[B-boy]

Any LBS employees out there have any funny stories about ppl that love to hang out in the bike shop and bug the piss outta you?

My friends run a shop, and one roadie is allllways in there, having lunch, yapping about his anerobic-threshhold-to-heartrate-miles-per-hour-ratio (or whatever).. bringing in computer printouts from his rides and everything. I love to hear the boys rant on about how annoying it gets *L*. Anyone else get these groupies?

 

[Rik]

I had a ****en recumbant rider spend hours hanging around the shop, he'd bignote himself in as many ways as possible. Noone else cared, because we all know it's unfair to compare a recumbant to a standard bike. He wouldn't care though, I challenged him to slalom races through traffic, and to hillclimbs too, but noooooo, because a recumbant is good for straight line speed, it is now the best bike in the world.
He even went as far as going to the local veterans road races, which are held on big flat open roads, and dragged past the bunches as they did their laps. Then he came back in to the shop and boasted about how he blew them all away.
But noone really cares that a 30something yr old in a recumbant went past a group of 40+ yr old roadies, especially when the roadies probably had a 60km road race, and the recumbant guy was just pulling himself and doing fly-bys for a few laps.

Total.Utter.Wanker.

I moved to a new store, and thought I'd seen the last of him, but 6 months later, he walked in the door... and I cried. I haven't met anyone quite like him, and hope I never meet him, or a similar person, again.

 

[Crash_Tested]

funny back in my skate days the skate shops loved it when peeps would hang out with them watch vids and bs during the heat of the day. I know of a few cool bike shops close by that still have that feel. If a shop doesn't have a couch and vids running I might as well go a buy my chit off the internet.

 

[Guess?Who]

I hate going to my bike shop, never the less hang out there because it only means I'm spending too much money on new parts or repairs. I do know what you mean about the groupies because they always tell me my bike looks like a motocycle every time I go there.

 

[jet]

I used to have this guy come in that looked like Panama Jack. He rode a mongoose D(eath)40. He would always tell us how he was legally blind. He had some thick a$$ glasses. He would tell us like 20 times while fixed his crap for him onthe spot to get him out of the store. I think we started saying it with him at one point.

I never minded when somebody would come in and hang out that actually knew their stuff.

I may be going to work at another shop. I need to get some more details though. I would love to get back into the industry. It would sure beat doing what I do now. I build these, by hand.

http://www.ssss.com/sstug/660.asp

 

[HTFR]

i like the regulars at my shop.

as for funny stories about othe customers, we keep getting more xc bikes in with the head tubes bent inwords ever sence the dh lifts opened at camp fortune. 4 by my count


the only people i have a problem with are the dumb ones :nuts:

 

[MMike]

I hate bike shops that expect or even DEMAND that you be a groupie. Otherwise they treat you like crap....

 

[Big E]

yeah the dumb ones always suck. espcially the ones that think there wal-mart bikes are such a way better deal than what we have. or the drunk people that come in are always so entertaining until they get annoying. but sincei got laid off and the shop closed i dont have to deal with dumb people.

 

[B-boy]

I hate bike shops that expect or even DEMAND that you be a groupie. Otherwise they treat you like crap....

Being a really loyal supporter or whatever is one thing, but i'm talking like this guy will phone the shop "just to chat". Or sit there for hours on end and watch over their shoulder while they work and spout off technical BS about a certain carbon road crankset and how it might affect his anerobic threshold... I would hope no LBS, or person at all, would wish that upon themselves! :nuts:

I totally agree with the couch and video scene, thats cool.... they did that for awhile but I guess too many dirty groms starting hanging out and clogging up the store for paying customers..

 

[manhattanprjkt83]

Yeah man our shop is like seinfield, there is probably 15 different guys i could tell funny stories about that hang out, but i don’t have the time. But here is a description of one. We have this dude that is about 45 that comes in and he knows EVERYTHING about Everything whether is it is bikes, cars, surgery you name it. So he is always telling my BMX friends how to do x ups and what not and they just laugh and say who is this dude. I forgot to mention that he lives with his parents and lives off of their money. Daddy actually just bought him a Porsche boxster. Anyway he decides he needed a new bike. Here is what he bought:

blur
fox terralogic fork
Thompson everything
Xtr drivetrain
crossmax sl
xtr cranks
hayes carbon's
hopey steering adapter (helps with the x ups)

you get the picture just about every trick part you can grab. And he just tells us all how to ride. I went out on my first ride with him wondering if he could actually ride, well the answer was Fvck no! He was dead after the first hill climb. I guess my chameleon that he made fun of forever wasn’t such a hindrance after all. To put the icing on the cake he mouthed off to the wrong dude in the shop the other day and almost got his ass kicked the guy kept calling him out but his pvssy asss wouldnt do anything! :nuts:

