Know It alls

Spokejunkie

Just wondering how many riders new or otherwise have come across someone who initially seemed friendly then turned out to be the font of all knowledge you never asked for?

I met a chap a couple of weeks back and yes he's very fast and and seemed friendly . We agreed to meet up a few days later and while out riding I was at first impressed with his knowledge and general attitude. However alarm bells started ringing as while I was out him he cast an eye over my bike and started to preach , yes preach that my stickers (on tyres) were not aligned properly with the valve and that I could go for hell for that alone also started to interrogate me on what lube I used and that if I used anything other than wet lube I would be doubly damned. By all accounts you are not taken seriously (so I was told) if you don't align your valves with the stickers on your tyres don't know why although I have since found out some use it for locating punctures. Must admit having brought two bikes from decent local dealers over the last year and visited loads of others I don't recall this being a prerequisite to me being able to purchase or ride either of my bikes and he was the first and only person to bring this practice to my attention and I was never stopped and told off by the biking elite and I tend to be out most days even in the winter time and have met solo, pairs and groups of riders.

I certainly know and fully admit that I will never know all there is about MTB( always learning) and that like everything else in life we may learn from others and sometimes just adapt ideas and carry on with what works for us and that some folk just have to act superior which is normally deflection for something lacking in their own lives. However I did notice that my "ahem" friend was spouting off through some rather neglected teeth which does'nt seem to have consigned him to hell.......... hmmmm. My bikes have provided me with stress relief, new riding mates (not him),enjoyment and improved fitness and now I can add comedy value to the list..............

Anonymous

the more you learn, the more you realise you don't know.
Which is why truly knowledgable people know when to keep their mouths shut.

_Ferret_

I'm happy to admit that there are loads more people who know more about bikes than me. TBH I'm not exactly sure how every part on my bike works! (shame shame).

see, I've learnt today that I must align my stickers (logos?) with my tyre valves. Oh...wait a minute - isn't that a load of c*ck?

There is a very thin line between people who have knowledge and people who only think they do. (As you will find if you stay on this forum too long... )

MacAndCheese

I'm still gettiing my own bike set up perfect, so am miles of being able to preach, and even if I did have the perfect setup/lube/tyre rotation(?) for me, it is a personal preference that wouldn't necessary work for everyone. One thing I do know is there are many ways to skin a cat as they say.

seriously, logos on tyres....

Beardface

Spokejunkie wrote:

started to preach , yes preach that my stickers (on tyres) were not aligned properly with the valve and that I could go for hell for that alone

You mean to say that you don't do that?! :evil: Shame on you Spokejunkie, shame on you indeed.... :evil: :evil: :evil:

Next thing you'll tell me is that you don't have Chris King hubs and a Thomson stem and post.. mate, you may as well give your bike to a passing hobo... it's that bad... :roll:

Kidding, people like that are dicks.

ride_whenever

Simple solution, say you're running ghetto tubeless so it doesn't matter and claim that you couldn't get them to seat in the 'correct' orientation.

CycloRos

Sticker/valve alignment brilliant! are you sure he wasn't winding you up? That's borderline OCD can you imagine what his house must be like?!

Anyway it's not about knowing all the right answers, it's about knowing the right questions. Ask a silly question? get a silly answer.

Sarnian

Now this sounds like a blast from the past, 3 years ago I started a new job, on my arrival of the first day one of the lads spotted my bike that I had come to work on and asked If I was Into MTB. So the conversation for the rest of the day centered around MTB and how good he was and all the race's he had one In the mainland (he was English working under a 5 year licence) and how much he had spent on bike's.

He could talk a good talk, so a couple of days later we met up for a ride, the first thing he said to me about my bike (not the one I use for work) was about the tyres not in line with the valves and then slated It for being to heavy (about 27-28lbs) Any we got riding, for some reason he just wanted to ride on the roads so I told him If we are going to do that I will go get my road bike, eventually he gave In and we hit some trails. I could not believe It when we started not only did I have to wait for him to catch up every half a mile but I hat to witness him getting of hes bike every time he came to some mud or a drop over 6inch high going up or down, all this so he's spinergy wheels did not get dirty :shock:

The Icing on the cake was when he started pushing hes bike up hills and was fcuked after 40min of riding, all this while still telling me how good he was slating my bike and trying to give me advice :roll:

blister pus

Align the stickers to the valve. Then take the stickers off. It means more. It's what I did.

