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7 Month old bike needs £300 worth of parts and labour

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  • March 17, 2017 at 12:52 am #26896
    Leviathan

    I have a Ribble Sportive Racer purchased in July last year and done 6250kms. In recent months the bottom bracket has become rather crunchy. I looked at replacing it and am familiar with replacing Hollowtech BBs and have the tools, however this one is Pressfit. I neither have the tools or knowledge to replace it. I am rather disappointed with the quality of this design; though to be honest BB type was not an issue in my decision to buy. So I’ve taken it into a well know high street chain of bike shops for a service.

    The service quote is £298.91 when the bike itself cost about £1100 just last summer. Apparently I need a new cassette (maybe fair, third chain) need a brake caliper (as the rear one is a little stiff from a muddy winter, I often put tape over the gaps as I’ve had issues like this before, but this happens every winter) need new headset bearings because there is about half a mm of play in the fork, apparently tightening this one up is not possible,) need new brake pads (though I have more at home and put new ones on a month ago,) need new bar tape (though I don’t really give an eff about a few frayed tape ends) and need new cabling (though again the bike is only a few months old.)

    I feel like they are taking me for a ride, they sent me a nebulus list of item codes which I had to look up on the website. I am sure the bike will be smashing if I pay for all this, but apart from the BB and cassette most of these things are just natural wear that will recur in a couple of months and would never cause an issue. The cabling is particularly egregious; it can’t be stretched by now; it is like they can’t index the gears incase they jab their little fingers. Just crimp it, the little bobbin they stick on the end will drop off after a week guaranteed.

    I feel annoyed that I will have to stand there telling them why I think they are wrong or I don’t need this or that, whilst they stand their sucking their teeth imply that if I don’t get everything done that my bike will explode. I came in asking for a bottom bracket and service, just greasing and tightening and realigning a few things shouldn’t require half a rebuild. If I have to pay this kind of money every six months I could just buy a mountain bike in Halfords and throw it away.

    Thoughts gentlemen and dottigirls? Does this sound reasonable?

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  • March 17, 2017 at 7:52 pm #889183
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    Leviathan

    I’ve just watched a great GCN

    I’ve just watched a great GCN vid on the Yut’oob and although it does seem easy enough to change a Pressfit, however he does talk about the dangers of bodging it and frankly at £179.99 for a Park bearing press let along the removal tools I don’t see how it is economic unless I am changing the BB multiple times in the future and especially not as a panic buy. I might as well have just let them do what they wanted. I will just have to have a deep clean and fettle myself in the spring sunshine and then take it to a more Local shop and just say ‘Can you replace my BB, kind Sir?’

     

    unconstituted  try http://gearmechhanger.com/ for cheap and specific replacement hangers. One of my previous poor experiences with a LBS was when I broke a hanger when my bike fell on some the road after being propped against a fence. It took three weeks ‘waiting on parts’ and when it arrived he had to bodge it togetherby filing it and attaching by one screw. That was when I discovered the website above and got the right part in a couple of days. 

    March 17, 2017 at 7:46 pm #889181
    0
    davel

    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

    unconstituted wrote:
    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
    A good point raised above… what is your hourly rate? What do you get paid, and what do you value your free time on an hourly basis.

    It was a solicitor that told me that… its not so much the value of the service you are paying for, but the value of the time you would be giving up to do the work yourself. 

    That said, I like doing my own mechanics… plus I have massive trust issues… so if something was to go wrong on the bike, I want to know it was my fault. 

     

    Lets just get something straight before I launch a rant on this nonsense. It takes longer to take a bike to an LBS and collect it than it every will to fix any issue on your bike. 

    So, about your ‘good point raised above’ – it’s only a good point if you literally have no free time that you would spend lounging around, doing anything less useful than learning and doing mechanics. This is slacker wisdom.

    These shitty ‘common sense’ false dichotomies are a repetitive strain on the soul of every rational person that has to listen to them.

