Bike shop said they can't remove my rear sprocket...help!!
- Thread starter Caleb Provencio
- Start date
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Good point; that could be galled-up really bad by decades and decades of unlubricated contact, as well as the fact that each forward turn of the pedals is tightening the sprocket more and more....But yeah, there's more than one way to skin that cat, and the LBS dropped the ball on this one.
I have to step in and defend the bike shops. My shop would have done it for you but we have been in business 40 years and seen pretty much everything.
I learned how from the original owner who had the knowledge.
Most shops these days would have never seen a skiptooth chain/sprocket. We are the only shop in town that still laces wheels. Its cheaper to send them out believe it or not.
Bike shop mechanics now deal with Hydraulic brakes/ elliptical bottom brackets/electronic shifting and worst of all e-bikes.
I have only dealt with a skip tooth hub once in the last 5 years, and that was a member from this forum who is local.
I rebuild hubs lace wheels all the time, but the customer who asks for that is usually an older person and remembers "that's what bike shops do".
The reality is you can buy a brand new rim ready to bolt on for 60 bucks and to rebuild a hub and lace a rim with new spokes is 100 bucks roughly.
with those figures how often is your average mechanic going to get the experience?
The facts are, shops don't "need" to know how to work on them anymore. There just is not that big of a demand for it.
I learned how from the original owner who had the knowledge.
Most shops these days would have never seen a skiptooth chain/sprocket. We are the only shop in town that still laces wheels. Its cheaper to send them out believe it or not.
Bike shop mechanics now deal with Hydraulic brakes/ elliptical bottom brackets/electronic shifting and worst of all e-bikes.
I have only dealt with a skip tooth hub once in the last 5 years, and that was a member from this forum who is local.
I rebuild hubs lace wheels all the time, but the customer who asks for that is usually an older person and remembers "that's what bike shops do".
The reality is you can buy a brand new rim ready to bolt on for 60 bucks and to rebuild a hub and lace a rim with new spokes is 100 bucks roughly.
with those figures how often is your average mechanic going to get the experience?
The facts are, shops don't "need" to know how to work on them anymore. There just is not that big of a demand for it.
I agree, you have to look at what the shop actually sees everyday. THis isn't quite the same thing, but it made me think of a few things from my days as a mechanic. A lot of new car mechanics probably wouldn't know how to or want to deal with timing points ignition or rejetting carbs or adjusting mechanical fuel injection systems and why should they? The old cars are usually toys maintained by the owners who know that tech from back in their day or are brought to specialists and the few left out of that category that a regular mechanic might see roll into the shop would more than likely be toilet cars where everything they touch is near end-of-life and ends up costing them a fortune in lost time fixing things they broke while trying to cure the original problem for a customer that likely has no money and will balk about even the original agreed upon price. I used to work on cars and boats. The car shop owner was a great mechanic who took everything and everybody and charged too little because most of his customers were poor and he felt bad ($60/hr and he let people bring their own parts vs. even Pep Boys charging $90/hr. and upcharging parts per normal, though why someone would bother with Pep Boys when a dealer wouldn't charge much more, I don't know and is too far off topic.) and between not charging enough and mostly boxing himself into a corner with customers whose cars were on their last legs and their wallets on their last dollars, he ended up broke and in a nursing home with a broken body before he was 60. At the marina, we refused the toilet boats unless we were really desperate for work and they always ended up costing us money (but at least it put billable hours on the clock).
