[bicycles] need a user's manual
Nov. 3rd, 2017 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hermionesviolinYesterday morning, my brakes started angry squeaking. I was going to drop by Wheelworks (my local bicycle ship) after work, but I ended up staying at a former coworkers happy hour until Wheelworks' closing time, so I stopped by after work today. The squeaking was lessening, but brakes are srs bznz.
The staff person who attended to me wasn't someone I knew. (I go to Wheelworks a lot -- basically whenever anything maybe needs fixing on my bike, which since I put in ~48mi/wk baseline is fairly often -- so a lot of the staff know me.)
I explained that my rear brakes were squeaking, and it seemed to be lessening but I wanted to get it checked out.
staff: "Did you try cleaning the rim and the brake pads?"
me: "I literally have no idea how to do that."
By which I meant: "It literally never occurred to me that that could cause this."
staff: "Is it just the rear brakes?"
me: "I literally never use the front brakes, so I have no idea."
staff: "May I ask why you don't use the front brakes?"
me: [shrugs] "Because I'm right handed, so my instinct is always to use the right-hand brakes."
staff: "The power is really in the front brakes. When you engage the rear brakes, you can still drag the bike [demonstrates] but when you engage the front brakes it fully stops."
I bought my bike from Wheelworks 6 years ago, and no one had ever explained to me anything about the differential in brakes.
I really appreciate(d) that when I first walked in to buy a bike (and really most every time since) the guys who work there didn't treat me like I was stupid. // "He looked at me like I was stupid -- I'm not stupid" -Alexander Hamilton in "Aaron Burr, Sir" // But I sometimes wish that they had asked what my background/experience was and asked if I wanted any suggestions or anything. Like, I didn't have lights of any sort (except whatever reflectors came with the bike) or mirrors for the first while that I had my bike. I feel sort of like they just assumed I knew everything I needed to know -- which I appreciate in a lot of contexts, including a lot of sales contexts, but when I bought my bike I literally hadn't ridden a bike since I was a minor.
A lot of the bike maintenance how-to that they sort of try to teach me when I bring my bike in for stuff most people could totally take care of themselves I low-key throw my hands up at because I don't have a deep enough understanding to be able to actually do it myself (or I don't have the equipment -- like I don't have the capability to hoist my bike up onto a thing at home to be able to have the tires spin while I'm doing something with it). I feel like all the good workshops on that stuff are like Bikes Not Bombs -- which is all the way out in JP, so I haven't trekked out there -- and having trained professionals take care of it for me has basically worked out fine (Wheelworks is basically on my way home, and when it's minor labor they tend not to charge me for it), but sometimes stuff like this comes up where there are basic functionality things that I just literally never learned.
The staff person who attended to me wasn't someone I knew. (I go to Wheelworks a lot -- basically whenever anything maybe needs fixing on my bike, which since I put in ~48mi/wk baseline is fairly often -- so a lot of the staff know me.)
I explained that my rear brakes were squeaking, and it seemed to be lessening but I wanted to get it checked out.
staff: "Did you try cleaning the rim and the brake pads?"
me: "I literally have no idea how to do that."
By which I meant: "It literally never occurred to me that that could cause this."
staff: "Is it just the rear brakes?"
me: "I literally never use the front brakes, so I have no idea."
staff: "May I ask why you don't use the front brakes?"
me: [shrugs] "Because I'm right handed, so my instinct is always to use the right-hand brakes."
staff: "The power is really in the front brakes. When you engage the rear brakes, you can still drag the bike [demonstrates] but when you engage the front brakes it fully stops."
I bought my bike from Wheelworks 6 years ago, and no one had ever explained to me anything about the differential in brakes.
I really appreciate(d) that when I first walked in to buy a bike (and really most every time since) the guys who work there didn't treat me like I was stupid. // "He looked at me like I was stupid -- I'm not stupid" -Alexander Hamilton in "Aaron Burr, Sir" // But I sometimes wish that they had asked what my background/experience was and asked if I wanted any suggestions or anything. Like, I didn't have lights of any sort (except whatever reflectors came with the bike) or mirrors for the first while that I had my bike. I feel sort of like they just assumed I knew everything I needed to know -- which I appreciate in a lot of contexts, including a lot of sales contexts, but when I bought my bike I literally hadn't ridden a bike since I was a minor.
A lot of the bike maintenance how-to that they sort of try to teach me when I bring my bike in for stuff most people could totally take care of themselves I low-key throw my hands up at because I don't have a deep enough understanding to be able to actually do it myself (or I don't have the equipment -- like I don't have the capability to hoist my bike up onto a thing at home to be able to have the tires spin while I'm doing something with it). I feel like all the good workshops on that stuff are like Bikes Not Bombs -- which is all the way out in JP, so I haven't trekked out there -- and having trained professionals take care of it for me has basically worked out fine (Wheelworks is basically on my way home, and when it's minor labor they tend not to charge me for it), but sometimes stuff like this comes up where there are basic functionality things that I just literally never learned.