You know you're a bike mechanic when...

..you read the Park Tool catalogue during your lunch break.

A quick vocabulary lesson.

* Tire = the rubber thing that touches the ground.
* Rim = the metal part that the tire touches (and where your brakes are supposed to rub against, disc brakes notwithstanding)
* Wheel = rim + spokes + hub

That is all.

The Magic Open Sign

We have an open sign at work.  It's got hours on it, and it has the word "OPEN" on it in red and blue quasi-neon.  So basically, it's a standard open sign you've probably seen everywhere. But, I swear our particular open sign has some kind of magical power.

Let me explain.

There are two settings on the open sign, "Static" or "Flash."  Depending on how you flip the switch in the morning, the word "OPEN" will either just stay on constantly ("Static") or flash (hopefully you can figure out which mode that is).  And I swear, whenever we turn the open sign on in Flash mode, we have a busier sales day.  Something about the letters and the snazzy little blue lines flashing away and dancing their little dance just attracts people.  Now, as a small independent bike shop, busier is usually better.  More customers means more money, which means the boss can afford our staggeringly small paychecks.  So, we had the sign on flash mode today.

It was terrible.

I'm not just a bike mechanic.  I have a strange, and apparently rare to find in bicycle mechanics, quality of being able to sell bikes.  Now, every body at my shop knows how to ring somebody up for something, but sometimes, you've really got to sell a bike to someone.  And today, I was the only person that can comfortably sell bikes at the shop.  My intrepid coworkers can help, but if someone had a sales question, they asked the Fat Bicycle Mechanic.  People scare them.  Bolts not scary.

So, this leads me to my point.  How to customers know how to time their arrivals so dang precisely?  Over the course of my 8 hour today, I had one break long enough to use the restroom and maybe 7 minutes and 43 seconds to sit.  As soon as one customer left, it seemed like they held the door for the next person to come on in.

Now, don't get me wrong.  A busy day is a day that goes by quickly, and being busy is way better than being bored.  That being said, not getting a chance to eat all day, that's rough.  But, it's not that bad, at least until one of my intrepid coworkers heats up something delicious smelling in the shop microwave while I'm stuck talking to Dad and helping him watch his toddler so that the kid doesn't pull a rack of bikes down on their head, that makes things a little tough.  More like, "DAMN YOU intrepid coworker! I don't even know what that is, but it smells delicious!"  And when I finally got a chance to eat, we were closing in 15 minutes.  And knowing my luck, I'd heat up ye olde lunch, and that bring in

We're leaving the stupid sign on Static, at least until after lunch.

Sir, I recommend replacement

He said it was fine.  He rode off on it.  I want to say it's a "Shocker" that it's still in one piece, but that seems like an understatement.  These department store bikes baffle me every day.

I learned something new today.

Even after nearly 10 years of being a bike mechanic, it seems like there's always something new to learn.  When I got started, I was in a college town.  I was just fixing flats and installing racks on people's bikes.  Sure, there were the occasional tune ups and more in depth things to do, but being a bicycle mechanic in that kind of environment wasn't terribly taxing.

Now, I work in a real bike shop.  Not to say the shop I worked at before wasn't a real bike shop, but I do a lot more work for racers and enthusiasts at my current job, and they have a lot more demands than flat tires and racks.  So, I learned how to overhaul a fork today.

Anything on a bike containing fluids, short of a water bottle, used to be frightening and alien to me.  Now, I can bleed hydraulic brakes fairly well, and now, the fork is demystified for me.  Sadly, it took my service manager, 5 years my junior, at least a few hours to walk me through it.  Granted, we were helping customers throughout the day, but the boss nonetheless made a comment about how long I'd been working on that fork.  Considering how much the boss is focused on his computer all day, it's not a good thing when he notices you've been stuck on one thing for a long time.  Oh well.

Today I learned how to overhaul a Fox F29 RL front fork.  Cool.

I made one of these all better today.