Went for an evening ride with a mate last night who had just had his bike serviced. Total drive chain overhaul etc. End of section 3 at Swinley is back brake pulls to the bars, look at the caliper (Hope mono mini) – only thing left is a knackered pad spring between the pistons. Went up the trail to see if we could find the pads and salvage the ride – nowhere to be seen. I checked the front to confirm that they are pin & R clip set up – and no pin there either – just a set of loose pads!!!

Feeling pretty lucky that we’d not got to any of the faster sections before finding out.

Rear shock had obviously been played with as not enough air in it either.

So, genuine shop mishap to chalk down to experience, or should he be looking for more from them (I reckon minimum apology, full brake service and fresh pads and pins)? I know he won’t be giving them any more business.

Deffo back in and ask their opinion on it. But (honest question) do people not M test their bike before riding it?

What would a test show? The pin doesn’t do anything in terms of braking performance, it just stops the pads falling out when you ride it.

Up to him about going back, they owe him a pin and some air at least!

What would a test show?

Errmmmm – that you didn’t have retaining pins in your brakes?

Lucky escape there! Personally I always have a small shakedown ride after any work I/LBS/other have done on the bike.

What LBS was it? I live locally and wouldn’t mind avoiding them.

jonv – I’m not sure the “M check” is widely known.

For everyone else:

It obviously doesn’t explicitly mention pad retaining pins, but if you were doing a visual check of everything you should notice if they’re missing.

Nothing there that would show the presence or lack of the pin other than hoping you notice while checking the brake fitting. The brakes would function perfectly. I’d add checking pad wear which would be more useful and more likely to change.

That said if I’d let a bike shop fiddle with my bike I’d give it a thorough examination afterwards

I’d probably have had a look over my own bike after the job is done though a brake pad pin is a small thing to spot and they did not change the pads, only inspect them (I suppose credit for not replacing something for the sake of it).

Shop was one in Early I think. Won’t say any more at the moment unless they are offhand in how they deal with it.

I’ve been biking for 20 years,and have never heard of the M check!

Deffo back in and ask their opinion on it. But (honest question) do people not M test their bike before riding it?

Nope

My bikes only ever go into a shop in bits, in fact I think it’s only wheels (spoke work), shocks and droppers I usually need help with. Any other issues would only be due to my own ham-fisted attempts.

A lot of people who hand over their bikes for servicing are mechanically inexperienced/inept and wouldn’t necessarily notice a missing pin on a caliper. It’s good practice to check over the bike prior to each ride but a bike shop can’t be relying on that type of customer to do it properly.

They are fortunate he didn’t do some braking with his face, or it wouldn’t just be a bit of a grovel he’d be after.

Never heard of the M check. The closest I get is “lift the bike a few inches and let it drop to the ground. If nothing sounds loose you’re good to go”

Nothing there that would show the presence or lack of the pin other than hoping you notice while checking the brake fitting.

Having left my own pad pins out by mistake before, it’s something I look for, being that it is a potential health hazard. Yes, that M check doesn’t list everything, but is a decent aide memoire to give a once over in a defined order.

Personally, i don’t actually check for example whether gears are functioning or do a frame check, I check the frame when maintaining it and if the gears are off you can fix them while out, and they’re unlikely to kill you anyway.

For me, it’s:

Front hub properly secured (QR or bolt through)
Brake calipers tight and pins and pads fitted.
Any play in headset / stem / bars (rock and twist)
Any play in cranks / pedals
Seat collar done up properly and saddle tight
Rear hub / QR secure and wheel in straight
Rear caliper / pads / pins

No more than a couple of minutes, if that.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a disgrace if a bike shop’s taken money off someone and then sent them out with the bike in that state, but we also have to take responsibility to look after ourselves as well. No consolation in thinking ‘well it wasn’t my fault’ as you suck your dinner through a straw.

Pick up the bike and bounce it on the ground a bit to see if anything rattles. That’s all I do.

Any detailed work gets checked as it’s re-assembled.

I dont tend to trust my bike or cars to shops / garages these days. First time i put our car in to be looked at for years, they ended using too short a bolt to secure one of the lower suspension arms.

