Scooter Says
How safe do we make your bike?
A moral dilemma
While stalking a rat the other day, I noticed a child’s bike had come into the shop. A cheap department store bike, but very nicely painted and something that would appeal to an adult buying the bike and the little girl riding it. The person bringing it in requested that the brakes be adjusted. No problem, off it goes to the workshop.
On getting to the workshop there were more serious problems. The Training wheels were just dangling, they weren’t tightened at all and one of the nuts to hold them on was on backwards. There was damage to the rear wheel and pedals were loose as was the seat. Now enters the moral dilemma. Do we just do the work requested or do we actually make the bike safe for the child to ride. If we’d not done the extra work to make it safe and something had happened, I bet we’d be the ones getting a phone call, not the person that had originally built the bike so poorly in the first place.
Just as I snuggled down to write this article, the bell rang at the front of the shop. Someone had bought a bike for $70 and came in to have it all tightened up because it came with no tools out of the box, They were shocked when they were quoted $45 to adjust everything, (We’re also the ones taking responsibility over the bike after having assembled it correctly and we don’t want to be responsible for something of questionable quality). She thought she was getting a bargain. That may be the case but she was also getting what she paid for, and that was essentially an unassembled bike with no tools and no one at hand to put the bike together.
One bike that came in requiring service had a frightening secret. When you turned right the front brake cable was routed so that if you turned right hard enough, the front brake would go on. The end result would see the person potentially stopping mid turn and going straight over the handlebars. Never mind the fact that the forks were around the wrong way as well. The bloke seemed unconcerned as it was his wifes bike... Wonder if he'd taken out insurance on her?
Numerous bikes have appeared in the store with their forks on the wrong way. We know why this happens, because that’s the way they’ll come out of the box for space saving purposes, ready to be assembled by a qualified bike mechanic. You see all bikes go into their boxes hoping that when they’re pulled out someone who knows what they are doing will assemble them. Sadly, the majority of the time this isn’t the case. Bikes aren’t toys, and they can seriously injure or kill if built or ridden the wrong way.
What I’m trying to convey is that if you stop to think about what you’re buying next time you’re in a department store’s bike section and compare it with what you get in a bike store, (not just ours, but any bike store), you’ll understand where the money you’re spending on a bike store bike actually goes and what you’re getting. Peace of mind and the knowledge that the bike you’re buying is one that’s safe to ride and suited to the purpose you intend it for, not something picked out for its price and colour.