 

[spookysim]

-got a guy over here in london loves his road bikes - has a trek 1400, gios racebike, andy palmer custom and a 5500 full carbon, full dura ace!!

he kinda crazy - been juggling credit cards to pay for stuff and then brings it all back few weeks later and tries to give it back to us - not even get a refund or anything!

he did this with a six month old tifosi custom build.

youfeel sorry for him but you have to keep reminding yourself hes a grown man and all that ...


then theres the home mechanics who like to chat about what thing they salvaged from a 1940s tour bike -"and it only took me three years to find the right thrunge bracket to mount it to my steam powered ..." etc etc

 

[be-radd]

shop groupies arnt all that bad, i worked at a shop for three years and there were days when i thought we had new employees but they were people that jsut hung out all day shooting the shiot. and the really funny thing is now when i go in thoes same guys are still there doign the same thing. most of them were retired rodies talking about their haydays of cat 2 racing, then they go outside and smoke a cigg. and come back in with another lame storie about some menceing dog they warded off with a frame pump. but every now and then they would suprize us and bring us beer at the end of a hard day or some coffee in the morning. we never really hated on them,jsut made more conversation, but they helped us get through the day some times. at some point we all have been groupies i think, and its not all that bad of a thing, enless they start scarin customers off, then their a$$ is grass. thats my 2 cents.

 

[Lexx D]

We had the good and the bad.
The bad :nuts:
Was this kid from kenya(we didn't know for months so he was the jamacian kid to us). He bought a trek 820 and rode the thing all over town. First he got a comfort saddle and ripped a hole in it(he had crashed) and asked for a new one for free my boss(huge stoner) allowed it just to get him out of the store. He comes to pick up his new free seat and tries to trade for a tyre :nuts: . He tells me he needs a tyre so i tell him 30 bucks. "OK", and tries to pay me with a walmart gift card , I tell him no go and he tells me he has the money but needs a ride to the grocery store . No way bro can't do it. He magically comes up with cash(had it the whole time) and leaves. Two days later he comes back with a flat, he ran over glass and wants a new one for guess what......... free! . Needless to say I freaked out and made him leave(to many other stories with this kid). He still came back daily with some sort of problem. I think he liked the abuse I'd scream at him for somethin g stupid and he'd just laugh. i miss that kid.

 

[Li'l Dave]

Back in Boulder we just had a bunch of little kids that would come in and try to hang out. We always decided to put them to work, mostly cleaning up the alley behind the shop, and sweeping the shop and such. I couldn't stand most of those little turds, once again with the asking for stuff for free thing.

 

[punkassean]

I am in the process of writing a 4000 page book about all the wierdos I have encountered over the years working in shops. I am up to page 2,327 thus far. Here is an excerpt to pique your interest.

A tall overweight man who looks to be about 70 years old fumbles through the door with his quasi-electric bike in tow. He wanders back to the service area and asks if I can repair a flat tire. I glance at his bulbous overburdened "mechanical wonder" of and electric bike pondering how many misc. nuts, bolts and belts I am going to have to undo just to get the rear wheel off of this thing....after a few seconds I tell him I can fix it but it will cost more than a "normal" bike because if the extra work required. He gets upset and proclaims " I am nearly 70 years old and this here bike is electric! It lets me glide up overpasses and all around town with ease. I am a senior citizen on a fixed income, why should I pay more to fix my superior bicycle?" I explain that although it is great that he can get around now, that has nothing to do with me or the amount of work needed to repair his flat tire. He agrees to pay and I put the bike in the rack. He, of course walks back into that service area clearly marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and continues with his infomercial about electric bikes. All the while he smells like piss and stinks of booze. I know this because he is well within my personal space in fact he's close enough for me to notice has somewhat of a whispy gray goatee growing out of his nose pores. I know this all doesn't sound too strange but here's the catch. he would come in once a week and spew the same routine every freakin' time, it was like he had his brain erased every sunday night or something?

there were at least 150 others just like him...er...only different.