Although I have forgotten to tighten my rotor bolts once, lost half of them before I noticed. 😳

The M check appears to be a “check everything on the bike” check.

Even the headset?

The M check appears to be a “check everything on the bike” check.

Pretty much yes, it’s a basic check that everything is where it should be, not about to fall off and working acceptably.

It’s normally* also taught as part of Bikeability.

Most bits that are included are also in the ‘regular checks’ section fo the owners manuals that go out with new bikes, that of course everyone reads 😉

Bad form on the part of the shop, I’d definitely be going back for some discussions, but as others have said, it’s also worth while making sure you check things like this yourself too, its easy to lose a rotor bolt, miss a cracked/spreading chainlink or not spot a bolt coming undone until its too late.

*may not go into full details, but the idea is to teach riders (kids and adults) that you should be aware of the basics of how your bike works and even if you don’t know how to fix it, be able to spot when something isn’t right/is unsafe.

At least it was only back brake not that bad. I had the same incident with the front brake on my 29er hardtail, did a small drop the pads came out but I didn’t realise, went to brake for sharp 90 corner and **** all happened so had to bail off the bike.

OP.

I’d be telling your mate to be putting the bike back into the shop that “serviced” it and telling them to put right what they put wrong. For free. At least a brake service with new pads, (it had pads before it was serviced and now it doesn’t because they didn’t refit them correctly) pins, and paraphernalia.

And an apology.

The air in the shock is something you should be checking yourself, like tyre pressure.

I’ve been biking for 20 years,and have never heard of the M check!

I’ve been in the bike industry for 20 years, and have never heard of it 😉

I only know about the M check because I have done some bike guiding courses for a friend of mine and it’s the first thing you do with the punters.

I’m mildly surprised you guys haven’t heard of it, it’s not a new thing and crops up regularly in Bikeability, British cycling, Sustrans, and most Instructor courses and basic mechanics courses (including Cyctec I think?), I certainly remember it doing the rounds 20 odd years ago, although not sure if it was specifically called the ‘M’ check then.

Whatever you call it M/W/common sense check, it’s just the basic ‘is this bike going to kill me if I ride it today‘ check that every mechanic does automatically before a bike leaves their hands, and what most riders should do to some degree on a semi-regular basis even if you don’t know how to fix any problems you spot.

Last time I did Bikeability stuff (it was called Cycling Proficiency back then), the teacher complained that I’d made the brakes dangerous because the kids could skid the back wheel. She loosened off all the brakes to make them “safer” 😀

All mechanics with an ounce of sense have a procedure for checking a bike is safe – I’d just never heard of it called the “M check”.

I’ve had experiences like that before with parents and customers, makes me sad 🙁

I’m not sure when the ‘M’ bit became the common name for it, I remember for a while someone was pushing the ‘W’ and ‘M ‘checks for weekly and monthly, but that was just far too confusing for most people!

The ‘M’ tends to work well for kids as you can get them to roughly see how the M overlays on their bike so they realise what they need to check. I find it hard to stick to as my own personal routine is more of a ‘Z’ but I have to remember to do it as an ‘M’ when teaching as that’s what all the literature says. 🙄

Back on topic though, OP let us know how the discussion goes with the shop, hopefully they’ll be super apologetic and sort you out.

Would people take the wheels off their car to check the job was done correctly when it’s been in the garage for some work to the stopping gear?

It’s a seriously shoddy piece of work and they need telling Imho

Back on topic though, OP let us know how the discussion goes with the shop, hopefully they’ll be super apologetic and sort you out.

Will see what happens.

Not my bike, a mates, he’s quite a laid back chap so I’m going to encourage him to make sure the shop puts him right.

The air in the shock is something you should be checking yourself, like tyre pressure.

I noticed this as soon as I had a quick pedal and bottomed it out almost immediately. Funny thing is shop said it had adjusted the air in the forks but not in the shop.

Never heard of that M check before & I passed my ‘cycling proficiency test’ 40 years ago!
Pre ride I always check the Q/R skewers & brakes are fitted correctly.
Most other stuff,transmission etc gets a quick going over via a lap of the car park.

