This morning, after several days of procrastinating, I got around to driving my injured bike a couple blocks to my neighborhood bike doctor, at the Wichita Falls Bike Stop bike shop.
My bike was injured on Sunday. Well, more accurately, on Sunday I realized my bike had a serious problem. I was having myself a mighty fine time rolling around the MSU campus, and then Sikes Lake, when I got a little too adventurous speeding up part of the Sikes Lake dam's spillway.
The bike behaved oddly as I zipped up the cement embankment. And then I soon found myself annoyed to be hearing an unnatural noise at every rotation of the rear wheel. I hobbled back to my abode where I discovered the bike's rear wheel had four broken spokes and a rather pronounced wobble.
It is likely the bike's spokes broke long ago, whilst mountain biking, with some combination of factors causing Sunday's additional wheel bending.
This morning, when I took the injured wheel to the bike doctor, the initial prognosis was not good. The damage was severe. It looked like there had been more than one serious impact to the wheel. The hub had additional issues. Til he got the wheel into surgery the bike doctor would not know if it could be saved, or if it would need to be totally replaced.
Two hours later the bike doctor called with the good news that he was able to save the wheel, that it was back being true as it spun around.
I was pleased and quickly traveled the couple blocks to get the wheel out of the hospital and back reunited with its tube and tire and bike frame.
Over the years in Texas, til being in Wichita Falls, I have not had good experiences with bike shops.
I also recollect not liking the bike shop in Mount Vernon, I think it was called Skagit Valley Sports. But I don't remember why I did not like that place. I do remember liking the bike shop where I bought my long lasting Schwinn Moab mountain bike, in Bellingham. I think the place was called Fairhaven Bikes.
I do remember why I developed an aversion to D/FW's Bicycle, Inc., what with multiple incompetence incidents and just real bad customer service, as in waiting so long to get waited on one felt like one was in the DMV trying to renew a driver's license.
One incident with Bicycles, Inc. also involved getting a wheel trued. I dropped the wheel off at Bicycle, Inc's Bedford store, which was quite an inconvenient distance from my abode. When it was finally my turn to verbalize my bike woe I was told I would need to leave the wheel and it would be ready in, if I remember right, five days.
Five days later I returned to Bicycles, Inc. The wheel had not been fixed. I was a bit offput and was told they'd fix it right then, to come back in an hour. And so I did. Got the wheel, got it home, re-installed the tube and tire and then began to suffer a series of flats, over and over again. Til I realized the Bicycles, Inc. bike mechanic had neglected to install the liner which protects the tube from the spoke nipples.
Today the Bike Stop bike mechanic made no such mistake. Instead he told me the old liner was so old it fell apart upon removal, and so he stuck on a new one.
Today was my second good experience with the Wichita Falls Bike Stop. In addition to their website the Bike Stop is also on Facebook.
If I decide I need to get a new bike I am just about 100% certain I know where I will be getting it...
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