Go to the dealership?
No. Not for any of the bikes in my garage.
First off, they don't want to deal with anything older than 5 years. And even if I do bring in a wheel from one of the newer bikes - who winds up changing the tire?
The new guy who just graduated from MMI.
He's all set to live the dream of working on the machines that he loves. He's going to spend all his time riding motorcycles and getting all the chicks because he's a motorcycle mechanic!
And then he shows up for his first day of work at the motorcycle shop and finds out that he'll be making the same amount of money that he would make at the McDonalds across the street. And that his first assignment involves a toilet brush. He's scheduled for 50 hours that week and no, he's not eligible for overtime because he's part of the "management team." First assistant deputy manager of toilet brush related activities. Soon he'll be promoted to mop operations engineer.
But then you come through the door with your wheel. You took it off yourself rather than pay the minimum half hour labor to get the wheel on and off the bike. Labor rate is $83 an hour. They didn't have your tire in stock, nobody stocks tires (or much of anything else) any more in these days of JIT overnight shipping. But you were smart and ordered the tire in advance.
The tire came out of the EXACT SAME WAREHOUSE that a tire ordered from Dennis Kirk comes from.
So the boss yells for Sparky (or Stinky or Weasel or Rooster or whatever godawful nickname they saddled the poor kid with) to drop the toilet brush and get over to the tire changing machine. He complies, posthaste. He vaguely remembers how to do this, they spent two hours on it at school one morning before coffee break. He even got to change a tire once. It was pretty easy. Of course that tire had been changed about 173 times before he got his hands on it so it stretched right over the rim, no problem.
The less said about the tire changing job the better. There’s a reason they make you wait in the “lounge” (Woooo! Free coffee!) while they work on your stuff. Let’s just point out that the job involved a sledgehammer and leave it at that.
The kid comes out and hands you your wheel. And your old tire. You have to take it away with you despite the fact that they charged you 8 bucks for “disposal.”
You get home and notice two things: your rim is now dented to hell and gone and the tire was mounted backwards.
All this assumes you’re getting a tubeless tire done. You don’t even want to know what happens if you bring in a wheel that needs a tube.
Our young man Gonzo? (Gonzo is a pretty good nickname.) If he’s got any real mechanical aptitude he won’t be working at the bike shop for long. Soon enough he’ll get a job where he can make a living. HVAC, cars, elevators, something like that. Maybe he’ll fix bikes on the side out of his garage but probably not.
There used to be a small shop here in Chicago that I did a lot of business with. I didn’t mind paying a little extra to support the place because of the wealth of knowledge that the proprietor possessed. When the economy tanked he gave up and closed the shop. He fixes fork lifts now.
When he went under a buddy of mine bought a No-Mar tire changing machine. He changes tires for $25. $20 each if you bring two wheels at the same time, includes balancing. He charges more if he has to get them on and off the bike for you.
I order my tires and tubes from whoever has the best price. Usually order a bunch of other parts at the same time. BikeBandit charges the same for shipping if you order 1 item or 50. I’m a big fan of the Dunlop GT501.
