Idle Banter

This page is dedicated to the idle banter, chit chat, and opinion so often heard at bicycle shops.

1.Greatest cyclist of all time, number one has to be Eddy Merckx, he won everything at least once (except Paris-Tours).

2.Top ten cyclists of all time, after Eddy in no particular order Fausto Coppi, Jacque Anquteil, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain, Louison Bobet, Felice Gimondi, Francesco Moser, Sean Kelly, Greg Lemond.

3.Top American pro cyclists (modern era) Greg Lemond, Marty Nothstein, Andy Hampsten, Jonathan Boyer, George Mount, John Tomac, Ned Overend.

4. Top 20 or so cult/classic movies in no particular order, these should be in your collection: Repoman, Pulp Fiction, The Holy Grail, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, The Italian Job (original), Buckaroo Banzai, Airplane, Blues Brothers, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Deathrace 2000, Mad Max, The Shawshank Redemption, This is Spinal Tap, Fahrenheit 451, Psycho, Casablanca, To Kill a Mockingbird. The Star Wars trilogy, Men in Black, and for Sammy Morse, Slapshot. As always more to come.

5. CD's/Albums/MP3's on your iPod/MP3 player to take to your private island: Who's Next, Tommy, Live at Leeds, Hendrix Are You Experienced?, Neil Young Harvest, Pearl Jam Ten, Nirvana Nevermind, Iggy Pop Greatest hits, Sexpistols Never mind the Bollocks, Led Zepplin 2, Led Zepplin Physical Graffiti, Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, Stevie Ray Vaughn (anything by SRV would suffice), Dave Brubeck Time Out, Mozart Piano Concertos, Beethoven Symphony #9, U2 best of 1980-1990 (before Bono became a pretentious dick) Tom Petty & the HB's original release, Black Sabbath Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Vivaldi 4 Seasons, AC/DC Back in Black, Cream Best Of, Bob Marley Compilation or Jimmy Cliff The Harder they Come, Beatles White Album or Sgt Pepper, Rolling Stones Her Satanic Majesties Request, A good Motown compilation, and last but not least, Some really bad rap (think NWA or Eminem) and Madona to make you appreciate the other music you brought with you.

6. Things bike shop dudes and dudettes have heard way too often.

1.The old stand by "I was just riding along" now known in industry parlance as a "JRA".

2."Could you just".......it never ends well, that statement is usually heard on a smokin' hot day in July or August around 3:00 and you haven't eaten lunch yet.

3."But I know George" yeah and so does everyone that reads this sorry excuse for a website.

4."Shouldn't that be under warranty" applied to the kids bike that mum or dad drove over in the driveway with the gigantic SUV, or the similar "I thought these bikes were rugged".

5.Walking in with a flat in hand stating "I just had this fixed and I hardly ever rode it" upon review of the receipt noting to the customer that they had the flat fixed the previous year and 12 month warranty on a flat repair was probably excessive.

6.One of my personal favorites "but my shop back home in East Nowhere or West Somewhere fixes my bike for free" well unfortunately you're not at home and I still need to pay the person fixing your bike and unless your name is Eddy Merckx you'll need to pony up.

7."Why does that cost so much to do, you did it so quick, if I had all of the tools you have I could do it too" well tools and training cost money so you can buy the tools and the training and fix it yourself or you can pay us to do it. If you're nice and want to learn, buy the tools from us we'll show you how to do most repairs and then we've made you the best kind of customer, one that understands and can fix their own bike. Sort of like "give a man a fish feed him for a day" etc etc.

8.Come in on Thursday or Friday in season and start the conversation with "I need it for Saturday morning I've got a race". yeah great and how long ago did you sign up for the said race?

9. The one I hear frequently about my employees "that young man or woman, was very professional and very helpful." My employees are my store and when you're happy with the way you've been treated I'm ecstatic, I know then that I've trained them well and they're passing on my enthusiasm.