Duncan Watson
One thing that is difficult about bikes is maintenance. Your average person has basically zero bike maintenance skills. Changing a tire is a learned skill that is often not as easy as we think. Changing an e-bike tire with a hub motor and a disk brake is ... trying. Over the last 20 years I have had issues with bike shops who didn't want to work on bikes they didn't sell me, bike shops who didn't want to work on the type of bike I had or bike shops who didn't want to work on a recumbent. Now eventually I found good shops who went out of their way to help. And I have had luck in small towns when I had issues in hardware stores and other places where I had an issue 70 miles from home.

But especially with e-bikes now I have a stable of bikes that I either don't have a shop for or need to go 15 miles out of my way for one.

#bikes #bikeseattle #biketooter #maintenance
Sep 1, 2023 at 9:47pmWeb
Show threadDuncan WatsonSep 1, 2023
This is triggered by an issue with an e-bike recumbent and I went to an e-bike shop that had previously done e-bike conversions for me. Since the pandemic they had moved and really changed. I got the brush-off.

It really infuriated me since in the past I chatted with the people there and they talked about how they work with lots of ebike by mail bikes and will work on anything. But in the end the Kirkland bike shop was where I went. They have been super reliable and I should have gone there first but I don't think of them and e-bikes normally.
Show threadireadalotSep 1, 2023
@DuncanWatson same. Some will work on the mechanical stuff, but not the electric. And sometimes they can't be bothered even to help with the mechanical problems I have installing the e-kit, because of liability issues I think.