Obviously, old bike tech vs. new isn't exactly analogous to my examples, but I thought I'd throw it there for a little perspective from the eyes on the other side. I'm not saying there aren't bad mechanics or rip-off artists, but they need to concentrate on their bread and butter for their bottom line like anyone else. (Though, in my experience from both sides, I find rip-off artists are a lot rarer than popular opinion—at least among independent mechanics—as reputation makes or breaks someone. Most often overcharges and failures are bad mechanics using the customer's wallet to diagnose problems a good mechanic could probably get first or second try and a defensive attitude from insecurity when challenged. Like many other mechanical professions, this is and will only get worse as several generations of kids were taught that manual labor jobs are for the dummies and losers and, as a consequence, that's much of who went into those professions. Where I am, trying to find a good plumber is nearly impossible and they can charge whatever they want. Even the bad ones can basically work as they please as the total pool of plumbers of any ability is too small for the area. Of course, the real "dummies" got a degree in office dronery and most of them ride cubicles, unsatisfied and in debt, for too many hours for slightly above average living area salary or even well under, but I put dummies in quotes because we're all just victims of the system, one way or another ... Wait, what were we talking about? Sorry, I need to take my meds.)
Obviously, old bike tech vs. new isn't exactly analogous to my examples, but I thought I'd throw it there for a little perspective from the eyes on the other side. I'm not saying there aren't bad mechanics or rip-off artists, but they need to concentrate on their bread and butter for their bottom line like anyone else. (Though, in my experience from both sides, I find rip-off artists are a lot rarer than popular opinion—at least among independent mechanics—as reputation makes or breaks someone. Most often overcharges and failures are bad mechanics using the customer's wallet to diagnose problems a good mechanic could probably get first or second try and a defensive attitude from insecurity when challenged. Like many other mechanical professions, this is and will only get worse as several generations of kids were taught that manual labor jobs are for the dummies and losers and, as a consequence, that's much of who went into those professions. Where I am, trying to find a good plumber is nearly impossible and they can charge whatever they want. Even the bad ones can basically work as they please as the total pool of plumbers of any ability is too small for the area. Of course, the real "dummies" got a degree in office dronery and most of them ride cubicles, unsatisfied and in debt, for too many hours for slightly above average living area salary or even well under, but I put dummies in quotes because we're all just victims of the system, one way or another ... Wait, what were we talking about? Sorry, I need to take my meds.)
I don't "blame" factory mechanics at a new car dealer for not knowing how to hook up an old fashioned dwell meter to an old dial-a-gap Chevy or stick a feeler gauge in the gap of a Dodge dart, even though any 12 yr old with a Chilton's or an internet connection should be able to do it. After all, their job is to service their company's product. If they don't know, and can't be bothered to look it up, I don't want them fooling with my stuff, especially since the service station up the street has experienced general mechanics who know how to read. It might take all of 10 minutes to get information on an ND hub off the net.
Like most other things, service at bike shops is extremely variable at best. I usually have poor luck with anyone adjusting, diagnosing or "repairing" anything I own. There are exceptions, but those people possess accumulated knowledge, and it's rare. You can apply this to the "medical" business as well. Two years ago, my 88 year old mother somehow got "Scabies" which are small human mites which burrow and live under your skin, eating their way through you while laying eggs. This old-world parasite has been around forever, YET she was mis-diagnosed by TWO emergency centers (she was being eaten alive) , THREE dermatology "experts", and her doctor. She finally found some old doc with practical knowledge and skill that took one look at her and said "Scabies". One application of a $10 tube of a topical insecticide and she was rid of em in two days. Stories like this are in abundunce.... skpc
I don't "blame" factory mechanics at a new car dealer for not knowing how to hook up an old fashioned dwell meter to an old dial-a-gap Chevy or stick a feeler gauge in the gap of a Dodge dart, even though any 12 yr old with a Chilton's or an internet connection should be able to do it. After all, their job is to service their company's product. If they don't know, and can't be bothered to look it up, I don't want them fooling with my stuff, especially since the service station up the street has experienced general mechanics who know how to read. It might take all of 10 minutes to get information on an ND hub off the net.
Exactly.
It'd be impossible for every mechanic to know how to fix/tune every component, ever. But, for the past 15 or 20 years, it has been super easy to find out some info by googling it. This is a hub that has full schematic diagrams available online, and a whole lot of stuff written about it. Plus, it's very easy to just figure them out with a set of wrenches and a little bit of time to take a more analytical look.
We can defend bike shops all we want, but this particular bike shop is either foolish, lazy, or both.
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