  
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Originally Posted by big john
What was weird is a few times a guy on roller blades came to our short Sunday ride. It's an all city ride with lots of traffic lights so the skater could catch up at lights. This was extremely sketchy and a few riders had close calls so we asked him to leave, several times, but he didn't. Finally, a friend who is about 250 pounds unleashed a torrent of obscenities and promised grievous bodily injury if the skater stuck around. That did it and he didn't come back.
A criterium around here ran a speed skater field as a side project once - they were actually pretty impressive.
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Old 07-29-21, 07:33 PM
  #6366  
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Originally Posted by Enthalpic
A criterium around here ran a speed skater field as a side project once - they were actually pretty impressive.
That would be fun to watch. This guy was fast on his skates but did not mix well with a group of cyclists with varying abilities.
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Old 07-30-21, 09:01 AM
  #6367  
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Flatballer

It's often recommended to change shocks / struts in pairs. I'd probably have just done them both esp if I had the parts on hand.

And on the note of car related things. Gonna go visit a friend in MA in a few hours so we can get my miata on the lift. Plan is to upgrade the suspension and clean up the underside and por15 any sketchy looking spots. Gonna have this car for a few years. It started off at a petty good price for what it is so it's going to be built up nice over time.

Already planning a motor swap for next year!
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Old 07-30-21, 10:34 AM
  #6368  
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Originally Posted by ridethecliche

miata

chick car
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Old 07-30-21, 11:43 AM
  #6369  
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Originally Posted by gsteinb
chick awesome fun car
ftfy
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Old 07-30-21, 08:14 PM
  #6370  
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ad free - one less thing...
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Old 07-30-21, 09:36 PM
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Originally Posted by topflightpro
CDB and John, this has been helpful for me as someone who does not come from a car background to understand things a bit better, particularly in retrospect.

At this point, my wife and I take our cars to an independent repair shop. We had heard good reviews about them, but we were sold when the guy took a look at my wife's Prius and told her: yeah, the care is doing exactly what she said it was doing; he had seen that on a few other Priuses from the same year; Toyota knows about it but doesn't know how to fix it; sell it and buy a new car while it still has value, and then didn't charge her for his time.
As I work in the shop, I realize that it's people. I work for people, not a company, and although the manager and a few guys are good, supportive, work hard, etc, there are others that aren't. I'd follow one tech to the end of the earth. He seems to know everything about every car, and he's every tech's go to if a tech runs into something they don't know how to fix. Not only will the one tech know about it, he'll know all the ins and outs about the job too.

So I'd always go where he is, because I know he's super honest, super accurate, and knows when to say when. I happen to get him into mountain biking and he'd gone 100% into it, to the point he bought a truck just to drive to trails (and down trails to get to more trails). He's gone from a used Cannondale enduro bike to something I don't even know, $5000 something something.

I do a lot of waiving charges. If we diag a car and we can't fix it (dealer thing, transmission thing that we don't service, wiring issue which we also don't do) then I'll waive the charge because it's not like we did the diag and they declined. Some guys charge for it, but I always waive it.

Another thing is bulbs. So book cost is one thing, but sometimes book cost is there to get people to do the work. So battery installs are ridiculously high book time, like 0.5 (half hour or 30 min) for a 5 minute job. Charge is minimal, like $10 or $15, but the book time is there so the job is appealing to the techs. Likewise bulbs are stupid long times for some simple bulbs, so the techs do them. Some are ridiculous pains and worth every penny of install, like a Ford Fusion headlight (almost 2 hours labor because you have to remove the front bumper to get to the bulb) or a Dodge Ram Classic (ditto, so much stuff to take apart to get to bulb). It's not just the time. It's also the risk of damaging stuff. When that bumper is not on the car there's a huge risk of scraping it, dropping it, whatever. I prefer not to take in those jobs so I quote the full price.

However some bulbs are super easy, and still 0.5 or 1.0 or whatever book time. A mean advisor could put it down at full list, at $153 per hour, but we have a "small bulb" item where the labor is 0.2, cost is $14? plus bulb, and so you're out for less than $20. I'll check a bulb and if it takes less than 0.4 then I'll put it down for small bulb and give extra time to the tech elsewhere (like add 0.2 to the courtesy check line).
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Old 07-31-21, 06:57 PM
  #6372  
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Originally Posted by carpediemracing
I do a lot of waiving charges..
There is a small private shop down just down the road from where I worked that I swear is kept busy just from word-of-mouth referrals because they did something for free.

Do a small job for free once, get a customer for life and free advertising.
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Old 08-01-21, 03:52 AM
  #6373  
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I just had this experience with a collision shop. The first person I dealt with was horrible and made me hate the shop. I escalated and started dealing with his boss and the experience was completely different and had I started with him, I would be raving about the shop. Now I have mixed feelings because, while he did provide amazing service, as a manager, he allowed the other person to deliver poor service. Frustrating, but that's just a sign of a bad culture and overall, I won't go back.
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Old 08-02-21, 08:52 AM
  #6374  
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I never had to go to an auto shop as a customer but I went to several bike shops before I found 'My LBS'. Someone recommended a store to me so I went in there with cash in my pocket to buy a bike. This was probably 1987? No employee would acknowledge me and I browsed bikes for some time. Finally I just left. At another shop the guy was very helpful, pulled down every bike I wanted to see, put pedals on them, etc. I bought a bike from him but later found the shop I dealt with for 30+ years. This guy gave me deals on everything and treated me like a friend. He thinks I sent him a lot of business. I tried. He retired in June. Frack.

One time I needed a tire for my mtb and went to a shop near home. The guy seemed very annoyed that I was even there. I told him what I wanted and he pulled some wire-bead bike path special. No, I want a real mountain bike tire. He was such a dick I never went in there again.

I think so much of business is just common sense. I dealt with a big auto parts store when I worked at an independent shop. We were one of their smaller accounts, I'm sure. I went there looking for a part and the counter man said they didn't have it and didn't know where to get it. I was leaving and the owner of the store asked me what I was looking for. He studied it and remembered they had ordered one for someone else and they hadn't picked it up so he sold it to me and ordered another. He spent his time with me and probably only made a couple bucks on that part but I was impressed with his service.

I bought a used motorcycle from a shop and when I needed a part, if he didn't have it he would pull it off of a bike on the showroom floor for me.
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Old 08-02-21, 10:13 AM
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topflightpro
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My frame is back from being repaired!

It's like new bike day!
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