[baj32161]

^^^+1 I am fairly particular about my bike, but someone touching it does not bother me. Now if they try to lift it and run with it, that is different. But since I never leave it out of arm's reach, that is not likely to happen. I do not loan my bike out to anyone because I do not want to have to confront anyone should anything happen. None of my friends ride anyway so this is no issue.

Cheers,

Brian J.

 

[baj32161]

I am failry particular about my bike, but someone looking closely at it or even touching it does not bother me. I usually find that they have lots of questions about it. My bike is no high end rocket but since so few people know about bikes or cycling, they tend to be impressed by it. I am a sociable guy so I will never have a problem with that. If someone was to try and walk off with it, I WOULD have a problem with that but, I never leave my bike out of arm's reach so that is not very likely.

Cheers,

Brian J.

 

[SUX VR40 Rider]

I am very touchy about others doing anything with my bike, except a select few. I do not like just anyone touching or messing with my bike. The guys at the bikes shop are among the select few, when it is in the shop for service. My wife is not even allowed to touch it unless I ask her for help with something where she needs to hold it when I am doing some sort of maintenance with it.

One day a week and a half ago I met my wife for lunch. I was on the bike and she had the Jeep. I leaned the bike, out of the way, up against the building, near where she parked the Jeep. We ordered and sat outside at a picnic table to eat. I could easily see the bike from where we were sitting. I look over at it and see a couple of people looking at it. Usually this is not a big deal, happens all the time. The problem was they were stepping closer to it, too close for my liking. I sat there and just stared and glared at them and was ready to jump up if they had touched my bike. One of them even looked around to see how might own it and saw me glaring at them. He said something to his friend, pointed in my direction and they walked away into the restaurant.

Am I probably too touchy about my bike? Admittedly, yes. But my bike is dialed in perfectly for me. I know every little nuance and setting. I know what the bike will do if/when I do this or that when riding. I know how the bike feels and responds and essentially am tuned in the bike's "personality" if you will.

The bike shop guys, aside from tuning it up don't make any unnecessary changes and know how to keep my bike dialed in and the brake and gear/shifter settings just the way I like them. When someone else, who does not have permission starts touching and messing with my bike I tend to get really upset about it.

Anyone else feel this way about their bike?

 

[SprocketGirl]

i learned a lot about cycling maintenance when i was young from a shop owner in the small town i grew up in. i have a full set of maintenance tools and the other day a local shop actually called me to see if i had a tool they did not. granted it was a Campy specific tool and not a lot of call for it in our local area. i did have it by the way. why invest all this time and money into training and bike tools.... simple so NO ONE ever touches my bike. i have two now three that are off limits to any paws besides my own. my Look track bike, My Wilier road bike which i built up and has never been ridden or worked o by anyone besides myself, and now the Vassago. my commuter and the others i have had like mtbs and such i don't care ride them wrench on them whatever.

 

[DirtyBobbysBikes]

I am the local LBS mechanic, so I build and maintain all my bikes. I generally dont let other people ride them either unless i know them and there bike is of equal or greater value to mine. That way they understand not to eff up my bike.

 

[Industry_Hack]

Meh, it's just a bicycle. The only time I ever had an issue was when some guy felt the need to put his dirty hands on my custom titanium brake rotors.

 

[SG78]

I really don't care if someone touches it. As long as they don't take off with it, it's all good.

 

[baj32161]

I am failry particular about my bike, but someone looking closely at it or even touching it does not bother me. I usually find that they have lots of questions about it. My bike is no high end rocket but since so few people know about bikes or cycling, they tend to be impressed by it. I am a sociable guy so I will never have a problem with that. If someone was to try and walk off with it, I WOULD have a problem with that but, I never leave my bike out of arm's reach so that is not very likely.

Cheers,

Brian J.

 

[photosbymark]

Guess I am really not that particular. If someone riding my bike gets them involved in cycling, I guess that is the pay forward I owe. Now the value of my bikes are nothing compared to what many here have, so that probably plays a part. If it got ripped off I would be mad, but not because of the lost money. Id be ticked because someone stole it. Yet till my engine is lighter, well I am a big enough Fred or Fog as it is. I would still be just as much of a Fred on a 10,000 bike and I'd be just as slow. When my engine is in better shape, maybe I'll get a better bike.

The million dollar question is, "If Sprocket Girl had to let you use either her bike or her fly rod, which would she give up??" Hmmm

 

[SUX VR40 Rider]

I think I need to be more specific with the definition of touching my bike.

First while it is inappropriate for someone to touch something that does belong to them it is even more so if it goes beyond just simple touching. What I have a huge problem with is if/when someone shifts the gears, squeezes teh brake levers, rotates the cranks, pivots the handle bars forward, lifts a wheel off the ground to spin the tire, or just simply grab the bike to roll it for some reason. I have an even larger problem if someone tries to get on the bike to sit on it, especially when they do not know how. And yes I have witnessed people trying to do all of the above without permission and they were not bike shop employees nor was the bike in the shop for any reason.

