In fact, they are farcical. Today, while meeting a friend for lunch in Bucktown I thought I’d kill a few minutes by stepping into the bike shop on the north side of North Avenue a block or two east of Damen, on a corner. Hell if I know the name of it, but it’s got a bike hanging above the front door, and the wheels spin in the wind. You know the one.
I ask if they do tune-ups, figuring I could score a deal way out there in the boonies, compared to the fancy prices the bike shop down the street from me on Wells in Old Town was asking for a tune-up ($70). Really all I needed was some new brakes – or should I say, some brakes. Pretending to be Fred Flintstone is fun (talkin’ out of the side of your mouth, maintaining a perpetual five o’clock shadow, etc.), but it’s rough on the shoes when you have to go places. And poor Fred did it all in bare feet.
So the bike guy in Bucktown puts my three-year-old bike up on a rack, taps a few things with his finger, squeezes this and spins that, then looks me straight in the eye and says, “You’re looking at 350.”
I say, “350 dollars?”
He says, “Yeah, to get it back to like-new condition.”
I say, “That’s almost double what I paid for the bike brand-new.”
He looks at the bike again and, noticing a sticker on the frame, says, “Oh, you got it at Village. Well, maybe you got a better deal.”
I go, “Well, it was on sale, but I paid a little over $200 for it.”
He has no response.
I say, “So, you’re telling me the bike is totaled?”
He says, “Yeah, basically.”
I go, “Okay, thanks,” and ride away from the shop utterly confused.