I don’t mind them giving advice so much, even if I didn’t ask for or want it, but this wasn’t advice, it was refusal to do business. Is that really something you like, stores that won’t sell you things you may want and have money for? :dubious:
Would you appreciate a donut shop that decided donuts were not appropriate for you and you needed to go find somewhere that could sell you a salad? A clothing store that wouldn’t let you buy a dress because you were a man? A hardware store that decided you were too klutzy to safely work a circular saw so you weren’t permitted to buy one?
“Buy a bike with a step-through frame” (from somewhere that has some) isn’t even good advice. It’s a weaker and inferior design for normal riding purposes, and more importantly, not at all what I wanted. Had I followed their advice, I’d have ended up with a bike I was unhappy with. I did let myself get talked into a step-through frame once at age twelve. I rode the bike and regretted the decision for the next five years.
And refusing to make a sale was in no way a noble sacrifice by people willing to put people over profits or whatever, as these particular workers did not own the shop and probably made the same low hourly wage regardless of sales. Bike shop workers are typically not paid well, so they supplement their cash incomes with the pleasure of condescending, snubbing, misinforming, or otherwise mistreating customers. It’s normal and expected at most shops.
My local shop is nice to me and even lends me tools, but they rarely have any bikes of interest and I like to shop for bike stuff, so I’ve been to dozens of shops. Being douchey is a perk of the trade.
I’ve had a hockey store refuse to sell me a pair of used skates because the owner said even though they fit my feet there weren’t adequate for my needs. He said he’d rather not sell me anything than sell me something that would make me miserable. It’s possible that he was just trying to sell me a pair of more expensive new skates (which I did buy) but the store came highly recommended and I trusted their judgement.
They were inadequate for me, a larger adult with small feet, who wanted to play fairly competitive hockey. He would have gladly sold them to a smaller person who wanted to just kick around on skates and come back later for an upgraded pair. I made it clear these skates were going to be my only purchase for a decade or more (and they’ve lasted nearly two decades so far.)
Couldn’t he have just told you that you wouldn’t get ten years of heavy usage out of them and let you make the call for yourself? What if you didn’t have enough money yet for the more-expensive new skates? No hockey for you until you do? That doesn’t seem like a better choice for anyone.
And a necessary one. I too am in auto repair and depend on my tools to make a living. A tool lent to someone is out of my possession and out of my control. It’s not there if I need it, and it may not make it back to me.
Sure, the borrower only plans to use it “for a minute” and intends to return it, but things happen. Maybe it gets dropped and lost, maybe the borrower gets distracted by some aspect of what he’s doing and forgets, any number of things can happen. I cannot simultaneously monitor the tool’s whereabouts and perform my normal work. On paper it seems such a simple thing to lend the tool, but in reality it becomes a problem more often than you might guess.
And if I don’t get the tool back, it’s not just a minor inconvenience. It impedes my ability to do my job. If someone wants to borrow one of my tools, I might go out to their car with it and turn the screw myself, but I won’t turn over the tool. Whatever the odds of there being a problem, it’s just too costly to me if something goes awry.
I recognize it may be different with a bike shop that sells parts for do-it-yourselfers.
You know what else is different? It’s really easy to carry some basic tools on a bicycle. Someone who is capable of fixing a flat should damn well carry the necessary tools with him.
Carrying every tool you might need can be quite heavy, and then you can’t leave them on the bike when you go inside somewhere or they could be stolen. Sometimes you must rely on the kindness of strangers and sometimes it’s your turn to be the kind one and share a tool with a fellow cyclist. It’s normal to wish to help others in need, not withhold the short-term use of a non-consumable item to teach them a lesson about what dicks people can be.
Keeping your shop tools from being absorbed into another mechanic’s collection is not quite the same.
True, but what you’re likely to need for short trips will fit into a pocket.
True again. But perhaps give some thought to what constitutes being a dick and what constitutes a professional looking out for his livelihood.
Not quite sure what you’re referencing here. Lending to a coworker is common and not a worry – the tool is close at hand in the shop and easy to retrieve, and your fellow mechanic knows how important it is to you. It’s lending to a customer that’s problematic.
As the owner of the business, he probably has experienced bad feedback when people buy gear that is not adequate for the task. I would image he has determined that a lost customers is better for his long term business than a full informed customer who makes an ill-advised purchase and then provides bad reviews/feedback/comments. As to not having enough money, that wasn’t a problem for me although I intended to spend less when I went in the store.