    I don’t wake up on Sat morning and think, “oh, will I go for a ride today or fix a bottom bracket”. No, I spend ten bloody minutes on Thursday evening fixing it, because that’s the upper limit of how long it actually takes to remove and replace a press-fit bottom bracket once you know how. 

    Fire Youtube up on your lunch hour and watch a handfull of videos – they all show the same thing, some guy hitting the bottom bracket. Tools used varies. 

    Apply the same to every single thing you can do on a bike. And do them one at a time, as they come up, so you don’t have to spend a whole weekend fixing your bike and ‘unable to ride’.  

    Leviathon is right to canvass opinions on this, but it’s wrong to tell him not to learn how to fix his stuff, when 1. It’ll save him money, and 2. it’s a simple almost foolproof job (even though it does in honesty appear daunting until you’ve actually done it once).

     

     

     

     

    Alright treacle, didn’t mean to stick a bee in your bonnet….

    Don’t think i said not to olearn to do it yourself… just to value other peoples time when you oay them to do it for you. 

    But… lets be honest, watching the video on youtube is probably going to take ten minutes. 

    Buying the tools will be an hour… probably, or again 10-20 mins if buying on line (plus wait for delivery)

    Buying the parts will be 10-20mins on line

    Then, changing bottom bracket bearing in 10mins is cracking on… cracking on to the point of not getting the job done properly. I wouldn’t remove my cranks without taking the opportunity to clean and re-grease bolts/mating surfaces etc. 

    I’m being pedantic because you are being overly trivial about mechanis.

    For a competent mechanic all jobs on a bike are striaght forward; not everyone is a competent mechanic however. 

    Plus it’s really hard to figure out the value of your time.

    My hourly rate is such that it would be a no-brainer for me to take it to a mechanic. But I’m not comparing the time that I sell via full-time employment with that of a mechanic. We’re comparing my free time. On the market, that has far less value unless I can get a Saturday or evening job consulting. I wouldn’t do that, so my free time hourly rate probably holds less market value – but it’s much more valuable to me than my Mon-Fri 9-5.

    This is a judgement on each individual’s part. To me, bike mechanics would probably have to increase their rates by a factor of 5 or 6 for me to consider the inconvenience of the kind of DIY we’re talking about, above spending time with my family or riding my bikes, say.

    How much I can afford to spend on servicing, and how much I can justify when compared to other methods of commuting, obviously plays a part in that. But there’ll be people who can afford to spend more money on servicing their workhorses than I can who happily fettle as their hobby and/or because they’re far more competent and efficient in the workshop, and place reasonable value on that pursuit.

    I’m happy with basic maintenance and the odd occasional straightforward job, time permitting, but I’ve got two bikes (commuters/off-roaders) that I batter and they need way more tlc than I’m going to give them. The consequence of that is that the jobs stack up and I have to (pay someone to) regularly take care of them.

    tl;dr – I can’t be arsed to maintain my beater bikes properly, and there are really good mechanics who’ll collect and drop off your bike.

    March 17, 2017 at 7:29 pm #889179
    0
    tritecommentbot

    Jimmy Ray Will]

    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
     

    Buying the parts will be 10-20mins on line

    Then, changing bottom bracket bearing in 10mins is cracking on… cracking on to the point of not getting the job done properly. I wouldn’t remove my cranks without taking the opportunity to clean and re-grease bolts/mating surfaces etc. 

     

     

    20 minutes.

    To Google and checkout a bottom bracket.

    I’m not even going to ask how long it takes you to clean and grease a few bolts crying

    Anyway, he doesn’t seem keen on trying it out, so whatever.  Anyway, we all have demons to face. Mine is the RD hanger alignment. Been putting off buying a tool and learning that myself. Its day will come.