 

[Bicyclist]

There are these 2 trials riders that will come into the local shop and yak about how this bike has a 10mm higher BB and how Avid disc brakes suck (maybe for trials). They're always in the way and they ride around outside hopping around with their squeaky brakes and skaring all of the customers away.

 

[Frankenschwinn]

Hello my name is Frankenschwinn and I am a recovering Bike Shop Groupie.

I have broken my bike on purpose just so I could hang out and talk with the cool bike mechanic guys while they worked on my ride.

I wish I was cool like that...

 

[Kornphlake]

I wanted to be a groupie but the guys at the LBS always acted like they didn't want me around. Actually I always feel like the guys at the shops are full of crap so I don't want to hang out with them. I mean how many times do you need to explain to them why your bike weighs 40 lbs and why you wanted a tire 2.5" wide or why you like a big heavy soft saddle, and how many times do you need to tell them that you don't really want a specialized epic. Sure it costs the same and weighs less but it's like trying to sell a sports car to a guy with 5 kids, he really needs a van.

 

[Big E]

it sounds like you are just dealing with ignorant people that work in a bike shop. thoughs of us who have been lucky enough to work in a shop or still work in a shop are just bitching about the dumb ones who come in and arejust annoying as heel. or the ones who think they know more about bikes than you do.

 

[Kornphlake]

Yeah, I'm not saying that everybody who works in a shop is a wank, I'm just saying that most of the shops I've been in or at least the ones that are closest to home are always the least interesting and it's not really worth driving 50 miles just to "groupie" in a good shop.

 

[MikeD]

Support your LBS! They hate you...

 

[UiUiUiUi]

Support your LBS! They hate you...

can i use that as my signature?

 

[Lexx D]

Support your LBS! They hate you...

Now you sound like stosh the last time i brought this up.

 

[MMike]

Being a really loyal supporter or whatever is one thing, but i'm talking like this guy will phone the shop "just to chat". Or sit there for hours on end and watch over their shoulder while they work and spout off technical BS about a certain carbon road crankset and how it might affect his anerobic threshold... I would hope no LBS, or person at all, would wish that upon themselves! :nuts:

I totally agree with the couch and video scene, thats cool.... they did that for awhile but I guess too many dirty groms starting hanging out and clogging up the store for paying customers..

Well the shop I'm thinking of....you need to shower them with praise and agree with absolutely everything they say. Otherwise you get black-balled. "I fixed that <insert part> really good for didn't I? I sure am the master! You really musta screwed up to do THAT to it. Good thing I'm here!"

"Uh yeah...way to go. It's your job and why I just paid you $70/hr to fix it."

 

[COmtbiker12]

it sounds like you are just dealing with ignorant people that work in a bike shop. thoughs of us who have been lucky enough to work in a shop or still work in a shop are just bitching about the dumb ones who come in and arejust annoying as heel. or the ones who think they know more about bikes than you do.

But what if they really do know more about bikes than you do?

 

[MikeD]

Now you sound like stosh the last time i brought this up.

It was a joke. You sound a little too uptight. Then again, maybe I'm uptight for not using the smilies.

Ui, wenn du wolltest...bitte.

MD

 

[Kornphlake]

Does JensonUSA count as a local shop??? They have a retail store now, right in front of their warehouse. The guys there are kinda fun to mess with, I asked if they'd sold a lot of the sinister frames hanging on the wall and the guy was like, "uh, which frame, I don't know, I think we sold a 24 the other day." At least he realized that the sinister and 24 are meant for the same type of riding, the fact that he acted like he didn't know enough to sell one made me chuckle though.

 

[Crash_Tested]

I don't know what groupies you guys hang with but back in 87

 

[MMike]

I wanna get physical, physical
I wanna get physical,
Let's get into physical
Lemme hear your body talk.....

 

[nicklin]

I wanna get physical, physical
I wanna get physical,
Let's get into physical
Lemme hear your body talk.....

that and your avatar just made my cat freak out and knocked down two tables.

 

[nicklin]

We had the good and the bad.
... tyre,.....

lexx, have you turned limey on us?

 

[MMike]

that and your avatar just made my cat freak out and knocked down two tables.

Then my work here is done.

 

[UiUiUiUi]

It was a joke. You sound a little too uptight. Then again, maybe I'm uptight for not using the smilies.

Ui, wenn du wolltest...bitte.

MD

danke!

i put in the smiley, ok?

 

[Lexx D]

lexx, have you turned limey on us?

No, just how we always wrote tire in our shop. Often to confuse the customer.