Excerpts from questions & answers on
rec.bicycles.tech and rec.bicycles.misc
When it seems like you know more than the bike salesperson-
Some people, on both sides of the equation, have a real problem when the
customer knows more than the salesperson. To some, it seems like something
that just shouldn't happen because, after all, the bike shop people are in
the business to know bikes, right? And so, when they don't have a clue on
something, they must be totally lame etc.
But bicycling is a vast subject, with all manner of different cultures, if
you will. It's nearly impossible for an employee to have real depth of
knowledge across all areas, while the customer may have learned an awful lot
about their particular area of interest. There's nothing wrong with that,
as long as the shop employee (or owner!) recognizes that this may be an
opportunity to learn something new, and not get defensive, bluff or simply
give wrong information. At the customer end, one needs to recognize what
I've already pointed out...they may have been able to focus very strongly on
one particular area and should not be surprised that their knowledge may
surpass that of the employee.
But knowledge, by itself, isn't nearly as important as figuring out what's
relevant and what's not. This is where the shop employee, if he/she knows
his/her stuff, can be of real help, having been around many, many cyclists,
and possibly recognizing that your particular situation was shared by many
others before, and this real-world experience can be of much greater benefit
than knowledge gained from reading magazines, websites and, dare I say,
newsgroups!
The biggest thing to avoid, whether you're a customer or a salesperson, is a
feeling that you're absolutely, positively 100% right and the other person
is absolutely, positively, 100% wrong. That feeling will come back to
haunt
you when you later discover that, oops, that other person just might have
been correct after all!
Knowledge is best used to try and help people make sense of things, not as a
power play to establish superiority.
This particular author might be the best representative of "retro-groutching" on the 'net today. --Mike--
Not only are they (STI levers) expensive, complex, and heavy, they are unnecessary. I often ride behind folks for awhile and notice that they are shifting every few hundred meters if the gradient changes ever so slightly. They play their derailleurs as though there were an optimal engine RPM that they are maintaining, all the while riding at an optionally undemanding pace. That's the reason I can observe them before politely saying hello as I ride by.
The belief that one must constantly shift gears and that this has some intrinsic value for the spark plugs or piston rings, or crank bearings is a driving force behind much of this stuff. Sure, it's a convenience to be able to shift on a climb while standing but it isn't necessary for 99.44% of people who swear by it. They imagine the importance of their bicycling as they emulate Lance, furtively looking over their shoulder for an imagined chase group. Get off it. This is
killing bicycling for those of us who like to ride without a support crew on longer rides.
My response
I still manage to put a fair number of miles on my bike, as does my sales manager (actually, he's a mile-dog and puts a *lot* of miles on his bike). Both of us have STI levers. He's got conventional wheels, I have Rolfs. Nearly every person we ride with has STI levers and many have unconventional wheels.
And yet, with all this awful equipment, I can't remember the last time any one of us had a mechanical breakdown (other than a flat tire) on the road.
On the other hand...back in the day...lots of broken rear axles. Brake bolts that had to be watched very carefully (if the locknut came loose you could have serious trouble). Broken spokes on stock wheels were far more common than today. Campy seatpost binder bolts that would break at
inopportune times.
I remain unconvinced that common bikes are less reliable than bikes twenty years ago. Perhaps it was easier to fix older bikes using just a screwdriver, hammer and pliers, but that same argument is used by those who feel that real motorcycles (old Harleys and Triumphs) by definition must
leak large amounts of oil.
I'll go even further. I think most of the people who complain about STI or Ergo giving them trouble shifting would have been even *less* happy with the older stuff, where you really had to learn how to shift to make it work right. So I'll put forth the idea that the problem a lot of people have isn't with modern technology, but rather with modern riders, and the fact that you really don't have to learn much about a bike to appreciate riding. Thus we've got a bunch of wannabes out on the road who, in days gone past, wouldn't have survived the first cut and thus wouldn't be out there on the roads (or in our faces here on the 'net) 'cuz they would have gone on to something else.
I see far more people out there on the roads, enjoying cycling, than I did 20-30 years ago. They're no longer a pre-selected special breed that's managed to master the various skills supposedly needed in order to appreciate cycling. They're just out there having a good time, in their own way, on their own bikes. And they're not out there making fun of people on bikes that aren't based on the latest technology (which the "traditional" crowd would suggest is because they don't understand the technology in the first place).
But geez, they *are* doing their part to wear out the world by shifting too often. Wonder what effect all those extra shifts are going to have on global warming?
Jobst Brandt says:
Float in pedals came along when the .com over 30 folks began
riding with legs that had atrophied to limited knee articulation.
I never heard of all these knee problems until the late 1970's.
I'm amazed that the shoe manufacturers haven't come up with a
running shoe with float for the same people... you know, a sole
with a rotatable pad under the ball of the foot. (Jobst)
Mike from Chain Reaction answers-
A: .com people in the late 70s? And I thought all
we had was ARPANET back then.
B: Since runners put more force on the toe, rather than the
heel, what would a rotational pad on the heel accomplish?
Maybe they'd need something that dynamically adjusts the point of
contact. If only Shimano made running shoe systems...
C: In all seriousness, we're seeing much great numbers of
relatively- new cyclists doing relatively heavy-duty cycling these
days (compared to the 70s & 80s). And yet we're seeing
much lower numbers of our customers going in for orthoscopic knee
surgery than we did before. Curiously, the reduction in knee
injuries came along about the same time clipless pedals (with
"float") came into being.
Could this be from other factors? Like people being in
generally better shape? Sure, it's possible, but I think
that runs counter to what most believe to be the case.
On the basis of admittedly anecdotal evidence (but a heck of a lot
of anecdotal evidence in our shop over the years), I am convinced
that clipless pedals (with float) are a very worthwhile thing.
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