Boxed on the Curb

I answered a call the other day. The voice on the other end asked for a trainer. I asked if he wanted a stationary trainer or one he could mount his bike to. He told me he wanted one to mount his bike to. I told him all about the models that we had in stock, including one model which I personally owned and had been using for six years. He asked me which one I would get if I was buying one. Trying not to sound like an asshole, I told him that I would probably get the one which I had been using for six years. He said that was the one he wanted. Then he asked: “what it would take to have that boxed on the curb for me?” I was not sure I had heard him correctly, so I asked him if he wanted it in a box on the curb. He told me that was correct. He wanted to give a credit card number over the phone, and for me to put the trainer, in its box, on the curb for him to drive by and pick it up. I asked why he would possibly need to do this, and he told me that he was late for an appointment in town at noon, and it would take him thirty minutes to get there. I glanced at the clock and noticed that it was twenty minutes before noon. I suggested to him that it would take literally thirty seconds for me to run his credit card when he arrived at the shop. I managed to refrain from asking him why he couldn’t just come by after his appointment.

What's Wrong With The World

While standing at the counter today, I watched a guy pull into the parking lot at the shop. He proceeded to drive his newish- looking Nissan truck directly into one of the bright yellow concrete poles protecting the building. He backed up slightly, got out of the truck and checked out the damage. I could see he was wearing a rather large Bluetooth in his ear, but he was not talking on it. Next, he got his brand new Specialized Sirrus out of the bed of the truck and struggled to get in the door of the shop with the bike in hand. I was thinking he might have trouble with the door, so I walked over to help him inside. He told me that he wanted to have the bar ends wrapped with bar tape. I thought this was a silly request, but kept my opinion to myself. Looking at the cyclometer, I could see that the bike had only twenty miles on it. He told me to go ahead and check it over while it was in. After some brief conversation, the guy turned to leave. He put his hand on the door handle and pulled. The door didn’t move. He pulled again and jiggled the handle. Still nothing. The third time he pulled on the handle, I started to tell him, but he changed over to pushing. The door opened, and he left. I would estimate that my salary is less than a quarter of what this guy makes working for the State Police. I will now commence drinking heavily to try to balance out a world that can be this askew. And if I drive later, I hope it’s him that pulls me over.

Everything in it's Right Place

At a shop I used to work at, we had an old guy that worked in the back. He had been there for years, and knew a lot about old bikes, but drank a lot and was rude to customers, so eventually he was put out of sight. One day I heard him cursing something and went back to see what it was. He was assembling a piece of fitness equipment, and when I asked him what was wrong, he told me “the damn holes don’t line up”. Apparently, the 2 pieces were made in separate places or something and just didn’t quite line up, thus rendering the assembly process impossible. I still remember that quote today when I am working on something that doesn’t quite fit correctly (quite common in the bicycle industry) I think his quote can also apply to life- sometimes things just go smoothly and “the holes just line up”.
Work went pretty smoothly today. Repairs all got done in a reasonable amount of time and nothing gave me any hassles. Only one customer of note. I don’t know what his name is, but he had called us many times before about a tire for his recumbent. Finally, about 2 months ago, he bought one, and today he called again to tell me that it had a hole in it. I told him over the phone that he would need to bring in the tire for us to look at and while he was at it, to bring in the whole wheel so I could determine the cause of the flat or replace it if needed. About an hour later, a guy came in, wheel in hand and said “here”. I realized this was the guy who had called earlier, but I had to ask him what the problem was, since the tire was currently fully inflated. He told me that it had a hole in it. I checked the tire over, and found a few small cuts in the tread, but nothing abnormal, so I asked him if he wanted me to change the tube, to which he replied “what?” I repeated myself, thinking that he hadn’t heard me, but his response then told me he was just being difficult. After a few more exchanges of words, we were at a stalemate. He wanted to know why there was a hole in the tire that he bought 2 months ago, and I had already told him several times that he had run over something. The tire was not currently flat, and so there was obviously nothing wrong with the tires’ casing. He got angry and started to leave while I was in the middle of explaining that, so I stopped mid- sentence, waved to him, and said “OK, see you later”. It usually irritates me when people interrupt me while I’m explaining something to them, but I really didn’t mind this time. I found it rather humorous that he couldn’t stick around for what I had to say. Later on, he called and complained to Matt about the whole thing, but Matt told him pretty much the same thing- what could we do? The guy bought a tire, went out and rode it, ran over something and apparently developed a slow leak. This was something akin to the kid that came in a few weeks ago, bought a tube, installed it incorrectly, punctured the tube, then came back in and wanted his money back. I’m sorry, but we are not in the business of replacing items that you break through normal wear or just plain stupidity. If you take a car and back over the bike you just bought from us, we will not replace it either. Sorry! Soon it was 6, and the Monday mountain bike ride was great: nice weather, good trail conditions and lots of fun. I even managed to take a ridiculous header at the entrance of the North trail at a very slow speed. Everyone was behind me, and really enjoyed seeing me make an idiotic mistake and not get hurt. What I think happened was this: I was entering the trail, when someone yelled that they were stopping. I slowed down to a crawl, and looked back to see what was going on, couldn’t see, and when I looked back, I was on top of a couple of logs laying about a wheelbase length apart. I pulled up to clear the first log, lost most of my momentum and put the front wheel in the trough between the two logs. Next, my back wheel came up and continued to rise, until it was about even with my head, and then I fell over sideways. A little inattention at the wrong moment at slow speed. I guess it could be worse, since I only got a little scratch on my knee. Later on, I went to my Grandmothers house, since she was having a computer problem, and I told her I would look at it. She fed me dinner first, and within a few minutes of trying I had the problem apparently remedied. Not sure what all I did, but it was working again when I left, so you might call it luck, but I called it fixed. Also she gave me some really good peaches when I left. I didn’t even know peaches were in season yet, but they were really good. I ate them both within an hour of getting home. In all, a pretty damn good day. I guess the holes just happened to line up.

