Archived Bike building

[Ringwraith917]

For sure I'd miss having my headphones in all day. I got basically zero training, cause the guy who did it before me quit(maybe, I'm not sure) , and nobody really knew anything about it cause we had just switched to doing it in house. I could tell the last guy was bad, that's all I knew. I just had to be better than him. But there's the bike Builder's book, and bikes have very detailed manuals, so I learned it all from those.

 

[redeye58]

This just screams 'impending disaster'.
You're gonna have kids grabbing/playing with parts/tools/things they shouldn't be messing with & telling them anything other than what a special snowflake they are will bring parent rage raining down on you.
Suddenly you're the 'bike pro' as everyone will be coming up to ask you about xx style bike & how it compares to yy.
They'll expect you to drop what you're doing & come over to help them get bikes off the wall so they can ride them up & down the aisles.
They'll complain outlandishly about the bike they bought 'last week' in which the front wheel just fell off while they were innocently tootling down the block (instead of admitting they crushed it while cross-country ramp-smashing).
Then you'll get the know-it-all dicks deriding your work, quality of the bikes, etc.
They haven't printed the amount of money necessary for me to endure a public spectacle like that.

 

[Umichfan21]

Wow, it's no wonder there's a reputation about department store bikes. When people aren't trained mistakes are gonna be made. And most don't stick around long enough to become skilled. I had an ETL who just transferred stores ask me if I could come support help her new store because their bike situation is a mess. My ETL just laughed and said "good try". Give me overtime and I'd do it.

The biggest joke I've seen is the poster that says the LOD is suppose to sign off on each bike before it's put on the floor. Ha! As if they could tell if it was built right or not... Or had the time to even do that.

I don't mind the questions so much - I have a pretty strong knowledge of bikes and could definitely give good recommendations to guests. The safety issues are my biggest concern.

In addition to the inefficiencies due to space constrains and having to run back and forth to build each bike, guests from all the surrounding departments are going be asking questions unrelated to bikes. So more hours are going to need to be dedicated to bikes and my store is at the point where we don't even have enough people who know bikes to fill those hours. I'm literally carrying all of bikes on 1-2 shifts a week at this point.

I basically was Electronic's 2nd hand I was asked about golf balls grills & bike shorts (well that's semi bike related)

 

[tinkerbell333]

Wow, apparently the problem with common sense is its just not that common anymore!

I wish I could like this more than once! I tell people that this is a life lesson that I have learned (over & over & over & over.....) at Target.

 

[On6]

My STL put their foot down and said no to this idea. Our store is too busy for it to work. On a side note I'm pretty sure our bike builder would quit if he actually had to be on the floor and interact with people. He's worked at a bike shop most of his life and just builds bikes at Target on weekends for some extra money. He'll tell you he doesn't need the job.

Target likes to cut corners as much as possible to save a few dollars, but this is one of those things that shouldn't be done.

 

[Shadowski]

I've been building them for my own department for a while. There is one guy from logistics that does the trash who builds as well. Older guy, pretty knowledgeable. He taught me, and he gets specific bike shifts to build, but I supplement it and just build once a week for a few hours. Get maybe 10 bikes out plus what he gets done. He'll get 20 or so out per shift. We sell a LOT of bikes. Like... I think we lead our district. There's a ton of new long bike trails around our area. You can do easily find over 100 miles of trail riding if you can stand being on a bike that long, heh.

It's not too hard once you get it down, just takes common sense. Make sure things are tightened properly, not on backwards, make sure tires are over 50 psi, etc. Brakes are the only thing that's a little annoying to adjust, as almost every front brake is going to come messed up from he factory. But it just takes a bit of experience to get it done right.

The worst are those stupid orange kids Mongoose bikes with the little plates that squeeze together within the braking system. Giant pain in the ass to fix or adjust. They have two cables going to the brake. I mean.... why? Same with the little green and black Razor bikes. Terrible brakes. We don't build the things unless there's nothing else to do. It's a shitty product that's going to break and get a kid hurt. Hopefully the bad sales will reflect that and they'll pull them.... >.>

Building on the floor though? Good god no. Where the hell should we do it? I need the stand, a table for my tools, a place to put the boxes I'm tossing my trash in... it'll take too much space from a main aisle.

 

[Ringwraith917]

Lucky if we sell 4 bikes a week.

 

[Parker51]

I got the word from the STL this week (nice to hear about major changes here in advance so I don't get shocked or have a dumb look on my face). One additional twist for this new scheme not mentioned here is that the builder will wear a gray shirt like an SFT. I'm already "cycling ambassador" on and off work, so don't particularly mind an audience or guest interaction. It might give me more space and a better temperature controlled place to work.

 

[Shadowski]

they realize we use air compressers, right? That'll be fun for the entire store to hear. Some tires come in nearly flat. Would not be good to roll the bike to the back on flats

 

[SFSFun]

they realize we use air compressers, right? That'll be fun for the entire store to hear. Some tires come in nearly flat. Would not be good to roll the bike to the back on flats

I have one, but I've been told it's not very common, and most stores have a manual pump. I'm sure they'd want that to be used instead.

 

[Kompa]

I just took a pump off the floor. We only use it for flex orders because most guess will just pump up their tire with a random pump on the floor anyway

 

[pinkp2ie]

they realize we use air compressers, right? That'll be fun for the entire store to hear. Some tires come in nearly flat. Would not be good to roll the bike to the back on flats

Oh god, i remember i was pumping air into a bike and it sounded like a bomb lmao..

 

[redeye58]

Oh god, i remember i was pumping air into a bike and it sounded like a bomb lmao..

If that happened at my store, half would hit the floor & the others would draw their guns.

 

[Umichfan21]

Oh god, i remember i was pumping air into a bike and it sounded like a bomb lmao..

I had that happen on that stupid $109.99 20in girls bike I had 5 people run to me to find out who was shooting in the store it was funny

 

[Umichfan21]

they realize we use air compressers, right? That'll be fun for the entire store to hear. Some tires come in nearly flat. Would not be good to roll the bike to the back on flats

I turn on my compresser in the backroom until it shuts off then take it out I can fill 8 bike with that