     

     

    March 17, 2017 at 7:25 pm #889177
    0
    SingleSpeed
    Leviathan wrote:
    (sorry Peter, ‘little maintenance’ is wrong, this all started because I tried to grease my BB myself and realized what a poor design it was,)

     

    You can’t ‘grease a Bottom Bracket’ by the way…I don’t know whow you were planning on doing this but it doesn’t put you in good stead for making judgement on the design 🙂

     

    ps (yes I have a some CK BB’s and yes I do have the grease tool and yes it’s proper tool porn)

     

    March 17, 2017 at 7:23 pm #889175
    0
    ktache

    Leviathan, when you do change

    Leviathan, when you do change the cables, fit cable oilers if possible, it does add to the hastle but means that cables last so much longer with better shifting and/or braking.

    March 17, 2017 at 7:14 pm #889173
    0
    Leviathan

    I am just blown away by how

    I am just blown away by how many replies there have been on this one. This sort of thing has obviously vexed some of you before.

    I have over the years replaced everything on my old Jamis frame which I had for 6 years including the Hollowtech BB. However The Ribble pressfit BB had me stumped and time is money as one of you pointed out. I am moving flat in about three week and the weather is changing so I hoped to get the BB sorted quickly, fat chance now. 

    I do ride my No. 1 in the winter because I am riding at all times of the year. I don’t just commute, I do take ‘the long way’ home and ride at the weekends too. I am rarely smashing centuries but normal get a 40/50/60 in once a week at all times of the year. I do clean and maintain my bike (sorry Peter, ‘little maintenance’ is wrong, this all started because I tried to grease my BB myself and realized what a poor design it was,) but no one who has to work can clean their bike after every ride. I am not after boxfresh condition, but the BB at the moment is just not fun to ride with the noise and feedback.

    At the end they have a point about most of these items, however most of them I can deal with myself at some point in the next six month. But the cables are not rusted, they are mostly internal and there is one missing cap on the rear derailleur; after 7 months I don’t believe they need replacing for one second. As suggested by someone else on here, “three chains per cassette” and has another couple of thousand K in it, that is three months I would have had to get a new one and fit it myself. They don’t need doing, simple as that. What Henry* said about 10mm on the headset was just a lie, and I don’t appreciate being lied to. He actually made it looser fiddling around with it, I’ve tightend that up myself this afternoon.

    Unfortunately I have to keep getting to work 5/7 days and other things, time/money/mental effort is an ongoing juggling act. I’ve been trying to do more every year, but it’s not easy if you don’t have infinitely deep pockets, I though I could get some professional help this time but Evans just priced themselves out of the market with their take it or leave it attitude. I can and do spend a lot of money on my bike, but it gets spread out.

    The main things that have annoyed me is the waste of my time and having to buy tram tickets to get into town for a few days, and the exaggeration of risk.

    *Good name for a hoover not a bike mechanic.

    March 17, 2017 at 6:17 pm #889171
    0
    Bob Wheeler CX

    “Enjoy the ride”

    “Enjoy the ride”

    March 17, 2017 at 5:22 pm #889169
    0
    Jimmy Ray Will
    unconstituted wrote:
    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
    A good point raised above… what is your hourly rate? What do you get paid, and what do you value your free time on an hourly basis.

    It was a solicitor that told me that… its not so much the value of the service you are paying for, but the value of the time you would be giving up to do the work yourself. 

    That said, I like doing my own mechanics… plus I have massive trust issues… so if something was to go wrong on the bike, I want to know it was my fault. 

     

    Lets just get something straight before I launch a rant on this nonsense. It takes longer to take a bike to an LBS and collect it than it every will to fix any issue on your bike. 

    So, about your ‘good point raised above’ – it’s only a good point if you literally have no free time that you would spend lounging around, doing anything less useful than learning and doing mechanics. This is slacker wisdom.

    These shitty ‘common sense’ false dichotomies are a repetitive strain on the soul of every rational person that has to listen to them.

    I don’t wake up on Sat morning and think, “oh, will I go for a ride today or fix a bottom bracket”. No, I spend ten bloody minutes on Thursday evening fixing it, because that’s the upper limit of how long it actually takes to remove and replace a press-fit bottom bracket once you know how. 

