I still get my hair cut in our old neighborhood, four miles from our new home. I cycled over for a cut one afternoon and discovered a flat when I was almost there. I got my cut, then went around the corner to a bike shop I'd frequented when we lived in the neighborhood. The attendant took one look at my bike, which has a belt drive instead of a chain, and said he did not work on belt bikes.
"Not even just to fix a puncture?" I asked, incredulous. Not even.
He directed me to SloHi Bike Co., which he said worked on belt bikes and was "just down the street."
In the interest of focusing on the positive – I am an unabashed optimist - I'm not naming the bike shop with the unhelpful attendant. Besides, my husband already gave the shop a bad review on Google.
I Googled SloHi and discovered it was almost 2 miles away, which seemed far on a bike with a puncture, even if the guy at the shop that shall not be named had deigned to put some air in the tire. I decided to take the bus. And my day started to look up.
The bus driver helped me load my bike onto the rack on the front of the bus. Then as she settled back behind the wheel and I started to load $2.80 into the fare machine, she said, “I'm only charging a dollar today. It's my choice." She even insisted I take a day pass.
As I settled into my seat, I noticed I no longer had my gloves – my current favorites. Maybe the chilly day wasn’t looking quite so up. As we rolled toward SloHi, I concluded I'd left the gloves at the bus stop and gave them up for lost.
Once I got to SloHi, a very nice guy looked over my tire and found and removed a thorn. Since the air from the shop that shall not be named had held well, he suggested I just add sealant for $5.
He also said, "I don't know why the (shop that shall not be named) guy wouldn't fix it. You just have to drop the tire out without even messing with the belt. Whenever they see an odd bike they send it to us."
SloHi was lucky in one more way. As I had lifted my bike from the bus rack and headed into the shop, I found my gloves resting safely in my bike's rather shallow basket.
Sweet ride!