shinook

@Portland-maine: I know a lot of really awesome bike shop employees, including those at the shop pictured above, so I'm not making a blanket statement. I have had some extremely negative interactions at a lot of different shops, though. People think this way and are frustrated about it for a reason. It doesn't mean they all act that way, but it's clearly not an isolated issue

Tip 6 - Don't assume the employees know everything and are right about everything, but don't argue with them about it because they have massive egos I've heard so much absolute horse shit peddled by bike shop employees it is astounding. My favorite was in Georgia, the shop employee was telling someone their fork being sucked down (overpressurized negative) into 20% of the travel was for "top out protection". Yea dude, I don't think a fork is supposed to sit at 20% travel with no weight on the bike at all.

Don't worry, they'll still get to talk about how Specialized makes the best bikes in the world even though they have never ridden anything else in the last 15 years.

Specialized in particular has been protecting themselves against this by buying up bike shops all around the US. A lot of bike shops in the US that were once locally owned are now owned by Specialized, there are at least 3 in my area that are now Specialized owned shops, whether branded that way or not. Call it what you will ethically, it's a smart business decision, even if I hate it. Trek is doing the same thing. My feeling is that this is less "we overhired" and more "we brought on too many employees via acquisition and now need to let some go". As for bad decision making, you aren't wrong though, smaller brands in particular seemed to think this whole thing was going to continue and started expanding/growing/hiring expecting that. Dumb business decision and it'll probably cost them in the long run esp with their brands being pushed out by Trek and Specialized buying shops.

This is a symptom of a bad coach, not that coaching is bad all around. There are a lot of awful mountain bike coaches and there are a few really good ones. They don't have to be a pro rider to be an excellent coach, but they do need to be a great teacher. The problem is a lot of people think that just because they can ride, they can coach, which is very very wrong. You need riding skills AND teaching skills, which is a rare combination. So don't write off coaching because you had one that sucked. There are a lot of bad ones, but good ones are worth it.