You are reading a single comment by @Calumonwheels and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
Veblen
@Calumonwheels
I think there's a third term for the glossary that I don't have, which is designing solutions in such a way that they aren't optimised for repair. I presume this is in part because labour on the assembly lines in far eastern factories is significantly less than one-at-a-time fixes in the western market.
The bearings in my DMR v12 pedals recently went shot, so I took them to my LBS for a service. They flatly told me that no one services pedals any more and that they should just be thrown away. I persisted and they did end up managing to service them, but it required them making a special tool to remove the old bushings, and it ended up coming to the same cost as a new pair of pedals. So instead of designing the pedal to be disassemble-able with regular workshop tools, the brand's owners clearly thought repairability was not a priority.
I paid up and didn't moan about it because I don't hold the shop liable for the state of the industry, just another instance of how the cycling marketplace is just geared towards making you want to junk stuff and buy new instead of caring for what you already have and making it last.