Rainy Tuesday Treat

For the second consecutive week, the team ride was rained out. Now I’m home and wondering what to do. Ride the rollers? No, I really need to, but that’s such a hard thing to do when it’s not wintertime and I only have the choice to ride indoors or not at all. Maybe I’ll fire up the old PC and update the blog. But what to talk about? Lately, religion has been on my mind again, but I know better than to bring that up. Surely I can think of a less polarizing subject on which to state my humble opinion. Someday I will publish a treatise on my beliefs and change the world forever, but for now…
Butterscotch pudding is good! I just made some tonight, and although it’s just the instant kind, it’s still pretty good stuff. Just two cups of milk and a packet of flavor/ coagulant of some sort. I really don’t know if this orange- colored gelatinous substance is very good for me or not, but it sure tastes good. My diet has been severely lacking in decency lately, and every day I start with the intention to change that, only to fail miserably. With my tendencies towards late morning wake- ups and lack of an actual lunch break, my daily caloric intake often consists of pop- tarts and McDonald’s dollar menu fare. I loathe myself for this, but can’t seem to get out of the rut. I wasn’t always like this. In fact, I used to be pretty serious about my nutrition. Just a few years ago, my brother and I had a “competition” of sorts, with each of us trying to one- up the other by giving something “bad” up. I finally stopped keeping track one day when we were talking and he casually told me that he had given up refined sugar. How the hell do you cut out refined sugar? It’s everywhere! I still think he may have been making this up to ratchet up the stakes so high that no one could follow. I fall short of calling him a liar, though, since I had visited his apartment and seen the contents of his refrigerator and the gram scale on his counter he used for measuring out food. At the time, I thought this constituted commitment, just to demonstrate how serious I was about the whole nutrition thing. Over the years, I have tried, without much success, to alter my body type by gaining or losing weight. In 2002, I weighed 143 pounds after training for 6 months to run the Chicago marathon. At 6’ 2”, this is a pretty good weight for me to be a runner. Being a cyclist takes much more power, though, and at some point after that I got the idea that I needed to gain weight. I was briefly at my heaviest by making it to 160 lbs. It took a lot of work to get to each point, though, and I didn’t really enjoy being at either extreme. So now I’m back where my body likes to be, right around 150 lbs. Now that my diet has nothing to do with my weight, though, I‘ve stopped being so concerned about what I eat and that’s where the problem is. I know that my calories should be coming from more healthy sources and I aim to change that soon. But for now… yeah, I just finished my pudding.