All You Bike Pricks,
Whoo-hoo Seattle, the sun is out! Let’s discuss a few things before you fumble with swapping the unused ski rack for the unused bike rack on the Subaru.
So yes, you’ve noticed the sun is out, and hey!- maybe it would be cool to to some bike riding. Let’s keep in mind that the sun came out of all 600,000 of us, so for the most part, you’re not the only one who noticed. Please remember that when you walk into my shop on a bright, sunny Saturday morning. It will save you from looking like a complete twat that huffs “Why are there so many people here?”
Are we all on the same page now about it being sunny outside? Have we all figured out that we’re not the only clever people that feel sunny days are good for bike riding? Great. I want to kiss all of you on your forehead for sharing this moment with me. Put your vitamin D starved fingers in mine, and we’ll move on together to some pointers that will make life easier.
SOME POINTERS FOR THE PHONE:
- I don’t know what size of bike you need. The only thing that I can tell over the phone is that you sound fat. I don’t care how tall you are. I don’t care how long your inseam is. Don’t complain to me that you don’t want to come ALL THE WAY down to the bike shop to get fitted for a bike. I have two hundred bikes in my inventory. I will find one that fits you. Whether you come from the north or the south, my shop is downhill. Pretend you’re going to smell a fart, ball up, and roll your fat ass down here.
- Don’t get high and call me. Write it down, call me later. When I have four phone lines ringing, and a herdlet
- of people waiting for help, I can’t deal with you sitting there “uuuuhhh”-ing and “uuummm”-ing while your brain tries to put together some cheeto-xbox-fixie conundrum. We didn’t get disconnected, I left you on hold to figure your shit out.
- I really do need to see your bike to know what is wrong with it. You’ve already figured out that when you car makes a noise, the mechanic needs to see it. When your TV goes blank, a technician needs to see it. I can tell you, if there is one thing I’ve learned from you fucking squirrels, it’s that “doesn’t shift right” means your bike could need a slight cable adjustment, or you might just need to stop backing into it with the Subaru. Bring it in, I’ll let you know for sure.
- No, I don’t know how much a good bike costs. For some, spending $500 dollars is a kingly sum. For others, $500 won’t buy you one good wheel. You really need to have an idea of what you want, because every one of you raccoons “doesn’t want to spend too much”.
FOR YOU INVENTIVE TYPES AND DO-IT-YOURSELFERS:
- Just because you think it should exist, doesn’t mean that it does. I know that to you, a 14 inch quill stem makes perfect sense, but what makes more sense is buying a bike that fits you, not trying to make your mountain bike that was too small for you to begin with into a comfort bike.
- If some twat on some message board somewhere says that you can use the lockring from your bottom bracket as a lockring for a fixie conversion doesn’t mean that A: you can, or B: you should. Please listen to me on this stuff, I really do have your best interests at heart.
- I love that you have the enthusiasm to build yourself a recumbent in the off season. That does not mean however, that I share your enthusiasm; ergo I won’t do the “final tweaks” for you. You figure out why that Sram shifter and that Shimano rear derailleur don’t work together. While we’re at it, you recumbent people scare me a little. Don’t bring that lumbering fucking thing anywhere near me.
A DEDICATION TO ALL THE HIPSTER DUCHEBAGS:
- If you shitheads had any money, you wouldn’t NEED a vintage Poo-zhow to get laid. Go have an ironic mustache growing contest in front of American Apparel, so that I can continue selling $300 bikes to fatties, which is what keeps the lights on.
- Being made in the 80’s may make something cool, but that doesn’t automatically make something good. The reason that no one has ridden that “vintage” Murray is because it’s shit. It was shit in the 80’s, a trend it carried proudly through the 90’s, and rallied with into the ’00’s. What I mean to say is, no, I can’t make it work better. It’s still shit, even with more air in the tires.
SO YOU’RE GONNA BUY A BIKE:
Good for you! Biking is awesome. It’s easy, it’s fun, it’s good for you. I want you to bike, I really do. To that end, I am here to help you.