    Fire Youtube up on your lunch hour and watch a handfull of videos – they all show the same thing, some guy hitting the bottom bracket. Tools used varies. 

    Apply the same to every single thing you can do on a bike. And do them one at a time, as they come up, so you don’t have to spend a whole weekend fixing your bike and ‘unable to ride’.  

    Leviathon is right to canvass opinions on this, but it’s wrong to tell him not to learn how to fix his stuff, when 1. It’ll save him money, and 2. it’s a simple almost foolproof job (even though it does in honesty appear daunting until you’ve actually done it once).

     

     

     

     

    Alright treacle, didn’t mean to stick a bee in your bonnet….

    Don’t think i said not to olearn to do it yourself… just to value other peoples time when you oay them to do it for you. 

    But… lets be honest, watching the video on youtube is probably going to take ten minutes. 

    Buying the tools will be an hour… probably, or again 10-20 mins if buying on line (plus wait for delivery)

    Buying the parts will be 10-20mins on line

    Then, changing bottom bracket bearing in 10mins is cracking on… cracking on to the point of not getting the job done properly. I wouldn’t remove my cranks without taking the opportunity to clean and re-grease bolts/mating surfaces etc. 

    I’m being pedantic because you are being overly trivial about mechanis.

    For a competent mechanic all jobs on a bike are striaght forward; not everyone is a competent mechanic however. 

    March 17, 2017 at 5:13 pm #889167
    0
    Swiss

    Best bike maintenance piece i
    Best bike maintenance piece i have read “Fire Youtube up on your lunch hour and watch a handfull of videos – they all show the same thing, some guy hitting the bottom bracket. Tools used varies.

    Apply the same to every single thing you can do on a bike. And do them one at a time, as they come up, so you don’t have to spend a whole weekend fixing your bike and ‘unable to ride’. ”
    Ha ha bravo unconsituted!

    March 17, 2017 at 5:07 pm #889165
    0
    Swiss

    I bought a carrera subway for
    I bought a carrera subway for 200 in a Halfords sale in July last year and used it every day as a commuter for the station and for riding with the kids on local trails. It’s been washed with a bucket &sponge and it’s chain oiled with Mobil 1 once a month.
    It’s been as white goods as a bicycle can be in that everything works fine enough and gets little/no attention.
    Maybe you were on to something at the end of your original post in getting a disposable bike.

    March 17, 2017 at 4:44 pm #889163
    0
    beezus fufoon
    unconstituted wrote:
    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
    A good point raised above… what is your hourly rate? What do you get paid, and what do you value your free time on an hourly basis.

    It was a solicitor that told me that… its not so much the value of the service you are paying for, but the value of the time you would be giving up to do the work yourself. 

    That said, I like doing my own mechanics… plus I have massive trust issues… so if something was to go wrong on the bike, I want to know it was my fault. 

     

    Lets just get something straight before I launch a rant on this nonsense. It takes longer to take a bike to an LBS and collect it than it every will to fix any issue on your bike. 

    So, about your ‘good point raised above’ – it’s only a good point if you literally have no free time that you would spend lounging around, doing anything less useful than learning and doing mechanics. This is slacker wisdom.

    These shitty ‘common sense’ false dichotomies are a repetitive strain on the soul of every rational person that has to listen to them.

    I don’t wake up on Sat morning and think, “oh, will I go for a ride today or fix a bottom bracket”. No, I spend ten bloody minutes on Thursday evening fixing it, because that’s the upper limit of how long it actually takes to remove and replace a press-fit bottom bracket once you know how. 

    Fire Youtube up on your lunch hour and watch a handfull of videos – they all show the same thing, some guy hitting the bottom bracket. Tools used varies. 

    Apply the same to every single thing you can do on a bike. And do them one at a time, as they come up, so you don’t have to spend a whole weekend fixing your bike and ‘unable to ride’.  

