And that is why I, for one, have posted nothing about it.
Fin.
Here’s what I’d donate a grade-A rat’s ass to: 24 hours in the Old Pu. It’s happenin’ this weekend. In Tucson. The desert. Where it is always warm and sunny and dry.
The forecast?
Rain.
The pile of bike shit I am bringing to this race is obscene, especially considering the low bar I have set for myself for actual ride time. I am bringing the requisite booze both for before the race and after throwing in the towel, which, in my estimation, should happen sometime after 9 p.m. for this guy, just late enough for me to test out the frackin’ sweet EXPOSURE LIGHTS on loan to us DC riders.
Why?
Well, see, here’s the thing. I don’t like pain that much anymore. A few years ago, I’d be full of HELL YES and GNAR EPIC POW! Now I’m mostly full of booze and figurative shit. I’ll do what I can do. Have fun on the bike. When it’s not fun, I’ll stop, drink a beverage with my wife (who will be making the trek down to Tucson with me to witness the carnage and still love me despite my completely ravaged masculinity), maybe have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.
That’s how I roll these days.
I’ve never ridden with a flask before. Maybe this is the opportunity.
So, as the fine mechanic I am, I gave my bike a tune up after a ride down in Sedona last week. It’s amazing: I spent years working on bicycles and the one that never works is my own. Not for lack of talent, mind you. More like a lack of motivation. You ever try working on fifteen bikes a day for most of your adult life and then go home, hands still grimy and swollen, and have to work on your own shit?
Slap some lube on that bitch and hit the trail. Squeaks are good for you. Frayed cables, too.
The bike is rideable. My body is serviceable, for the most part. Shee-itt, let’s ride two-wheelers past our bedtimes.
And if I fall asleep, well goddamn, it ain’t the END OF ZE WORLD!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZMwKPmsbWE[/youtube]
Yada yada life sucks as a bike mechanic FUCK YOU life sucks as a guy who IS A TOP NOTCH bike mechanic but ‘has never worked in a ahop’ therefore has nothing on the resume that says ‘bike mechanic’ so FUCK YOU Mr. Employed… I got a perfect fucking bike, I keep on making my cantilever brakes more and more dialed in so that I don’t get killed on Euclid…
but man… I love you for taking that paper football I folded up and running with it to a lovely TOUCHDOWN. Yes, indeed, we here at drunk cyclist officially do not give a fuck about Contador’s acquittal. Fuck HIM. He won’t be at 24 hours ‘in’ the Old Pueblo, (80+ miles North of the Old Pueblo) will Levi be there? I hope to see Levi. Yes, Levi is greatness. Fuck the Spaniard munchkin. Until July… I guess.
I guess I should mention I don’t work in a shop anymore. Haven’t for several months now.
Yada.
Yada.
Oh boy.. . sorry to hear that but you are still complaining about how hard it was. Have you ever pulled mud out of the crawlspace of a house for $10 per hour with five gallon buckets? Ever washed pots for 12 hours?
I’d suck three dicks to get a job in a bike shop. Any bike shop (except for Belltown Pull-apart). For some reason, I can’t – because I ain’t worked in a shop. Fuck all. Gotta start my own shop or not be a pro bike mechanic. $1500 worth of tools and no bikes to wrench. I got a reason to complain. Or don’t I?
Washed pots for 12 hours.
Worked in a born-again Christian’s used clothing store for one day. (Felt longer than the 12 hours of washing pots).
Sold tennis rackets.
Taught high school English for several years. (I’ll haul mud for ten an hour.)
Worked in an office.
Worked at a community college.
Worked with at-risk kids.
Worked at Applebee’s.
Delivered pizzas.
Made pizzas.
Mowed lawns.
Plowed driveways.
We all got a reason to complain, or don’t we?
Four Yorkshiremen Sketch
Monty Python
Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort.
Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam: You’re right there Obediah.
Eric Idle: Who’d a thought thirty years ago we’d all be sittin’ here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye. In them days, we’d a’ been glad to have the price of a cup o’ tea.
GC: A cup ‘ COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, “Money doesn’t buy you happiness.”
EI: ‘E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN’. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin’ in a corridor! Woulda’ been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
EI: Well when I say “house” it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o’clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing “Hallelujah.”
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that… and they won’t believe ya’.
ALL: Nope, nope..