Daz555

Adjust the limit screw on his mech when he's not looking, then berate him about his poor setup skills. 8)

rhyko7

opinions are like ass holes-everyones got one!

afcbian

Hilarious ! All the best riders I have ever met usually have the oldest crappiest bikes going. A couple of the very best and fittest bikers I know have bikes with no suspension, V brakes, and are over 15 years old..................they still leave me in a cloud of dust everytime :oops:

It's not about the bike
People like this are not even worth getting wound up about. Just laugh and ride on

meesterbond

He is right about aligning the stickers to the valves though...

If you want to find out why, take a photo of it in your back garden and post it on Singletrackworld and wait for the comments!

Buckled_Rims

Nobody's born with knowledge and nobody knows everything about a subject. I was once an IT trainer and all the class thought I knew everything about servers. Er, nope, I bluffed my way out of most questions

As they say, Bullsh*t baffles brains. If the stickers are misaligned, just tell him it's deliberate because it's a secret sign you're a member of the BikeMasons. Keep a straight face and ride off. Make the idiot think a bit.

pypdjl

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Which is why truly knowledgable people know when to keep their mouths shut.

...

Posts: 5211

heh.

afcbian

Buckled_Rims wrote:

Nobody's born with knowledge and nobody knows everything about a subject. I was once an IT trainer and all the class thought I knew everything about servers. Er, nope, I bluffed my way out of most questions

As they say, Bullsh*t baffles brains. If the stickers are misaligned, just tell him it's deliberate because it's a secret sign you're a member of the BikeMasons. Keep a straight face and ride off. Make the idiot think a bit.

I like that school of thought 8)

Spokejunkie

Now meesterbond do behave ! Take a photo and post it on singletrackworld and wait for comments to fly in. That merely supports what I said about some folk feeling/acting superior which is often deflection away from problems they have in their own lives. Advice and knowledge can be great but it's not just how it is recieved but passed on, like I also said how can someone be so possibly anal about tyre /valve sticker alignments and type of lubes and yet not carry out basic oral hygine ? :roll:

meesterbond

It's actually more of a comment about how many threads there were from people showing off their new bike!

That said, if you've gone to the extent of speccing out every part, matching saddle to grips etc etc, taking a few moments to line up the valves with the tyre logos isn't much to ask... I prefer to think of it as attention to detail rather than OCD, although i accept there's a fairly thin line between them.

Also if you do plan to take a photo of your bike, please note that all excess reflectors should be removed (unless it's a commuter and in that case no one wants to see it anyway), excess spacers above and below the stem are not acceptable, saddle should be level and it should be on the big ring at the front and little cog at the back.

P-Jay

rhyko7 wrote:

opinions are like ass holes-everyones got one!

Yeah and most of them smell of shit.

P-Jay

I guess it's a good idea to help locate thorns in tyres, etc but a quick swipe around the inside with my hand usually find them.

If you're that bothered use a white marker pen to show the valve position rather than tart around getting logo's lined up. AND you'd don't knock a man's maintenance skills!!! You might as well call his mother a hoe.

Some people just get off preaching.

My mates and I were just chillin' in the Carpark of Afan once. My mate was sitting proud as punch on his spanking new Stumpjumper Pro FSR, and rightly so, when some geezer rolls up, say's "those forks are shit mate, you wanna get rid - they're a liability, you want some of these" I don't remember what he was running.

The shine was taken on my mates pride and joy for a bit. Until he realised that a set of Fox 32 Talas RLC's were a bloody storming set of trail forks, that had smashed reviews and comparison tests all year. But turns out that they were all wrong and lycra carpark boy knew better -yeah right.

I've had people totaly uninvited, without so much as a by-your-leave tell me my bike or kit is ether over or underspecced for whereever I was at the time, I'm riding too fast and upsetting the people who I catch up too, or I'm going to kill myself, or I shouldn't be riding that type of bike here (Mostly on the XC bit of Cwmcarn on my Shocker) or I'm too slow, or the very, very best one - I just LOVED it when the 14 year old Chav told me this - Hey Mate, that Bike is too good for you, you're shit - After I passed him!!

Sorry kid, but life isn't fair. Just because you think you're the next Sam Hill, doesn't mean you get a fancy bike, it's the old lads who work really hard and have the money to buy them that do, even if they're old, fat and slow.

