I took in my bike for it's ... well tune up. Actually I said it need an "overhaul" to the bike man at William's Street -- and I was right. He said that the cartridges and chain needed to replaced, in addition to the tires and brakes. Maintenance sticker price? $150.00
Gah...but it's my baby. My first big expenditure in life, and my main mode of transport in the summer. Plus it's a great bike -- light weight, fast, perfect for me. Since I was unable to say yes right away (my frugality suppressed me). Tim answered for me, and then I was told it would be about 10 days before it was done. Whoa, ten days? Dangit...I guess I should have brought it in sooner -- I never thought it would take that long. SO, my bike is in the shop.
I felt like it should have had a name other than "my bike."
Getting in the car to leave I saw Sarah and Luke walking on the street with Amos (small white dog). They were heading to Quizno's. They happened to have a new drill in the car for us, and we were able to invite them for breakfast at the Original Pancake House for next weekend. We are both terrible at using the phone to arrange things. Oh and the drill was a xmas present from bil Ben that we forgot at the parent's house at Easter.
We also went to the MATC powwow -- and ate ... and then talked with Ron, and his wife Linda and saw their kids, and looked at vender's and looked around in general and right before grand entry was to start I decided I wanted to leave. Standing for all that is so boring -- and it's not like it's something I haven't seen before. SO we went home and played Zelda: Legend of Four Swords -- our latest coop play video game, drank a huge ... HUGE 42 0z, fountain drink (diet coke) ... oh gotta go.
posted by hadjare @ 1:09 PM
1 Comments:
are they replacing any parts or just tweaking stuff - and how extensive a tweaking does it need? i mean, if you need the bearings in the pedal assembly replaced, that's a big difference from if they're just tightening up the shifter wires and replacing the brake pads...
but, yeah, for this time of year and a place like madison, where a lot of people want to start using their bikes all at the same time, i'm not surprised at the price they hit you with. the ten days thing on top of that is about right for the amount of people they probably have dropping stuff off, too, but i personally think it's kind of obnoxious - for a lot of people, the whole point of using a bike for transportation is to avoid the ridiculous service and maintenance fees associated with automobiles.
the only other thing i'd say is get a reciept and, if anything is the least bit wrong, take it back right away and make them get it right. the chain on my bike broke last fall and i took it to a place here in wheeling. they put a new one on in about twenty minutes and charged me about $15-20 and asked if i wanted a reciept and, of course, i was like "why would i want a reciept?! no, don't bother."
here's why i wanted a reciept - because they totally fucked up my shifting and the chain jumps all over the place any time it's not in about three distinct gears. and i didn't find this out until a week or two had gone by because i didn't manage to take the bike out right away after i brought it home and so now i can't just walk in and say "hey! i brought my bike in for a new chain the other week - here's the reciept with the date! - and now the shifting is all fucked up. do something about it!"
not that i'd ever be quite that rude to someone i didn't know, of course.
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