Finally,
I believe ‘Berto.
Take care out there :)
Whereas I am a profehesianal hack I have a larger burden than a $1500 tool kit. Still, I have little to complain about. Sack up.
Sigh,
LJ, I hesitate to ask this but do you have ANY form of certification, (other than your own opinion), that states something like:
The holder of this qualification is “IS A TOP NOTCH bike mechanic”
If not, your whole rant is a total waste of bandwidth
TRUE THAT
I got learned in a shop. Lynn Shoup opened Rage Cycles in Tempe, AZ. He knew I was a good kid, brought me in and I learned to turn wrenches. It was both art and drudgery at times.
Last time I worked in a shop, a couple of the kids had completed some kind of bicycle maintenance program.
Still, I trip up on the idea that it’s all about your PMA or lack thereof.
Here’s my take on it.
I have a garage full of bikes, no one touches them except me.
However, I would never call myself a bike mechanic because I have never undergone any form of certification to prove that I meet accepted industry standards.
Same applies to my day job, I manage a large software team, yes, you may be extremely talented but please do not waste my time unless you can prove that you meet basic industry approved criteria.
Yes it’s sad but it’s the way it works.
…as a child i was driven to private school in a chauffeured limousine where i had my gorgeous personal secretary take notes for me & at exam time my parents paid off my teachers to assure i got the highest passing grades & therefor i was always 1st in my class…
…i ate caviar & watercress sandwiches with the crusts cut off for lunch & although i was underage, i drank champagne in the dining hall…
…i was lead batsman on the school cricket team & i had the school colors changed to MY favorites…
…when i took up cycling, mommy had a 3 place bike made for me & hired two beautiful athletic swedish chicks to do all the pedaling whilst i only sat & steered…
…i have an 11″ penis…
…& i think being self absorbed is awesome ‘cuz, well, what would i do otherwise ???…admire others ???…now that’s funny !!!…
…okay…what were you guys saying ???…
Wish I had the mechanical mind to be a better mechanic. I muddle through now on my own bike with two or three different books & web for reference but it seems like I am always just following steps w/o any real conceptual understanding of how the bike works or wtf I am actually doing or why I am doing it. Whatever.
Envy all you guys headed to the 24 hour. As for the rain, two words, “no dust”. As dry as January has been here that rain may be a blessing. Nothing worse than sucking dust lap after lap especially at night. Of course as Gnome alluded to, as long as were not talking the 2005 boat race…
Being a mechanic’s good for a while. But like any other job, it sucks after a while, especially when you have greater ambitions. It’s easy to glorify it because it looks like so much “FUN”, but it’s a job, and it’s work, and it’s hard, and the pay sucks. I like wrenching on bikes, but I don’t want to be a career wrench. I don’t think there’s any problem with having bigger plans.
Bunch of self serving Bitches, having a pissing contest. Boy I miss Big J and the good ol days…Tits and Bikes, and more tits. And beer….D2 is youre first name R2. How little is it jar.
R2? Wow! Zing! Are you on Saturday Night Live? Comic gold! I have never–and I mean NEVER–heard that particular jest before. Strong work!
Got you D2. I am just babbling about my own misadventures working on my own bike. I completely get that being a mechanic is a job and and important one at that. The good ones should be appreciated. It seems like there are a lot of mechanics at bike shops that either don’t really know what they are doing or don’t care. I’ve been disappointed so many times that I try to do my own work as much as possible. Whether we are talking really being able to fine tune, or even just putting things together properly so as not to cause undue wear on the ride or injury to the rider a really good mechanic is someone to be appreciated. Anyone in the Phoenix area have recommendations on top notch mechanics in town?
Hack, good on ya. I get that for sure. I’ve worked with a lot of those bad mechanics. I think everyone should learn how to work on their own bikes, and while I think learning by doing is a great way to get into the game (hell, that’s what I did) I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have some sort of certification or test to find out if the wrench really knows his game.
Not likely to happen, though, since that shit’s expensive and most shops are rinky-dink affairs with owners that just love bikes, not money.
I could never be a great mechanic because I work too slow after lunch. And shop owners always got surly about me sitting on a stool while wrenching. Damn right I’m sitting. Fuck you fatso. My legs are getting tired.
