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Question about the guy who rolled a $40 bike into my stand with 9 miles on it
Last week a guy in his 60s pushed a Huffy into my stand and asked me to true the rear wheel, and I noticed the chain had 9 miles of dust on it while the tires still had the little rubber nubs. He said he wanted to learn with his grandson, so I handed him a spoke wrench and let him try the truing himself while I talked him through feel and tension. He spent 40 minutes fighting it, got it close, and when I checked it with the Park tool it was within a hair of spec. He grinned and said "nobody ever lets me do the real work" and that one has been bouncing around my head all week. How do you all decide when to hand a customer the tool and when to just do the job yourself?
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noah41520h ago
At my old shop we had a rule about the truing stand: if the wheel costs less than the tool, let the guy learn on it. I broke that rule once on a $600 set of carbon hoops and turned a 10 minute touch up into a 45 minute apology tour, so my track record is not great. The look on his face when he got it close is probably worth more than whatever you could have charged for 40 minutes of your time anyway. Handing over the wrench is a gamble but the good ones pay off.
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