I am currently on the night rotation at the hospital so during the day I try to get as much sleep as possible. The shifts are 10 hours long and I have an hour drive each way to either get to work or get home. That uses up ½ the day and gives me a total of 12 hours to get everything done including sleeping before I head back to work.
Today was one of those days when I just had to get out of the shop and get some sleep. When I go to the bedroom to sleep I leave the phone in the dining room on the desk near the computer. I cannot hear it ring so if you call at that time you will get the voice mail and I won’t know about it until later.
First when I get to the house I help Christopher our youngest eat his breakfast. His right shoulder was dislocated in 2009 and the surgeon screwed up royally in our opinion so he has very little movement in his right arm. Since he was right handed everything is now done with his left hand and he does amazingly well, but still sometimes needs some help. Christopher has Autism and is Developmentally Delayed , but like I said he does amazingly well. Chris celebrated is 32nd birthday August 13th of this year. He lives at home, but attendsGreenOaksCenter during the day Monday through Friday.
While I am helping Chris eat, Ruth is giving Scot our other handicapped son a bath. Then we trade. I help Scot get dressed while Ruth gives Chris a bath and gets Chris dressed. Scot also has a mild case of Autism and is Developmentally Disabled. Scot turned 40 on the 26th of August, 2012.
Once the boys are ready, we all wait on the van to pick them up to take them to Green Oaks, then Ruth and I have a little time when we can eat breakfast, go for a bike ride, get some groceries or whatever we need to do before they return about 3. The boys get on the van usually between 8 and 8:30 AM, and arrive back home between 2:45 and 3:15 now. On the days when I have worked the night before or will work that night I do my best to be in bed asleep by 10:30 AM and back up at 5 PM. So anything that I have to do I try to do in that time period. Today was one of those days when things just kept eating into the sleeping time.
The van came about 20 minutes later than usual. Then we had to deliver a bicycle that I had sold Friday, but the man did not have the cash to pay for it until today, so I told him I would deliver it today for him. After that I headed to the shop where there were 3 bikes waiting to be repaired or checked. First was an old Huffy that I had refurbished a few months back and sold. The young man that bought it told me the chain was broken and the pedal needed tightened. The chain was indeed broken right in two pieces. The pedal had been removed and put back on wrong. On the left side of a bicycle the left pedal is almost always a left handed (backwards) thread. That means that it turns left rather than right to tighten. Or Counter Clockwise instead of clockwise. The pedal had came off or been removed and the pedal had been cross threaded into the crank arm. The chain was simple fix. Cut out the bad links which were bent and broken and put new links in the chain in place of the bad ones. The owner called while I was working on it and told me that he been in an accident with the bike and that is how the damage occurred. I was able to finish tightening the pedal, though I am not sure how long it will hold. I know the young man who is a bag boy at a local supermarket does not have much money and the bike is his transportation. Really what should be done is the crank removed and new pedals and crank arm installed. It is also possible to rethread the pedal and the crankarm and then re-use these, however this does not give you as strong a fix as just replacing them. It is working now and I will call him tomorrow see if he wants to take it back now at no charge or have me go ahead with replacing the crank arm and pedals.
Then an 18 Speed Mountain Bike that had some problems shifting. It didn’t take much investigation to realize that it had been hit hard in the rear derailleur. I have a special tool that screws in the hanger to bend these back straight, then it is just a matter of adjusting the limit screws and cable tension and it is ready to go. They should be glad it wasn’t much more than that. If it would have taken parts, they probably would have been better off just buying another bike. The bike cost new around 90.00 and I cannot buy the super cheap parts that NEXT ( Pacific Cycles for Wal-Mart) uses. I have to charge labor by the time I spend repairing the bike and this one will be about 25.00 labor with no parts. It would have at least doubled had they needed a new derailleur.
I see this type of repair quite often with inexpensive and even the better bikes. People that Mountain bike are notorious for hitting the rear derailleur on a rock, a stump or a log, usually when they try to bunny hop the bike or when they crash it. I took to the Mountain Bike trails at the Parks at Chehaw myself a few times and it really is very easy to do. The more “technical’ the trail and the faster you try to go on the trail the easier it would be to damage your bike that way.
Number 3 is an old 24 “ Roadmaster that has no brakes, and no brake cables or pads. The shifters for the gears are there but they are broken from the handlebars and not working at all. I called the person on this and he told me that he wanted me to give him an estimate to repair it completely, when I did he told me that he would buy a new bike and not to worry about it. I offered to take it as a trade in on a new KHS bike. He said he would meet me at the shop Saturday morning and take a look at the KHS. The biek is a 24”RoadmasterMountainbike. It has steel frame and is old enough to still have Made in theUSApainted on the frame. Roadmaster has not been made in theUSAfor several years now.
I left the shop for the house at 10:00 AM, the girls that work there would be opening the store in a few minutes. Store hours during the week are 10A-8P and then 10 A – 2P on Saturday. This week the store will be closed Saturday and Monday in observation of Labor Day. The store owner is in theMidwestdancing. I did get some good sleep from about 10:30 until a little after 4 then got up, ate lunch and started returning phone calls of those that called while I was asleep. The calls ranged from another person wanting a bike, a person needing some lubes and cleaners and a person wanting some 12” tires and tubes. I think I managed to get back with everyone, then dropped off some parts and tools at the shop on the way to the Hospital. In the morning I will head directly to the shop and work until 10 AM then head home for some sleep. I almost forgot there is another bike I have to pick up in the morning person says the gears are slipping, that usually means a chain or cassette or both. He is going to meet me in the morning in the hospital parking lot where I work and give me the bike then. Once I have checked it out then I will give him a call and let him know if I need to order any parts. I won’t be able to order until Tuesday so quickest I can get parts is Wednesday.
It is good to be busy, I just wish that being busy would turn into a reasonable profit, oh well at least I am helping people with their bikes. It was sort of neat today as I was driving down 1st Avenue I seen 2 different sets of cyclists. The funny thing was that I not only knew all of the people riding, but they were all riding bikes that I had repaired at one point or another in the last year. I waved at both groups and all the riders in both groups waved back. I find that since we opened the shop about 3 years ago I have expanded the number of people I know exponentially. The feeling that I am helping people really helps.
I am getting a lot of bikes that I am able to refurbish and sell. That is a good thing, however I am getting about 4 or 5 ladies bikes for every men’s bike I receive. Does anyone really know why that would be the case? I mean I sell way more new bikes to men, and when I go to Wal-Mart and watch the bicycles going out of there the Men’s bikes outnumber the Women’s at least 3 to 1 and sometimes as much as 5 to 1. I checked with a few other dealers and they see the same phenomena. Most have said they think the ladies don’t abuse their bikes as much so they last longer. Others think the ladies take better care of their bikes. What do you think? Any ideas why there would be more used Ladies bikes than used Men’s bikes? Do men tend to ride theirs longer? I would be curious to find out what everyone thinks. Maybe in other towns or other areas of the country it is just the opposite, any shop owners reading this that may want to tell us about your experience in the used bicycle areas?
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