i go back and forth on this. i feel like I know as many competent home mechanics as I do riders who feel like they have access to a competent mechanic working in a local shop - and that Venn diagram has a lot of overlap going on. no, we can't all do our own repairs - but neither are we all lucky enough to have access to good service from our local bike store. we're spoiled in Vancouver and on the north shore - but in my experience, if you've got an issue that can't be solved by "throwing the old one out and replacing it with a new one" you're as likely as not to be SOL at your LBS :(
Just last week one of my buddies was complaining about the service he gets at a local coffee shop. I mean really F***ing douchebag grumpy attitude bad service. Not even a proper acknowledgement. "What do you want?". Still don't know his order even though he gets exactly the same thing every day.
Coffee's good. Food's good. Service sucks.
And I sort of listened along nodding my head, but the thing is I frequent this coffee shop maybe ~50% of the amount of time he does (maybe less) and I think the staff are a total riot. Super nice. Polite. Great stories. Smiles when I come in. Know my name. Comp me a drink every once in a while.
Coffee's good. Food's good. Service is amazing.
He spends at least 4x the money in the place a year that I do. Probably much more as I generally just get a coffee.
There are two morals to the story:
1) With relationships you usually get out what you put in, and I'm not just talking about spending X number of dollars to get some special bro-crap treatment. I'm talking about recognizing that while there are lots of seasonal staff working in the bike industry there are also some real professionals that deserve to be treated as such.
2) Even if the level of service you get from a local shop isn't great that doesn't mean that the coffee isn't excellent. And in this case, if you want someone to get that bottom bracket out for you without f'ing your frame up there are lots of professionals in Greater Vancouver who would be happy to charge you a fair labour rate to do it.
Mean People SUCK! Nice People SHOVEL!
Trails For All; Trails For Weather
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