Vindicated

I love my bike. LOVE it. I saved up for it, was over the moon when I finally got it in April, have gone out of my way to baby it. But from the beginning, I've had trouble shifting her. Honestly, I thought it was just me not knowing how to deal with my first "real" bike, and that I would get used to it. But it never got any easier - in fact, it got harder and harder. So when I took it back to the bike shop for the initial tune-up in May, I mentioned the shifting problem.

They tuned it up, and when I asked if they fixed the shifting, the guy returning my bike said he didn't know what they'd done but he'd check it out for me. He took it for a (rather long, so I assumed thorough) test ride, and just like when your car won't make a bad noise for the mechanic, he came back saying it was shifting beautifully and all was well.

But it wasn't, and the very next day when I went for a ride it was giving me hell again. I literally couldn't use the bottom three gears (for most of the summer, actually). The chain just refused to engage them.

It might clarify things to interject that the original bike shop is a 60 mile, heavy traffic, 90-minute-on-a-good-day trip. So, as the story progresses and you're asking yourself 'why didn't this twit just take it back there?'... well, that's why.

So. In June a mechanically inclined friend adjusted things for me. It was better for a little while. (i.e. I could sometimes get into those gears, and it lasted just long enough to get through my first race)

I made it through the 2nd tri with it mostly working, but it was getting worse.

I went for what was supposed to be a 20-30 mile ride shortly after my 2nd tri, but had to cut it way short because the shifting was flat out not functional. Added to this was a new and disturbing angry chain noise mixed with periods of loose, chain-free spinning. I drove straight to my LBS.

The bike shop guy fiddled with it for 5 minutes, spouted some stuff about how whoever fixed it before hadn't done something right with some screw, and pronounced it fixed. It worked better for a little while. But I never did make it back to do another long ride because in the meantime I hurt my wrist, plus I wasn't too keen on another long-distance battle with my shifters. I was starting to think maybe I should upgrade them or something. To my horror, riding my beloved new bike had gone from something to which I looked forward to something I dreaded. I was also questioning my decision to blow four figures on a bike I was starting to believe I didn't know how to handle.

Today I took it back to the original bike shop to get my freebie winter tune-up. I made the trip largely because there's a running store two blocks down I was keen to visit (more on this equipment snafu in my next post). When I went to pick it up, the guy tells me they're keeping my bike because the shifter is defective and they have to send it back to the factory.

They couldn't figure that out 6 months ago?!?!?!

He said something along the lines of I should have noticed it was defective, and I told him that it had given me a lot of trouble and I'd had it worked on several times. I asked him how a first-time owner was supposed to recognize a defective part when the mechanics hadn't. He then had the nerve to ask me why I hadn't brought it to them... if he'd looked at the service record on the counter in front of him he'd have seen that I DID.

I'm glad that it's not just me, and that the darn thing is finally getting fixed. I'm just irritated I spent the better part of this year thinking I was an idiot who couldn't figure out how to shift my own damn bike.

BUT... I did find a silver lining in this frustrating little mess.

Even with all the technical problems, I was beyond happy with how much my cycling improved this year. I can't wait to see how much my bike splits improve next year, when my gears actually work!