"B" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news😄aK4e.906995$Xk.567734@pd7tw3no...
Quoted message said:I am researching an article for a bike magazine.
Wondering what the most common repairs are for a bike shop and if any are
out there mobile bike service?Maybe you can give the top 10 services you guys provide, the tops for
difficulty and also exactly what you cover in atune up.thanks
Brian
To get back to the topic, you might be interested in the survey going on in
the Phred list at the moment. It is a list of the top 10 mechanical
problems reported while on tour. The link to the archives is
http://search.bikelist.org/query.asp?SearchString=&FMMod=-1w&FMModDate=&SortBy=MsgDate%5Ba%5D&Scope=touring&pg=2
but if this doesn't work, here is the body of the message from Jamie Noble,
entitled Poll - Partial results - Broken gear during a bicycle tour
Here are the current results with 106 responses sorted by highest to
lowest percentage of respondents reporting the problem. The numbers in
brackets represent the percentage of respondents who reported having
that particular kind of problem. I have removed any "Not Applicable"
answers from the results shown here.
Flat tires (90.6)
Broken spoke (54.7)
Shifters (32.1)
Lights (30.4)
Panniers/Handlebar Bags (30.3)
Derailleurs (26.6)
Fenders (25.0)
Blown tire (24.5)
Cables (22.6)
Rear view mirrors (20.8)
Racks (19.8)
Broken chain (17.0)
Water bottles (17.0)
Pedals (16.0)
Brakes (12.3)
Trailers (10.7)
Saddle (6.6)
Frame (1.9)
Handlebars (0.0)
It becomes even more interesting when you start to look at the actual
repair gear that people take on tour.
Even though 90.6% percent of respondents have experienced a flat tire
99.1 percent carry a spare tube, and 97.2% also carry patch kits and
tire levers.
Spare spokes are only carried by 51.9% and Fiberspokes are carried by
26.4%. This is one case where I wish I had worded the questions
differently to make determing this next bit less time intensive. By
reviewing the individual replies I was able to determine that 86% of
those carrying spare spokes also carried Fiberspokes with them. 38.6% of
respondents carry the tools needed to remove a rear cassette or
freewheel with them as well.
Broken spokes are the second most common problem that occurs during a
bicycle tour and yet based on the results in the last paragraph you
could almost say that the people carrying repair gear for spoke problems
are generally also those who have experienced first hand the problem!
BTW: Another four responses have come in since creating this partial
summary. The poll will continue to run for quite some time so if you
would like to add your answers then please feel free to do so!
~Jamie N
www.bicycletouring101.com