- Your co-worker that’s “really into biking” knows fuck all. Stop asking for his advice. He could care less about you having the right bike. He wants to validate his bike purchase(s) through you. He also wants to sleep with you, and wear matching bike shorts with you.
- You’re not a triathlete. You’re not. If you were, you wouldn’t be here, and we both know it.
- You’re not a racer. If you were, I’d know you already, and you wouldn’t be here, and we both know it.
- So you want a bike that you can ride to work, goes really fast, is good for that triathlon you’re doing this summer (snicker), is good on trails and mud, and costs less than $300. Yeah. Listen, I want a car that can go 200 miles an hour, tow a boat, has room for five adults, is easy to parallel park but can carry plywood, gets 60mpg, and only costs $3,000. I also want a unicorn to blow me. What are we even talking about here? Oh yeah. Listen, bikes can be fast, light, cheap and comfortable. Pick two, and we’re all good.
ABOUT YOUR KIDS:
Your kids are amazing. Sure are. No one else has kids as smart, able, funny or as good looking as you. Nope. Never see THAT around here.
- I have no idea how long you kid will be able to use this bike. As it seems to me, your precious is a little challenged, and can’t even use the damn thing now. More likely, your budding genius is going to leave the bike in the driveway where you will Subaru the bike to death LONG before the nose picker outgrows the bike.
- Stop being so jumpy. I am not a molester. You people REALLY watch too much TV. When I hold the back of the bike while your kid is on it, it’s not because I get a thrill from *almost* having my hand on kid butt, it’s because kids are unpredictable, and generally take off whenever possible, usually not in the direction you think they might go. Listen, if I were going to do anything bad to your kids, I’d feed them to sharks, because sharks are FUCKING AWESOME.
I hope this helps, and have fun this summer riding your kick-ass bike!
Created by Richard M
Genius!
I laughed so hard. The first time I took my Niner in for brake work at my LBS the mechanic said “the problem is you have avid brakes” then fixed my shit. I knew right away I liked this guy and I’m always glad when he is the one looking at my bikes.
Love it.
While I’ve seen this before, it still is fucking awesome. If you’ve ever worked at a LBS, this is how you feel. I’m lucky enough that when I was wrenching, the hipster craze hadn’t started so the only people that rode “fixeys” were actual track racers, and road racers that used them in the winter to work on form and leg speed.
How did I almost miss this?!?
My life.
Brilliant way to start a Saturday morning.
Im now off to my local to get a Ritchey stem to fit to my alu 40cm bars to go on my old steel steed and see if the fucker looks good as a fixie.
“does this come in carbon??”
Nah….better not
Love this guy. My old LBS owner would get more and more surly as the summer wore on, more pissed off, more f-bombs dropped in front of any customer, any age. If was fun to go in on a Saturday in August and watch the fireworks. I love him too. Bike shop owners are different.
Ive read this 3 times. pure gold.
@RedRanger I just realised what’s wrong with my mountain bike, “it’s got Avid brakes” and I don’t have an LBS to fix it so I guess I will just leave it in the corner of the garage collecting cobwebs. I could try and fix it myself but that would just be wasting time that I should be spending working on or riding my road bike.
So, it seems that a Subaru is the equivalent for Seattleites as what a SAAB used to be for architects.
Very funny “article”. I wonder what fat sounds like.
What a lovely rant, thanks for that.
Don’t get high and call me.
“I don’t know what size of bike you need. The only thing that I can tell over the phone is that you sound fat.”
Seemed a shame to have this killer line so early in the article but I’ll let it go just because it is SO fucking funny!
Brilliant.
Fantastic. That hits all the right points. Played out right across the world in bike shops every weekend. Makes entertaining viewing while you wait in your lbs.
If you shitheads had any money, you wouldn’t NEED a vintage Poo-zhow to get laid.
Ahahahahahahahaha!!!! Poo-zhow… Ahahahahahahahaha…
I stopped by several LBS in search of tubes with 50mm valve stems with removable cores. Hung around a bit and eavesdropping…all shops long tome owned and staffed by “racers” and self identified experts.