 

[DirtyBobbysBikes]

I had to stop leaving my bikes out front at work for that very reason. I hide them in the back where no one will see them now. To many people will walk up and grab it and act real careless. I know some people don't care about the things they work hard to get, but I definitely do care about my stuff.

 

[SUX VR40 Rider]

There was also one instance where someone moved my bike as a practical joke where I worked. I had no idea who and when I asked management they had no clue about it and didn't seem to care. Rather then accept their attitude about it I called the police and reported it stolen. The look on managments faces was priceless when the officer showed up on company property to take the report. It was then that managment decided to make themselves part of the conversation and tried to talk me out of it. I wouldn't budge and filed the report. I advised the officer when the person who took it is discovered, regardless of why, I fully intend on having that person prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Managment was not happy about this at all. Needless to say within an hour of filing the report my bike was parked in the spot where it was originally, unharmed, with a note attached that said "I'm sorry. It was meant as a joke."

I never did find out who did it. After that a company wide email was sent out stating a new policy that people are not to do this to one another and if it does happen again the "victim" is not to call the police as I did, but management will handle it instead. This pissed me off even more because I gave managment a chance to deal with it first and they blew me off. When I brought this to the attention of the site director, which is who I went to in the first place he apologized and admitted he should have taken it more seriously.

This was not why I left the company. I left a couple of years later, on my own for other reasons.

 

[Nigal]

Yeah, now THAT would have pissed me off.

I'm not too particular myself. As long as the paint doesn't get scratched. I'm even putting together a junk mtb so that way I can get friends to go MTBing with me. They can take my ride and I'll ride the junker.

 

[Industry_Hack]

Wow, talk about overreacting.

When my Cannondale was new, it cost my brother about $3k to build, I think. And I was happy to loan it to one of the girls in my MTB club when we went on group rides. It's still just a bicycle.

 

[j3rd]

To me a bike is a little more than an inanimate object. I discovered one day that it becomes an extension of my body when I thought about what tires I was "wearing" that day. I had to sell my mountain bike due to a shattered wrist and find a home for my cat because of my job. I miss both of them in the same way but definitely miss the cat a lot more.

 

[SprocketGirl]

The million dollar question is, "If Sprocket Girl had to let you use either her bike or her fly rod, which would she give up??" Hmmm

to clarify... i don't like people working on my bike. i am picky about how everything is torqued an set-up. i don't want to be rude but people who work in bike shops do not always know what they are doing, others of course do.
i would let an experienced rider in my weight class ride my bike, assuming i knew and trusted them. my mtb's regardless of price spin them, hey i just gave them all away so obviously they are just bikes. having said all this.... i don't go around touching peoples wives or kids so it is not too much to ask people to keep there hands off my bike.

i have fly rods i let people use all the time but i also have a Paul Young hand made rod that is honestly irreplaceable. if someone without permission touched it i would be less than pleased and handling "Rodney A. Fly-Rod" aka "Midge" would be like walking up and grabbing my butt. you would have to be a pretty special individual to not get kicked in the personals.

 

[Industry_Hack]

Note to self: Do not touch SG's fly rod or butt.

 

[SprocketGirl]

you may be one of the people who can touch either... the key is respect and to ask before one fondles things.

 

[photosbymark]

Sprocket Girl you probably are more qualified than 95% of the bike mechanics in the country. Of course you want your bike right, and have the skill and fitness for fine adjustments to be important. I am way to slow and way too much of a Fred for those to matter.

It also appears from the tone that what was meant as a little good natured teasing struck a nerve that was not intended and for that I apologize.

 

[SprocketGirl]

no not at all Mark... honestly!
i was just being blunt to explain. the whole translation issue. it is not touchy subject at all actually. i showed a neighbor girl who is in 7th grade however old that makes her how a bike shifts and why. with my bike on the stand i had her run through the gears and feel how it works because she asked why my bike had gears. if she had jut walked up and started touching i would have not been nice at all.
don't apologize though it was actually a great question. besides one i would trade every bike i own for the fly-rod... while just some bamboo and twine i have countless memories with the first rod i ever owned. my dad gave it to me because it was little as was i when i received it. my great grandfather on dads side is Paul Anthony Young, eldest child of the man who made the fly-rod i use in the summer of 1936. so, it is the slightly more than a fly-rod. besides it reminds me that at a very youthful age my father trusted me with an irreplaceable fly-rod that was made by his great grandfather for his grandfather then given to his father... and then someday made its way to france where while guiding he would meet my mother fall in love and so there i am partially alive because of the passion for fly-fishing passed along by an inspirational man.