    Leviathon is right to canvass opinions on this, but it’s wrong to tell him not to learn how to fix his stuff, when 1. It’ll save him money, and 2. it’s a simple almost foolproof job (even though it does in honesty appear daunting until you’ve actually done it once).

     

    not to mention, if you take it to halfords or evans, you will quite possibly end up having to spend some time fixing it yourself anyway!

    March 17, 2017 at 4:36 pm #889161
    0
    Carton

    The bottom bracket, headset

    The bottom bracket, headset and caliper all at the same time seems excessive. But it sounds like you are not very thorough with your everyday maintenance (neither am I, TBH) and go out even in crap weather (that’s where I draw the line) so it could happen, I guess. Everything else seems fairly standard.

    But yeah, I hate that duty of care all or nothing spiel. I’d find someone else if it’s not too inconvinient. Also, the worth your time bit is particularly important. I don’t do anything myself unless either I feel like fiddling around or it’s dead simple (though things become a lot simpler over time after several bouts of fiddling around).

    March 17, 2017 at 4:30 pm #889159
    0
    tritecommentbot
    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
    A good point raised above… what is your hourly rate? What do you get paid, and what do you value your free time on an hourly basis.

    It was a solicitor that told me that… its not so much the value of the service you are paying for, but the value of the time you would be giving up to do the work yourself. 

    That said, I like doing my own mechanics… plus I have massive trust issues… so if something was to go wrong on the bike, I want to know it was my fault. 

     

    Lets just get something straight before I launch a rant on this nonsense. It takes longer to take a bike to an LBS and collect it than it every will to fix any issue on your bike. 

    So, about your ‘good point raised above’ – it’s only a good point if you literally have no free time that you would spend lounging around, doing anything less useful than learning and doing mechanics. This is slacker wisdom.

    These shitty ‘common sense’ false dichotomies are a repetitive strain on the soul of every rational person that has to listen to them.

    I don’t wake up on Sat morning and think, “oh, will I go for a ride today or fix a bottom bracket”. No, I spend ten bloody minutes on Thursday evening fixing it, because that’s the upper limit of how long it actually takes to remove and replace a press-fit bottom bracket once you know how. 

    Fire Youtube up on your lunch hour and watch a handfull of videos – they all show the same thing, some guy hitting the bottom bracket. Tools used varies. 

    Apply the same to every single thing you can do on a bike. And do them one at a time, as they come up, so you don’t have to spend a whole weekend fixing your bike and ‘unable to ride’.  

    Leviathon is right to canvass opinions on this, but it’s wrong to tell him not to learn how to fix his stuff, when 1. It’ll save him money, and 2. it’s a simple almost foolproof job (even though it does in honesty appear daunting until you’ve actually done it once).

     

     

     

    March 17, 2017 at 4:02 pm #889157
    0
    Jimmy Ray Will

    A good point raised above…

    A good point raised above… what is your hourly rate? What do you get paid, and what do you value your free time on an hourly basis.

    It was a solicitor that told me that… its not so much the value of the service you are paying for, but the value of the time you would be giving up to do the work yourself. 

    That said, I like doing my own mechanics… plus I have massive trust issues… so if something was to go wrong on the bike, I want to know it was my fault. 

    March 17, 2017 at 4:00 pm #889155
    0
    Simon E

    Worn brake pads and gunked up

    Worn brake pads and gunked up cables do happen (most often the loop from the chainstay to the rear derailleur) though this seems a bit premature. Riding year-round on wet or salty roads is a killer. Despite knowing this I still don’t maintain my bike enough in winter and and later curse myself for neglecting it. If you don’t use mudguards you’re giving it three times the abuse or more.

    “they couldn’t do x if y wasn’t done”

    Hmmmm….

    I would fit the cassette, cables and caliper yourself. Get a brew, put on the radio/ipod and fettle away, it’s very satisfying. Then get the BB and headset replaced at a LBS  you can trust.

    Fibrax (made in Wrexham) sell direct on ebay, their ID is cyclefanatics. You can get 10m of outers to cut yourself or a kit.

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