It's like Cars, by the time you've got the money for that Boxster to cruze around in to try to impress the girls, you're 40, fat, bald and married and no amount of German sports car is going to fix that.

Phew, got quite het up writting that.

Spokejunkie

Well Meesterbond,

I am wondering if all this alignment of stickers, valves matter so much why does'nt the bike come with this done as standard ? After all the main brands specc out the saddles, grips etc to match as you so kindly state in your post however I suspect they don't employ those with OCD or pendatic ways. Ah well

CycloRos

P-Jay wrote:

It's like Cars, by the time you've got the money for that Boxster to cruze around in to try to impress the girls, you're 40, fat, bald and married and no amount of German sports car is going to fix that.

Phew, got quite het up writting that.

lol, phew indeed totally true, what's even more amusing is these fat 40 year old blokes then decide that what they really need is a £5k carbon superbike with perfect valve/sticker alignment!!!

clodhoppa74

meesterbond wrote:

taking a few moments to line up the valves with the tyre logos isn't much to ask... I prefer to think of it as attention to detail rather than OCD, although i accept there's a fairly thin line between them.

no there isn't. there's just a veil of self justifying lies i tell thee.

i didn't start mountain biking to be told what to do by dolts with more money for kit than me. i started biking because it's freedom. you get to roam far and relatively freely. You get to be part of a loose 'brotherhood' of folk that appreciate why you're doing it.

i really have more important things to do than align the stickers/logos on my tyres to my valve. like my wife. or taking a satisfying dump, because both do more for me than aligning logos.

you should have laughed in his face, or just wited for him to set off, then go in the opposite direction, because he has issues you're not going to solve, unless you get all broke back mountain about it.

fourcrossjohn

wait for him to ride of shoot him then piss on him and his bike

Spokejunkie

Well said Clodhoppa,
It's posts like yours and a few others that echo what I 've been saying,there are truly some folk who feel they are on some sort of holy crusade to tell the rest of us out there who enjoy our bikes what we should and should'nt be doing according to them and they have issues plain and simple which is another reason why some if not all of them ride alone and in my particular case I should have spotted that sooner. Will be wiser next time and a far less tolerant of such self inflated idiots . 8)

carbonfiend

my stickers aren't aligned and my back tyre is and has been on the wrong way all through summer and i couldn't be arsed changing it - bet he'd have a coronary if he rode with me, oh and my rotors don't match as well.

Surf-Matt

Those sort of people are usually making up for a lack of riding ability/fitness/whatever.

meesterbond

Spokejunkie wrote:

Well Meesterbond,

I am wondering if all this alignment of stickers, valves matter so much why does'nt the bike come with this done as standard ? After all the main brands specc out the saddles, grips etc to match as you so kindly state in your post however I suspect they don't employ those with OCD or pendatic ways. Ah well

Didn't yours come with the logos lined up?

I'd have sent it back.

fatwomble

P-Jay wrote:

It's like Cars, by the time you've got the money for that Boxster to cruze around in to try to impress the girls, you're 40, fat, bald and married and no amount of German sports car is going to fix that.

There's nothing wrong with being 40, fat, bald and married :x

And my choice of car is a Lotus Elise, much more hard core than the porker

P-Jay

fatwomble wrote:

P-Jay wrote:

It's like Cars, by the time you've got the money for that Boxster to cruze around in to try to impress the girls, you're 40, fat, bald and married and no amount of German sports car is going to fix that.

There's nothing wrong with being 40, fat, bald and married


And my choice of car is a Lotus Elise, much more hard core than the porker

Of course there isn't, time and hairlines wait for no man.

As long as you're not cruzing the seafront for 18 year olds live the dream man.

I'd love an Elise - I went the other way and bought a big shouty motorbike, I'll take your no-carpets 'hardcore' and raise you no- anything. ;-)

Spokejunkie

meesterbond wrote:

Spokejunkie wrote:

Well Meesterbond,

I am wondering if all this alignment of stickers, valves matter so much why does'nt the bike come with this done as standard ? After all the main brands specc out the saddles, grips etc to match as you so kindly state in your post however I suspect they don't employ those with OCD or pendatic ways. Ah well

Didn't yours come with the logos lined up?

I'd have sent it back.

Well of course you would thus proving what clodhoppa posted earlier , nice one