I had an acquaintance who asked me recently:
Acquaintance: Tell me if I’m was being unreasonable.
Me: Ok, what happened?
Aquaintance: I went to the bike shop because I got a flat tire - I asked to borrow a wrench and he wouldn’t let me, and he was kind of rude about it.
Me: You were being unreasonable.
He didn’t agree with me, and thought the shop gave him poor customer service.
Thoughts?
It would be nice of the shop to provide basic loaner tools for use right there. Particularly if your friend bought a replacement inner tube right then, or if he was a regular. That could be cutting into the bike shop’s service revenue, but it could also win them customers that can afford parts but not labor for assembly and installation.
Some random asshole wanders in off the street and wants to use tools though? Eh, fuck 'em. I can’t walk into a McDonalds and fry up my own food on their griddle…
If you were a regular, or bought the bike there, or were buying a tube right then and there, sure.
Random stranger off the street? No, it’s not customer service if you’re not a customer.
Although it is a very strange concept, you aren’t a customer unless you actually purchase products from a store.
Many people have had a bad experience loaning out a tool of some kind or another and never seeing it again or seeing it returned it awful condition (e.g. you loan out a screwdriver and are returned an awl). Every use of a tool wears it down and diminishes its value, and communal property is especially poorly maintained. Your friend seems entitled and narcissistic.
He did buy the tube there - but I still don’t think expecting to be able to borrow a tool was particularly reasonable.
Unreasonable.
Maybe expecting is a bit too strong, but hoping and asking is quite reasonable. I’m not familiar with many bike shops, but in my experience many auto parts stores will lend basic tools so you can swap out a battery or an air filter you just bought from them. Other auto parts stores make a point of offering more expensive tools (with a deposit) as loaners. That’s one business strategy that probably helps sell parts, but at the same time I wouldn’t expect the same from every parts store, and I wouldn’t expect it at all from a shop that has a token retail operation.
It was the expecting that I myself found unreasonable - good point.
If he bought the tube then the guy should have let him use the wrench - I wouldn’t expect it, actually I’d be embarrassed to ask and appreciate I was asking for a favour - but if the owner said no after buying the tube, I’d never go back there.
Plus - it’s a puncture, the bike aint moving. It’s not like he wants to adjust his saddle position or generally dick around with something - he could be in a tight spot / facing a long walk home etc.
Seems completely bizarre not to help a customer out like that, but I appreciate that bike shop owners have to put up with a lot of bullshit requests so maybe he was having a bad day.
Bike shops are known for their dickish attitude, so I’d expect no less.
It’s rude to ask a shop which does repairs to borrow their tools. Their tools are there for their employees to make repairs that they get paid for.
Auto part stores will lend tools because they’re not making repairs. They lend tools so that you’ll be able to replace parts that you (hopefully) buy from the store. Usually, there’s no option for the store to make the repair, so they’re not losing money by lending you the tool. The practice is so pervasive that the occasional store that has a repair bay (PepBoys) still lends tools. If they didn’t, they’d lose the customer to another store.
All stores (not just bike stores) have to deal with problem customers. If your friend gets upset that a bike shop won’t lend him a tool, he’s likely not a customer the shop wants. He’d probably be more trouble he’s worth for the the minor profit (if any) they would make off him.
I guess the question for me is why is this considered dickish?
Some bikes shops can at times be dickish - I would agree with that - but for other actions entirely different and unrelated to this.
E.G. I went into a shop and asked about a Mavic wheel and the guy was like “You mean Mauvique” and I thought to myself “You know what the hell I mean asshole.”
If by wrench you mean the little plastic thing to get the tire off the wheel, then yeah, I’d certainly hope they’d let me borrow one. If you mean something like a socket wrench to get the wheel off the frame, I wouldn’t expect and wouldn’t ask to borrow it. That’s an expensive tool they can’t afford to lose.
I assume your friend had the wheel with him, right? If he was asking to take a tool home with him, then it doesn’t matter how cheap a tool it is. It was an unreasonable request.
Many auto mechanics have a sticker like this on their tool box http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/$(KGrHqVHJCEE8l,F8FCYBPMuc-JYeg~~60_35.JPG
It’s quite possible that the bike mechanic like an auto technician owes the tool you friend was asking to borrow. It might not be owned by the shop.
I would never ask a bike shop to loan me a tool. I know how much they cost and their worth to the mechanic.
Furthermore if the guy is going to do his repairs, he will need tools. Go ahead and buy them.
My understanding is that he was going to use the tool right then and there, so it seems quite dickish to me. I’d let pretty much anyone use my wrench in my presence. It isn’t like he is likely to break it changing a tire, plus it sounds like he needed to change his tube to continue on his way and had just purchased a new one from the shop, so would be stuck walking home while they dickishly withheld the use of a simple tool from a paying customer.
Plus, it says the person was rude. Being rude is typical dickish bike shop attitude.
Once I drove two hours to a shop with a very nice selection of vintage road bikes. I am 5’2", but there were a few just my size, so I was excited to test a couple out and pick one. Nope. I was “too small” for them and they “could” only sell me a step-through frame. Even if I wanted to buy one of the other bikes without test riding, they said they would not sell me one, and even claimed that non-step-through bikes were actually not even made for people my size.
And that is just one of the many times I have seen bike shop workers be the biggest douches you can possibly imagine.
I think the request is reasonable, but he should expect the possibility of a negative answer, especially if the shop offers that service for a fee.
OTOH, there are several bike shop/co-ops around the country. You can work on your own bike in these places for a small fee (smaller than paying them to repair it), which also gives you access to their tools. Freewheel Bike in the Twin Cities is one. The Bikery, which is in a few cities, is another.
I would expect to be able to use a simple tool like a tire lever in order to install a new tube that I had just purchased from the shop. I’d also expect to be able to use a pump to inflate it. Not long ago, my wife bought a rack for her bike, and it came with the wrong length attachments, so we rode to the shop to get the right ones. When we bought them, I asked to borrow a 5mm hex wrench to install them, and they handed one over for me to use right there in the shop.
If they had balked, I’m not sure I’d call it dickish or unreasonable. Perhaps they kept having tools walk away and had to make a policy of no tools loaned out. But it would also be the last thing I ever bought there.
We are just coming to be in heavy disagreement on this issue - that’s all there is to it. At 5’2" it can be very difficult to find suitable vintage frame that is not a step-through, they simply did not make many frames like that until more recently. Before Terry, there was nobody focused on that part of the market, and they were able to overcome some of the design challenges (e.g… toe overlap) by using a smaller front wheel.
I think a shop like the one you are describing is a good one - they care about making sure a customer has the right product and are not interested in selling something just to make a dollar.
Bwahahaahha. This would come as quite a surprise to all the women at 5’ tall racing non step through bikes. Like my Wife for instance. Well, she’s 5’1".
Eh. Depends on what ‘wrench’ your friend was looking for I suppose. But if it was just a tire tool (bikes not bought at Walmart don’t need a ‘wrench’ to take the wheel off), I’d call it a bad day on the guy at the shop.
Oh. Vintage. Missed that part.
