Filed under: News
Bicycling Magazine recently published an article about a bike shop in Oregon, The Wrench Connection. The shop was Sellwood Cycle Repair in Portland. The shop’s description is in stark contrast to where I’m at now, but sounds somewhat similar to where I came from. I agree with the author when he states that a mechanic “can fix everything from a beach cruiser to a $10,000 race machine….” That’s the way it should be. It’s a decent article, the author sat as a customer and logged the happenings throughout a day.
In recent past months, at the shop I’m at, it’s been slow. It’s winter. My blow-by-blow account of a recent day would probably be pretty boring. It’s a new shop, so I am busy, but it’s mostly organizational tasks, light construction, but a nearly absolute void of people walking in the door. This is changing at this early point of late winter. It’s changing probably quicker than I’ll be able to handle—I did just take in three repairs the other day and have a few wheels I need to build—this on top of plenty more preparatory inventory organization and the likely influx of after-winter repairs. If I tried to depict an account of a future expected day come spring or summer, it’d be difficult to recall anything specific throughout the flurry of action I can foresee.
Yesterday’s intakes were interesting though, as seems to be the case, they all came in within two and a half minutes of each other. The first guy with his old ‘cross bike decked out with Campy Daytona wanted a basic tune-up. With minimal insistence from me he tacked on interrupter brakes, new cables, brake pads, bar wrap, hub overhaul, new saddle and stem. Being a salesman with customers like this is easy work. “I’ll gladly take care of it!” This kind of work is appreciated when there’s been such a dearth of decent bikes being rolled through the door.
What seemed like thirty seconds later two guys came in with their mountain bikes. One a Kona, who’s logo was described by his buddy as being initially inspired by a guy in a strip club. The logo supposedly depicting a stripper’s a**hole. I’m not so sure what the origin of that particular logo is, but I’m not interested enough in verifying that claim. Both bikes in for regular tune-ups, and again, voluntary part replacement requests. It was a good day, Kona guy gets a new rotor. His partner getting new higher end tires—on a bike with Magura hydraulic rim brakes. Rad, I don’t get to see stuff like that often.
These won’t be the end of them of course, and these won’t break my ass to complete; it’s nice to see the season change and the work load increase. Wrenching is the nicest part of the job, but all the other components (i.e. organization, construction, inventory) are just as interesting and necessary to the job.
Back to the original magazine article: I’m oftentimes not a huge fan of Bicycling Magazine, but it’s cool to see something on the mechanic side of things from this perspective. While the tips given from the mechanics at the article’s shop aren’t exactly in agreement with some of my suggestions, it’s good to see them included. Mechanic’s tips vary for some reason from shop to shop, a subject I’d like to delve into in the future. This was a good article on the whole though, in comparison to the other recent article about another mechanic: I just think the editors could have pursued a much more interesting direction on the subject of a blind mechanic, but maybe I just don’t know.
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