Some may recall my public plea to Wald to hire me as a writer. So far, that attempt at career development has fallen on deaf ears (Wald people, I'm serious, let's talk), but in the meantime, I've found something else I'd like to be when I grow up.
On my commute home today, I noticed some kind of crane/construction thing parked on one of the bridges in downtown Des Moines with its boom swung out over the river. At the end of that boom hung a wrecking ball. And the operator of said machine was using the wrecking ball to smash up ice jams under the bridge, picking it up and slamming it down again and again on the floes of ice clogging the river below. Wham! Wham!
Talk about appealing to my inner five-year-old. City of Des Moines, the next time you're hiring ice-breaker-uppers, I'm in.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
OCD At The Bike Shop
It occurs to me that I've never actually fessed up on-blog about my sordid past in the bicycle business. I've done time with a wrench in five bike shops (in four states), starting when I was a mere towheaded tyke of 18. Three of those shops are now out of business -- and I'll leave it to the reader to draw your own conclusions about that little factoid.
The shop that probably had the most influence on me as a bike guy was a small-but-busy bike, racquet and ski place (name withheld to protect the innocent and the guilty, though it's one of the two in five that survived me) where I put in a blissful bumming-around year after collecting my first useless degree. The bulk of what we sold was remarkably dull, as this was the mid-90s era of the ubiquitous $250-$400 rigid/hardtail mountain bike. If pressed, I can probably still fake my way through a spiel about the miniscule differences between the Specialized Hardrock and GT Outpost circa 1995, since I sold about a warehouse and a half of those things to college students packing parental cash.
What I did learn from that shop, however, was an obsessive, relentless, dictatorial, damn near insane attention to detail that I've never been able to shake since. My first new-bike assembly took me all of twenty minutes... on my first attempt. By the time the manager got through ripping me open in front of my new shop-mates and showing me (step by excruciating step) how to do it right, we'd spent most of a day. There was a 25-point checklist, for Pete's sake! Torque values! Shop-standard angles for brake levers! All seat tubes had to be flex-honed so they wouldn't leave zig-zags on the seatpost. And woe unto the rookie who didn't pull the cables out of their housings so said housings could be cut down to the proper length before the cables were greased, reinstalled, pre-stretched, and readjusted. Leave those big, floppy loops of factory-installed housing out in the breeze and you'd catch grief for a week. It wasn't enough that the pre-V-brake, pain-in-the-ass cantilevers stopped the bike; they had to do it with perfect bilateral symmetry, their pads square with the rims and toed in just so. Oh, and don't forget to wipe up any grease splooge (because you'd greased damn near everything) and polish the frame to get your fingerprints off. Then, take it for a test ride to make sure you didn't miss anything, sign that checklist and hang it from the bars with the owner's manual so everyone knows it's one of yours... and so the guy next to you knows who to ream if he finds a mistake on the floor that slows him down and costs him a sale. The head mechanic actually had a unique way of crimping on aluminum cable ends so he could recognize his own assemblies when they came back for 30-day checkups or future repairs.
Over the top? Probably. But I can't walk into a shop today without judging everything I see by those same insane standards. If I feel a loose headset, see a sagging tire, or notice a row of bikes with their brake levers all akimbo, my gut says, "Sloppy work done by people who don't care about bikes. Take your money somewhere else." Now before the wrenches of today start piling on, trying to tell me how fast they have to crank out assemblies just to keep up, let me don my Grumpy Old Mechanic apron: We did it in a college town shop. You think you have to move a lot of bikes? Try it on a campus of 20,000 during the first week of classes. And every bike that crossed the threshold from workshop to sales floor -- from the cheapest Hardrock to the most expensive team bike replica -- had to get that same obsessive attention to detail.
If you can't hack that, just sell it to me in the box. I'll do it myself.
The shop that probably had the most influence on me as a bike guy was a small-but-busy bike, racquet and ski place (name withheld to protect the innocent and the guilty, though it's one of the two in five that survived me) where I put in a blissful bumming-around year after collecting my first useless degree. The bulk of what we sold was remarkably dull, as this was the mid-90s era of the ubiquitous $250-$400 rigid/hardtail mountain bike. If pressed, I can probably still fake my way through a spiel about the miniscule differences between the Specialized Hardrock and GT Outpost circa 1995, since I sold about a warehouse and a half of those things to college students packing parental cash.
