What’s More Important: The Bike or The Rider?
Different customer profiles are an endless source of entertainment here at TLS. We thrive on being able to identify different rider priorities and apply those findings to the work we do on their bikes. We could have any number of road bikes booked in, belonging to different riders who all ride the same roads in and around Perth…and their preferences, needs, wants and concerns can all be TOTALLY different. This is one of the major reasons we abandoned fixed price service options so long ago – the ‘one size fits all’ approach to servicing bicycles does not work in this context.
Consider these examples:
Rider #1 is tall, fit and flexible but a shoulder injury from 15 years ago means he can’t ride a slammed setup. He’s been fitted to a 440mm wide bar mounted to an 80mm stem. He’s running 45mm of spacers under the stem and although he doesn’t like the look of spacers, he hates the look of an inverted (upward angled) stem even more. He’s worried that his position slows him down but he’s got monster legs and rides group 2 without issue.
Rider #2 is new to the sport, having taken up cycling as a low impact alternative to running. She’s not super keen on fast, flat bunch rides but will happily spend 6 hours in the hills on a Sunday morning. Disc brakes are a new concept for her and she’s terrified of the front brake while descending but is gaining confidence month by month. She’s comfortable enough on the bike as is, but ‘doesn’t know any better’ and is eager to try different parts and setups if there’s a perceived benefit.
Rider #3 has been riding bikes since before you were born and absolutely refuses to buy a modern disc brake/di2 bike. He’s somehow been retired for even longer than he’s been riding and he has unlimited free time to tinker with his fleet of rim brake/ cable shift 10 speed bikes, make them slightly worse than they used to be but still able to smash guys half his age. Spending money on servicing something ‘he can do himself’ is a cardinal sin but the rest of the group is sick of hearing his bike make awful noises.
Rider #4 is a busy man. The bike is a tool to be used for fitness, often while commuting. He has no mechanical sympathy and is very hard on his equipment – why would he care about pieces of metal and rubber? Downtime due to mechanical failure is unacceptable, all maintenance is proactive and pre-emptive. The cost of this maintenance schedule is trivial, relative to the value of him being able to stick to his schedule.
I could go on, but you get the idea. 4 examples of 4 riders with WILDLY different needs, wants and concerns. This is where we as mechanics have endless opportunities to really try to listen to and understand our riders, and deliver outcomes based on what we’ve discovered.
Rider #1 might be interested in a faster set of wheels or perhaps a complete front to back bearing upgrade for every rotating part to help offset his concerns about his upright position.
We might set up rider #2’s front brake in such a way that she has plenty of safe stopping power but can’t lock the front wheel.
We would listen patiently to rider #3 telling us all about how he took his Campagnolo hubs apart and lost half the bearings but replaced them with bearings from a fishing rod he found at the tip shop.
We carry almost an entire set of spare parts, consumables and tyres for rider #4, some are kept at his work and some are kept at his house. We do the work we deem necessary to keep the bike in as-new condition, and send him an email afterwards telling him what we did and when we’ll be back.
It took me a number of years to come to terms with the idea that the rider is as important as the bike. Playing to a customers strengths, weaknesses, schedule, budget, psychology and personality is just as important as doing high quality mechanical work. It’s important for us to strike a balance between our mechanical work and our relationships with customers, and it’s something that is constantly being fine tuned.
We enjoy it, and we hope you guys do too