Saw bikes “tuned up” for $40 when all the shop did was inflate the tires to the right pressure and hose the chain with WD-40.
Saw customer sold 60 cm frame when they needed a 56…shop had it in stock and their vendor was out until next season.
Saw a rear derailleur worth more than the entire bike replace a POS one since the customer wanted “something that will last”
Watched a bike leave the store after a newbie purchased it…No basic fit, no explanation of how a QR skewer works. No advice to buy a helmet.
In other words, it goes both ways. I owned a bike shop for many years and when I recognized that while I loved bikes, I had grown to hate the customers and shared the same frustrations in the article. So I sold it all and went off to architecture school. I traded ten thousand a-holes a year who thought I owed them my soul for their $10 for ten customers a year at $10,000 each.
These days I tell prospective clients: it’s win-win for me… hire me, I make money doing what I love…designing homes. Don’t? Then I have more time for what I love even more, riding and wrenching my bikes.
Viva V.
Bulissimo
My word, this is excellent! Bravo, well done.
Yes, Gianni! I too will go into the shop on Saturdays just for laughs. And, it cures me of thinking maybe a part-time wrenching job might be fun. It is unreal when people pull up in a $70,000 car and then declare their price range is $150-$200. Fucking hell. Or, come in with a $10 sandwich and a $7 coffee and feel that $20 for a tire and $5 for a tube is outrageous.
Thank you for writing this! I can feel the anger through the screen. Man, I really want to club dudes in the face with a u-lock who mocked anyone with a mustache as having a “porn stache” just a year or two ago and now have a finely manicured mustache. Fuck you. And also, wearing eyeglasses without a prescription, or worse, without lenses, fuck you too.
I teach at private/independent schools. Goddamn, it’s amazing how protective (and yet inattentive and shitty) parents can be of their children.
@Bespoke
Saabs, Subarus, and beat up old trucks are the only cars allowed on the road in Vermont. Fact.
@Ron
You forgot Priuses.
This all makes me sad. I surrendered the family Saab earlier this summer, and we replaced it with a Honda CRV. They don’t compare””mechanically or for my soul.
This. Jesus H. Merckx, this.
It is stuff like this that reminds me how much I share Keeper Jim’s enthuiasm for people.
@Ron
A big +1 to that… Would you use a wheelchair ‘ironically’, you dick. :)
Original article full of awesome truth and humour, btw. Spot on.
The fucking Subarus… don’t get me started.
Thank you for the side splitting mirth!
That was definitely worth reading again…
@ChrissyOne Well bumped Sir (or Madam), although I am slightly perturbed by the arrival of yet more manifestations of the split-Chris-personality. One day we’re going to have a Chris-only thread.
I’ve been using ChrissyOne since 1996, and I own the domain name. You’re all more than welcome to hang out there. ;)
@ChrisO
This is mildly perplexing, being the prime manifestation of the @Chris entity, I’m not entirely sure that I remember creating an @ChrissyOne identity. That said, it may have been the action of the one of the split personalities that doesn’t proof read.
Or we could just eliminate all the non-Chris velominati.
@Chris
So far I don’t see a downside.
How did I miss this the first time around? Pure gold. Reminds me of wrenching in a bike shop in Indiana in the early 90s. Local college had a trike race for frats. They raced around the athletic track. Needless to say, trike axles weren’t designed for that kind of continual stress. Result? Fucked up trikes and a “need” to have them fixed yesterday so they could compete in their stupid little race. Added result? Unhappy frat boys who couldn’t understand their self-inflicted problem was not our priority.
At least the Little 500 in Bloomington used/uses standard bikes compatible with track racing.
@wiscot
They needed a bit of fixing up, but that was better done late at night in the garage.
Typical douche bicyclist article.
Need some Velominati solidarity to halt responses to the current inept and contemptible fuckups.
I got those picture of biking
This more funny picture of biking