You'd have thought the bike shop might have told him

[steveindenmark]

Its not just cheap Sora gears you have problems with.

I hear BMW have problems with their gears as well.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3S3mzAzOl6o

 

[screenman]

Like most blokes will listen when somebody tries to explain something to them.

 

[Globalti]

My first "reborn cyclist" purchase was in 1987 when I spotted a Raleigh Maverick mountain bike in the window of a shop in Harrogate. It looked stunning in white and yellow with red graphics, with chunky tyres and a triple. Having invented the mountain bike back in the 1970s when I bolted a tiny chainring onto my 10 speed I knew that at last, here was the bike I wanted. I walked in, paid the shop keeper £199 on my credit card, took the bike without a word of advice or preparation from the shopkeeper and set off to ride the seven hilly miles home. The saddle was too low, the tyres half flat and I was wearing jeans. By three miles out of town I was flagging and by four I was exhausted. A neighbour passed in her camper and nearly stopped tp pick me up, saying later that I looked like I needed a lift. When i reached home I stuck the bike out the back, covered it with a tarp and didn't touch it for several months. Then I started thinking: "Hang on.... people ride bikes for a hundred miles! I should be able to do better than that!"

I got the bike out and started messing around, riding a mile or two out from home, learning how to get up hills without doing a wheelie. The rest is history.

 

[Sandra6]

Ime people like to think they know everything and don't take kindly to having things explained.
The only people who ever ask me about gears are older ladies typically buying step through frames.

 

[annedonnelly]

Well at least this guy was brave enough to approach a group of cyclists and ask. I kept well out of the way of the resulting huddle around his bike

I do remember taking my dad's new Cavalier out and having to come back and ask how to get it into reverse. There was a little collar on the gear stick that you had to lift up.

 

[iandg]

The only new bike I've ever had from a shop was a single speed when I was about 8. All my others have been built up by myself or second hand. The shop I used to work in as a youth (Henry Burton, Stafford) did ask customers and would put a bike in a stand and demonstrate how the gears worked if a customer was not sure.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Well at least this guy was brave enough to approach a group of cyclists and ask. I kept well out of the way of the resulting huddle around his bike

I do remember taking my dad's new Cavalier out and having to come back and ask how to get it into reverse. There was a little collar on the gear stick that you had to lift up.

I bought a second hand Mk1 Cavalier years ago and it took ten minutes of faffing about the gear lever wondering what was wrong with it before I discovered that one. And another eighteen months thinking the interior light only came on when a door opened before a heavy handed turn if the light switch caused it to pop backwards and hey presto!

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

I bought a second hand Mk1 Cavalier years ago and it took ten minutes of faffing about the gear lever wondering what was wrong with it before I discovered that one. And another eighteen months thinking the interior light only came on when a door opened before a heavy handed turn if the light switch caused it to pop backwards and hey presto!

My dad had a mk1 Cavalier, & I remember that problem with the gear-lever, when I was learning to drive in it


Harking back to the XKR, that had the 'J' pattern gearbox, which made some people look at it very querulously (Mercedes-Benz used same, so I'm told)
The Range Rover P38 ('Series 2'; 1994-2004) had a 'H' shift, with the low-range side away to the left

 

[NorthernDave]

I got no advice at all when i picked up my hybrid, other than an offer to adjust the saddle height which I accepted. This was despite the staff at the shop knowing it was 20 years since I'd last ridden a bike.
It was the same when I bought my road bike a few months later. This was even more fun as STI hadn't been invented last time I rode a "racer" back in 1980-something. I did get a 'manual' to read when I got home though...(about 6 pages of it) although I'd pretty much figured it out by then...
I could have asked I suppose

However, when Mrs ND bought her bike from the same shop, she was given a fairly comprehensive 10 minute run through on all the basics, including a demonstration of how to remove and refit a QR front wheel.

Perhaps they assumed that as a bloke I'd know what to do...

 

[tmif]

They never offered to explain how my bike worked when I bought it... but when I asked he got his bike out and we went for a little ride together... about 10 minutes or so... where he explained the gears, braking etc to me. It was very useful.

Of course when I want my next bike I will go there first...

even if they don't offer to explain I am sure most bike shops will be quite happy to go through whatever you want to know when you ask ☺

 

[alecstilleyedye]

you live and learn…

my son has started riding and was using an old carlton with a 10 year old sora 8 speed drivetrain. i bought him a new ribble prime which has an 8 speed claris drivetrain, and noticed that he was mashing the gears on the hills. it turns out that claris is one click per change, where as he'd learned to push the lever and hold it in to move the chain back up the cassette on the other bike.

took a while for the penny to drop, but now he knows, no mashed gear changes…

 

[Sandra6]

Well at least this guy was brave enough to approach a group of cyclists and ask. I kept well out of the way of the resulting huddle around his bike

I do remember taking my dad's new Cavalier out and having to come back and ask how to get it into reverse. There was a little collar on the gear stick that you had to lift up.

In my early teens I spent a week with my mums cousin, while driving she told me about picking up the car and having to go back and have reverse explained because it needed lifting first before sliding into reverse.
I never thought about it until a few years later at a family wedding and my uncle was driving some of us to the reception in said car and couldn't find reverse. " oh you have to lift first" I explained. He ignored me and had to take three more turns to get back onto the right road because he couldn't reverse back to the missed turning.

 

[cyberknight]

When i picked up my subway disc i had to ask if their was a way to release the disc brakes prior to taking the wheels out as im so used to opening calipers to get the wheel out.

 

[Smokin Joe]

When i picked up my subway disc i had to ask if their was a way to release the disc brakes prior to taking the wheels out as im so used to opening calipers to get the wheel out.

Oh the shame

 

[Oldbloke]

When I test rode my Propel with Di2 I nearly crashed it because couldn't work out how to change down..so embarrassing