What I did learn from that shop, however, was an obsessive, relentless, dictatorial, damn near insane attention to detail that I've never been able to shake since. My first new-bike assembly took me all of twenty minutes... on my first attempt. By the time the manager got through ripping me open in front of my new shop-mates and showing me (step by excruciating step) how to do it right, we'd spent most of a day. There was a 25-point checklist, for Pete's sake! Torque values! Shop-standard angles for brake levers! All seat tubes had to be flex-honed so they wouldn't leave zig-zags on the seatpost. And woe unto the rookie who didn't pull the cables out of their housings so said housings could be cut down to the proper length before the cables were greased, reinstalled, pre-stretched, and readjusted. Leave those big, floppy loops of factory-installed housing out in the breeze and you'd catch grief for a week. It wasn't enough that the pre-V-brake, pain-in-the-ass cantilevers stopped the bike; they had to do it with perfect bilateral symmetry, their pads square with the rims and toed in just so. Oh, and don't forget to wipe up any grease splooge (because you'd greased damn near everything) and polish the frame to get your fingerprints off. Then, take it for a test ride to make sure you didn't miss anything, sign that checklist and hang it from the bars with the owner's manual so everyone knows it's one of yours... and so the guy next to you knows who to ream if he finds a mistake on the floor that slows him down and costs him a sale. The head mechanic actually had a unique way of crimping on aluminum cable ends so he could recognize his own assemblies when they came back for 30-day checkups or future repairs.
Over the top? Probably. But I can't walk into a shop today without judging everything I see by those same insane standards. If I feel a loose headset, see a sagging tire, or notice a row of bikes with their brake levers all akimbo, my gut says, "Sloppy work done by people who don't care about bikes. Take your money somewhere else." Now before the wrenches of today start piling on, trying to tell me how fast they have to crank out assemblies just to keep up, let me don my Grumpy Old Mechanic apron: We did it in a college town shop. You think you have to move a lot of bikes? Try it on a campus of 20,000 during the first week of classes. And every bike that crossed the threshold from workshop to sales floor -- from the cheapest Hardrock to the most expensive team bike replica -- had to get that same obsessive attention to detail.
If you can't hack that, just sell it to me in the box. I'll do it myself.
Monday, February 2, 2009
What I've Learned In Minnesota
One: When a GPS says "recalculating" (in its mechanical-yet-alluring Australian accent), it's really saying, "Hey, idiot, you missed the turn even though I've been telling you about it for two miles. Give me a second and I'll save your pathetic carbon-based butt again." It's like getting a passive-aggressive dressing down by the Jetsons' robot Rosie as played by Nicole Kidman in a live-action remake. (Note to Hollywood producers: You know the idea's brilliant. Call me.)
Two: Heated seats were made for February in Minnesota. My tushie like rental car lots.
Good grief, I am tired. Say goodnight, Jason.
("Goodnight, Jason.")
Two: Heated seats were made for February in Minnesota. My tushie like rental car lots.
Good grief, I am tired. Say goodnight, Jason.
("Goodnight, Jason.")
Sunday, February 1, 2009
"Subsistence Commuting"
I'd love to take credit for that phrase, but it comes from pal Tarik, spinning blog gold (as usual) over at Moscaline. Observant readers may have noticed that when I futzed with my blogroll this month, Moscaline went on a brief and unintentional hiatus from The Cycle. Dear reader, if you missed anything, get over there now and catch up. And sincere apologies to he of the mighty moustache for the temporary service interruption.
Tarik just tossed off the idea of "subsistence commuting" during his year-end motion update, but the concept stuck in my head. It pretty much describes the only motion I'm getting these days -- about thirty minutes per day of miserable fixed-gear slogging through slushy, cold crap. The distance I cover each day barely counts as riding, but something about gearing up and getting in the saddle resets my brain, tells me I'm still a biker, there's still hope.
No subsistence today, though -- still on the clock. And The Cycle will be on the road tomorrow and Tuesday, visiting the land of long-O sounds and hot dishes to the north, don'tcha know. I'll be bikeless (and wouldn't have time to ride if I had one) up there, but I'll probably spin some blog pyrite (that's "fool's gold" for those who weren't paying attention in science class) from The Cities.
Tarik just tossed off the idea of "subsistence commuting" during his year-end motion update, but the concept stuck in my head. It pretty much describes the only motion I'm getting these days -- about thirty minutes per day of miserable fixed-gear slogging through slushy, cold crap. The distance I cover each day barely counts as riding, but something about gearing up and getting in the saddle resets my brain, tells me I'm still a biker, there's still hope.
No subsistence today, though -- still on the clock. And The Cycle will be on the road tomorrow and Tuesday, visiting the land of long-O sounds and hot dishes to the north, don'tcha know. I'll be bikeless (and wouldn't have time to ride if I had one) up there, but I'll probably spin some blog pyrite (that's "fool's gold" for those who weren't paying attention in science class) from The Cities.
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