LJ you are a fucking piece of work. i dont know why the fuck they keep you around. D2 posts a hella GREAT post about a race he is doing this weekend and all you want to cry about is how you’d suck 3 dicks to get a job in a bike shop. waaaaah. fuck off. come to cincinnati, i’d PAY to see you suck 3 dicks at once, how’s that?
Yes, and when I say I’ve been “disappointed” I mean everything from little things like having a directional tire put back on (after truing wheel)in the wrong direction to having the wrong BB installed (not compatible with the crankset). The crankset literally fell off with the first turn of the pedal. Not exactly the greatest qc process going on in that particular shop and not much pride in the work.
You go to a mechanic because you are either short on time, know how or the proper tools and it sure is good when you feel like you got your money’s worth.
Grab a PBR, pour some wiskey in your coffee and hug it out bitches.
D2,
Good perspective on the whole wrenching thing. I’ve been nothing but a shop and industry wrench for twenty years (minus five for college). I’m still working as a shop wrench every day…I love most things about it, loathe a few others, probably like any job. The key is finding joy in what you do.
Hey little jar, no disrespect, but if a guy comes in the shop looking for a job and brags about how bitchin he dials in his canti’s…well, I can program a Beta VCR, b.f.d. Can you re-valve a freeride fork? How ’bout dialing in some new bb 30 shit? Good at bleeding Avid Elixir’s? Set up some tubeless road lately? It’s a brave new world out there with an ever more technical spin to it, so most shops are looking for a guy with a good attitude who is eager to learn…not the onion belt guy.
KT’s 2 cents.
Damn… Whatadowedo with the onions now? Eat them?
Hey Industry wrench guy –
This is drunk cyclist, not where I’m applying for work in a shop. I’m not asking D2 for work. Don’t you think I might change my approach *just a little* (no, a lot) when I’m out ‘pounding the pavement’?
You either need to be a shit hot racer, a cute girl, or something other than a 36 year old cycle-bum. Lots of shops are just a clique of hipsters who’ll hire their friends regardless of skill level.
FACT REMAINS: If you ain’t worked in a shop from age 16 to 36, you ain’t getting no job in a shop. It’s pre-requisite. Either that, or I plunk down too much coin and get ‘certified’ at Barnett. Fuck that.
I already know how to lace wheels, braze tubing, and a thousand other things. My experience having assembled over 100 bikes from scratch doesn’t count… I haven’t shop experience. No shop will hire me. Being a military aircraft mechanic for 4 years doesn’t count either.
Yeah, I know, the worst thing to do is to BRAG. I’m not bragging, though. I know it’s all my own fault for not trying hard enough. No Goals is a bad place to be, but that’s where I am these days.
If I’ve pissed you off with my commentary, I don’t care that much. I have internet now and I can write what I want. I have been silent on most posts for two months now. I’m not expecting 100% approval or sunshine pumped up my ass.
I get a kick out of someone that doesn’t know how good they have it. The lack of bike shop experience that I have is a wound because for years I’ve tried to get in, but obviously I don’t wear the right stuff nor do I get invited to the right parties/hipster clique houses. I’m too OLD now. Sorry to make it about me, and clearly I’m catching hell.
No cert – but what gives me the right to say I’m top notch is that every person I’ve helped, with their bicycle, is very happy with the result, and the cost. I have photos of happy customers and evaluation forms; all positive. I was born with a wrench in my hand and surely I’ve been arrogant… but there’s dozens of people in Seattle, Portland, and Tucson that are ‘satisfied customers’ and I’ve been told I’m fast, brilliant, and resourceful – when it comes to mechanics of any kind. I have the touch; the gift. It’s just that I’ve given up on the ‘work place’ scene entirely, and I have no goals, no motivation, and I’m sick of all the bullshit. There are only so many disappointments a person can take before he gives up. My fault for failing at life… Hey, flame away… I’m closing up the box to tune my bike and ride up to Oracle Junction. White line therapy is the only type that works for me.
I don’t know if in the USofA it’s legal, but in Belgium, quite a few bikes shops start as a guy taking care of friends bikes in his garage, then it slowly takes over the ground floor of the house… Then it becomes a shop, but the guy only opens on weekends, then he jumps the shark and closes the weekends, quits his job and becomes a full time bike shop er, man.
