A couple of weeks ago, I went on a 50km ride with my brothers and came to the realization that I was going half as fast as them, and expending twice the energy.
When we got back I weighed their bikes - probably a bit more than half the weight of mine. Plus my all-steel, wide tired mountain bike had limited gearing and lots of rolling resistance on pavement. All this combined to push me over the edge and get something modern and more practical for the type of riding I do today.
So I bought a new bike.
Things went well for several days, but after a bit of cable stretch (all new bikes will have cable stretch and need to be adjusted after a couple hundred kilometers) it was time for a tune-up. I had also noticed a low-end "rumble" in the gearing that was hard to pinpoint - but I thought the tune-up would resolve it.
I left the bike for two days, and then picked it up and rode it home. The rumble was even more pronounced, so I asked my friend Bruce to take it for a short ride and see if I was imagining things. He confirmed he could feel it too. So back to the bike shop.
The shop took the bike in right away (after all, I had just picked it up) and started to troubleshoot. I stuck around for three hours of trying this and that (new pedals, changing wheels, check bearings, change bearings) and then walked home.
After dinner (they had the bike from 11am to 7:30pm) Laura and I drove to the shop to find they had just solved the problem!
Bad chain.
The bike shop had spent over eight hours on a bad chain.
This got me to thinking - this shop is mostly run by twenty-somethings, and I doubt that their "service team" has any accumulated experience at all (their "sales team" likely doesn't either). While I was waiting for my bike, I overheard two other customers with problems that weren't as simple as a tire puncture. Neither was happy.
Unfortunately, given the price war waged by these folks ("we'll match any price") it's removed any knowledgeable competitor from the field. Someone that could afford a real mechanic or experience sales people. So it's run by inexperienced amateurs that know about as much as me.
Kathryn said to me "Dad, you should have bought it downtown - everybody there knows bikes, because if you don't you can't survive". She's probably right.
Another case of price trumping service.
If anyone wonders who the bike store is, suffice to say I live in Port Coquitlam. Guess.
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