I had no problem with his decision, have given them rave reviews, and gone back for additional purchases even though it’s now out of my way. I’ve never been a store owner so I don’t know if this policy makes sense in all cases, but if that’s the way the business wishes to operate I can certainly respect that. In specialty stores that depend on lots of repeat business, I can see how your reputation may be more important than any particular sale.
For a repair like this, the customer has many reasonable options.
#1 - pay the shop to change the tire. A local shop here charges about $10-15 to change the tube, new tube included.
#2 - buy the wrench he needs. $10?
#3 - walk the bike home or to an auto parts store which has tools to lend.
The costs are very reasonable. It’s not like the guy is stranded if he can’t borrow a wrench.
The auto parts stores that lend tools have a box of tools just for this purpose, and they are usually beat to hell. The employees don’t use them, so that’s all from customer use. It’s not a good idea for a bike shop to lend their good tools to customers. If they wanted to lend tools, they’d likely need to have a set of loaner tools just for that purpose. They could perhaps keep a box of their old tools for this purpose, but it probably happens so rarely that it doesn’t matter.
One doesn’t normally bike with big baggy pockets of tools, even if you do have such pockets. It’s clunky and annoying.
To repair the most common problem, a flat, you’d need, at minimum, a wrench (if your wheels are not quick release), 3 tire levers, a patch kit, and a pump or cartridge-type inflator plus cartridges. Would you even walk around with all that in your pockets, let alone bike and have them smacking your leg or spilling out with every pedal stroke?
I don’t mind a professional not loaning out tools willy-nilly, but there’s no need to be rude about it. Someone using a wrench to take off a wheel would take thirty seconds, plus thirty more a few minutes later to put it back on. You could watch them the entire time or just offer to do it for them if you don’t want their grubby pinkies on your wrench. If you think the tools needed are so trivial, why not just have some for this purpose? It’s hardly comparable to letting someone paw through your Snap On cabinet and rebuild their engine in the parking lot. Even if the answer is no, one can say no nicely. A sign does not excuse rudeness.
The business in your case obviously pleased you, the customer, so they did the right thing and made a bigger sale to boot. To behave rudely and displease a customer however is exactly what would lead to poor reviews and badmouthing, so is obviously not the way to protect from this situation.
True, but you do need a proper 15mm spanner for a fixed wheel bike with horizontal dropouts. The bolts are done up really tight.
What the protagonist could have done, sensing impending dickitude from the bike shop owner, was buy a patch kit. Problem solved…if he’d remembered his pump
I’ve seen places that had a few common bike tools attached to a cable so that you could make a few quick repairs and adjustments. It seems like a considerate thing to do, but not obligatory.
I’m guessing that a store owner who refuses to lend out tools is one who has had one too many bad experiences with those tools being broken or walking away.
And I’m kind of in the “don’t leave home without it” school of bike riding. I tend to carry a spare tube, tools, and a pump, And also a small rain poncho after I discovered one day that’s it’s actually easier to push the bike three miles home in the rain than to try to fit a tire on when you’re wet, shivering, and beset by mosquitos.
I’m no cyclist by any means; I bought a road bike once, put maybe 30 miles on it, let it rust in my garage and then sold it at a big loss. But when I bought it, my friend, an avid cyclist, set me up with a bag that contained everything you described, plus a little folding hex wrench set for making adjustments. I had a pump mounted to the frame instead of air canisters and carried a replacement tube along with the tools. He said something like, “Getting a flat 20 miles outside of town sucks.” The bag velcroed under my seat and never got in my way.
Me being a stupid cycling tourist I probably overpaid for all of those tools, but it seems to me that the store probably sold the appropriate wrench and if nothing else he could have zip-tied it under the seat for future use.
I vote “unreasonable to expect to be accommodated, but not unreasonable to ask with big puppy dog eyes and some extra sugar on top.”
All the tools needed to change a tire will fit (along with a new tube and an inflator) easily into an under seat bag.
So this one time I was out riding in a strange town and got a flat. I changed the tire but found I had left my inflator in my other bike’s bag. I walked my bike to the nearest shop and bought a second inflator before I even asked to air up my tires.
But that’s just me, I understand a bike store is in business to sell stuff.
Absolutely. Any cycling culture I have ever been exposed to accepts this unquestioned. In fact, for most experienced cyclists, going out on a ride without being prepared to fix a flat is the sign of a newb.
In fact, the largest organizations that facilitate group rides in my area require that you have a bring a spare tube if you want to ride with them.