It’s kinda funny because this kind of LBS is in the middle of a neighbourhood, and you get the sense that you are standing in the guy ex-livingroom getting your hands black in the drivetrain… They do good bussiness doing mostly maintenance and upgrades. Not so many new bikes, they leave that to the big shops.
Kind of like the whacko with the undead zombie van was trying to do – start small and stay small – but do it with a small house.
For all this ranting about bike fettling…..
…any half brained knob jockey with some practice and experience can build and maintain a bicycle – shit bolts on, shit bolts off, shit presses in, shit presses out, shit needs grease and oil.
You couldnt get a job in a bike shop?!….really?!…I find that hard to believe.I’ve met a few really good mech’s, but a lot are kids with a crappy attitude I’d never let near my bike.
Bikesgonewild wins
bikesgonewild, there is a new movie about your speach problem groing up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBXm7GDws50&feature=player_embedded#at=77
G.
…okay. okay…in the interests of transparency & veracity i have to admit –
…(a)- it’s really only 10″…
…(b)- those “…two beautiful athletic swedish chicks…” that mommy hired may have been, in retrospect, transvestites but in their defense, they were still quite lovely despite the 5:00 o’clock shadows & they really did ride hard…
…just sayin’…
my 2 cents….Judi hit that muda fucka out the park…..
sheesh. this c section needs less pissin & moanin and more anything but.
I’m finishing the 3D of the last of 5 jewellery shops, it’s 2am here, so I’ve put tits in the mapping. Nice pert tits, hidden in plain sight, covering 3300mm by 1900mm of “visual space”.
Stupid, but oddly satisfying.
Armstrong still accused, Contador acquitted, everyone suing Landis, blood passports. I need to write an article explaining dope or no dope, it don’t matter. Let them dope. Why, it’s scientific training, makes for exciting races, and if everyone’s doing it, then it’s not cheating! Anyways, we can dope our cows, pigs, chickens, and even the asparagus.
Thou shall dope! John 3:16
For what its worth, I enjoyed the post — puts the race in a nice perspective, with the focus on having a damn good time. “Have fun on the bike.” Indeed. Go D2.
LB, well done.
It’s all about keeping perspective & not taking things too seriously.
If I was at the race I’d be running around saying things like RU D2? which would eventually be responded by R2 D2, ( with a serious face).
It’s all good fun until someone loses an eye.
calling yourself a Top Notch Bike Mechanic ranks up there with World’s Greatest Grandpa. Which I am submitting an application this year and every year following. So what if I don’t have grandkids, I sure as shit can send out a $25.00 check for your birthday and go to bed at 7pm. I think go look for some velcro sneakers tomorrow as well.
Down play it as much as you like, but working on bikes and doing it well is not something paramount to having grandkids. It’s not something everyone can do, only 5% or less of people know half of what it takes. It’s not something any jackass can do, and you can fuck off for saying so. So you don’t respect my writing style, and therefore my bike savvy doesn’t exist to you. You think that this IS ME and that THE REAL ME is defined by littlejar’s comments.
How small minded even very smart people can get.
Many, many cyclists don’t even know how to change their chain. You might know how to, but get real – it’s not a common ability.
“… hit that muda… out the park.” Hey fuckstick – I didn’t know this was a game. This bike thing is not a game to me. You have no class, and Judi proves her low class by attacking me like that. Hey Judi – sack up and learn how to fix your bike. Learn how to STOP RIDING when you need to instead of what appears to be a replacement addiction.
How’d that slice of text hit you?
“Sack up” I’m told by Gnome, and I hear thrown around. OK, people, here’s the ante: Sacking up means LEAVING YOUR FUCKING CAR AT HOME AND RIDING YOUR BIKE. Are you bike-jitsu or bike-do? Sacking up even more means SELL THE CAR and RIDE YOUR BIKE. Yeah, sack up, people. If you drive to work, shop, and visit; nothing you can say to me will get under my skin. And if you don’t, we should be natural allies and this flippant tossing around of insults and crass half words is some bullshit, for real. “Sack up.”
Yeah, I remember High School too, but i left it in the past.
LJ-you are right on one crucial point…repairing bikes for a living is noble, misunderstood, and underappreciated. I’ll toss back some fine Cab with you on that. BUT, I ride my bike to work nearly every fucking day, and have done so since Bush Sr. was in office. Why? Because it keeps my stress down.
Works for most people.
Word little
LJ,
go home, seek help.
