ABSOLUTELY TOP-QUALITY MAINTENANCE…read more
Early this year (2004) I bought a low-priced Trek Verve bicycle at a different (top-rated) bike shop in Santa Fe. They warned me that the tires were not the best, but I had three flats in just the few months I owned the bike. (I rode on somewhat older and bumpy pavement, never off road.) They ascribed the problem to a bad season for goat heads and sold me new tubes, with goop, for both tires.
After one of the repaired tubes had my fourth flat, I asked friends for recommendations, and they referred me to Rob & Charlie's.
Their expert Ray was a rank above, with a new diagnosis: The particular tires on my bike, he said, would let the tubes slip slightly on the rims, straining the valve stem and making micro holes in the tube near the stem, if not maintained above 60 PSI. While he was telling me this, he switched the tube with his bare hands in 5 minutes, and I was on my way.
I got the bike home, eager to take a ride the next day, and checked with my hand pump that both tires were filled to 70 PSI. Yet when I went to ride the bike the next day, the front tire (the one Ray had fixed) had gone flat and leaked when I tried to pump it.
So I called Ray, told him what had happened, and he told me to bring in the front wheel and tire (NOT the whole bike). He examined the new tube he had installed and found it defective.
After examining another new tube of the same low-cost brand, and finding micro-leaks also near its stem, Ray upgraded me to a better-quality tube. Again, it took him less than five minutes. At my request, he also extracted the valve-grabbing part of my old Bontrager hand pump, cleaned it and fixed it before my eyes, again in less than five minutes. He charged me nothing for this second visit, the second, better new tube (with goop) or the pump fix, but apologized for my trouble.
Ray is simply the best, most expert and quickest bike repair person I've ever encountered. In the future, I will take all my bike repairs to Ray, although I have great hopes that my "Bicycle from Hell," now with suitably pumped-up tires, will mend its ways.