Please.
I have worked in bike shops in some capacity for the better part of the last decade. And to be quite honest, if you love riding bikes, don’t work in a bike shop. People have asked me why I don’t open my own shop, and my response every time is, “because I love to ride my bike”. The daily grind of a successful bike shop has the innate ability to drain you of your desire to ride. Meh, it happens.
What’s missing in this thread though is a good dose of perspective:
http://www.pinkbike.com/video/182328/
So get the certification. Sure it might total a couple grand, but if that is all that stands in the way of you and the job you’d be great at, isn’t the investment worth it? Besides, wouldn’t it pay for itself if you got a job that didn’t make you shovel dirt for 10/hr?
I spent four years working at a local prison finding veins in junkies so we could test them for HIV/HepC/Syphilis – In other words, I learned on-the-job to be a great stick. When I then tried to get a side job as a phlebotomist in a hospital, everybody said I needed certification even if they didn’t doubt I knew what I was doing.
Last year I was in Performance on the eastside of Tucson, just getting some new tires for my commuter, and the store manager asked me, after ringing me up, if I work on my bikes myself. I said yes, I do most things myself but there are a couple things I hadn’t learned yet. She then offered me a job as a mechanic and asked me to fill out an application. I’m assuming that her response to my admission of lack of experience was meant to be “we can teach you what you don’t know.” It’s still possible to get a job in a bike shop with limited experience or without a certification.
…a truly 100% great bike mechanic is 90% technician & 30% artist…go figure…
…i’ve been lucky over the years in that when i’ve had new bikes built, it’s done by one of a number of friends that have wrenched on the pro circuit & it’s for that reason that i’m glad to use ’em…i can change stuff & adjust this n’ that but knowing how inept i can be at the art of fine tuning & considering my life is literally on the line on that first major fast descent, well sir, i’m glad to pay a pro…that’s just me…
…@littlejar…i think you’re a good human being, i think you’ve got a good heart, i think you’re an intelligent human being but personally, i honestly don’t think you have a fucking clue as to just how defensive & abrasive a human being you can be…
…i’d bet dollars to fucking donuts that you’ve had various opportunities to work in plenty of shops over the years but i’ll also bet you pissed away the chances of ever achieving that goal every fucking time because you’re so bloody insistent on letting people know you’ll be doing things one way…littlejar’s way…
…you’re trouble at the end of a wrench & any shop owner can sense that when they’re thinking about the composition of personalities that they can use to mesh into a cohesive working shop…
…there’s a lot more to it than how high you grade yourself as a wrench…
…i’m not about to tell you that compromise is something that will work for you but sometimes, amigo, it’s the only fucking way you’ll ever get a taste of what you think you want…
…& so far, littlejar, you just haven’t wanted it all that bad…
…just sayin’…
@bgw
Words don’t work with lj.
Why doncha bitch slap him with that 10 inch schlong on yers.
That might knock some sense in to him.
Either that or he can suck the 1st of 3 dicks to realize his dream.
——
Ain’t working in a bike shop basically minimum wage ?
At least at Burger King you get a free lunch.
I have the best job in the world, and it ain’t in a bike shop that is for sure.
I work clothing programs for the United States Army, and while that doesn’t sound too sweet, riding in helicopters, running through the woods in the winter with an M4 and a rifle squad, and shooting guns is pretty sweet. All of which I’ve done in this job. Plus, I get to put clothes on the backs of our Soldiers, which itself is pretty awesome.
I feel like this is a good time to discuss bitterness…
http://www.despair.com/bitterness.html
For some reason I get their calender every year as a Christmas present.
LJ, YOU FUCKING LIMP DICK PIECE OF SHIT!!! is that all you got for me? come on, can’t you come up with anything better than that “slice of text”??
AND YOU NEVER DID ANSWER MY QUESTION: did you get the fucking t-shirts 40 and i sent you? cuz i am pretty sure neither one of us got a thank you.
you are a low life drunk w/ no money, no home, no job, no nothing. why don’t you go get a fucking life and contribute to society a little? DONATE your time or VOLUNTEER.
don’t you fucking dare talk to me about addiction. you know know shit and you never will.
NOW GO SUCK A DICK!
Nonono, you got it wrong Judi, LJ wants to press a qpokz nut setter, ream a seat tube, lube a bottom bracket or extract a headset