I think those arguing over the M-check are missing the point that if you pay a shop to do a full service/check of your bike, it’s supposed to come back fully serviced and checked!

You* wouldn’t take your car in for a service and then go checking valve clearances yourself.

*I would, but then I had a similar experience to the OP with a fuel line not being re-connected properly, so now it only goes into the workshop if it’s something I absolutely can’t do myself (and I still try and watch them working).

Never heard of the M check myself but I regularily do all the things on it that are worth doing so that amounts to the same thing I suppose.

You shouldn’t have to check anything after it goes to a shop; if you want to fix things yourself you fix it yourself, if you want it fixed you get it fixed. There’s no halfway house, shop mechanics are often fixing things for people who can’t do it themselves and should be acting accordingly, it’s just the job isn’t it?

No point to going mad but unless it’s a shop he really likes, I’d go back to get the missing parts replaced and that’d probably be the last time I go there. I wouldn’t be demanding any more or expecting it and tbh it wouldn’t make much difference. They’re careless and they make dangerous mistakes, they can put this one right but that won’t mean they’re any less careless.

You shouldn’t have to check anything after it goes to a shop; if you want to fix things yourself you fix it yourself, if you want it fixed you get it fixed. There’s no halfway house, shop mechanics are often fixing things for people who can’t do it themselves and should be acting accordingly, it’s just the job isn’t it?

No point to going mad but unless it’s a shop he really likes, I’d go back to get the missing parts replaced and that’d probably be the last time I go there. I wouldn’t be demanding any more or expecting it and tbh it wouldn’t make much difference. They’re careless and they make dangerous mistakes, they can put this one right but that won’t mean they’re any less careless.

This sums up my feelings pretty well. If I’d paid £250 for a service, new chainset, chain, cassette and saddle I’d expect the bike to be in a condition where it is safe and rideable from the off. You can’t as a shop assume everyone is an enthusiast with an eye for detail.

I’d have probably given it the once over but not much more than that, will teach me to check things a little more regularly now.

He’s going to go into the shop later in the week, so we’ll see what happens.

I think those arguing over the M-check are missing the point that if you pay a shop to do a full service/check of your bike, it’s supposed to come back fully serviced and checked!

No disagreement at all. But, for the two minutes MAX it takes to do an M check, I can’t see why people wouldn’t. Belt and braces, can’t harm. And if i didn’t know how, after reading this I’d blooming well find out.

It’s checking critical safety features, like are my wheels on properly, do my brakes work, and in my case for sure, are the pins still on my workbench after I changed the pads last night in a rush…….

As i said before, it wouldn’t console me much to think ‘well, at least it wasn’t my fault’ while drinking soup through a straw.

You* wouldn’t take your car in for a service and then go checking valve clearances yourself.

No, it’s an odd one that, i’ll agree. I don’t know why either.

I think those arguing over the M-check are missing the point that if you pay a shop to do a full service/check of your bike, it’s supposed to come back fully serviced and checked!

I think all of us that mentioned it specifically said that it’s properly shoddy of the shop and totally unacceptable. We’re not missing the point at all, just making a different one entirely.

You might be missing what our actual point was – that it worthwhile getting in the habit of checking the basic safety critical stuff yourself regularly, no matter who the last person to spanner your bike was, or whether you paid them or not.

It’s not about whether or not you trust the mechanic, or how good a job they did, or whether you should need to check their work, it’s simply about making sure that you’re bike isn’t about to kill you, whatever the reason may be.

Even with the best mechanic in the world, things get knocked and bumped when bikes are stacked/put in cars etc. There is no reason not to do a basic pre-ride check, stem done up, brakes work and not missing vital bolts/pins, wheels done up etc.

do bike shops these days not test ride their work either.

shoddy .

a 2 minute ride up and down the street would show this error quickly.

infact just the act of getting it onto the street in our old shop would have highlighted it 😉

Just had a text from my mate so few details at the moment. But wait for it….

Fella in the shop told him that both the R clips were missing from the pins when the bike came in!!!

I call bullsh*t on that anyway, as major coincidence that if both R clips were missing, that the pins would both fall out within 500m on the first ride after the work has been done. Even if they were missing;

1. They chose not to replace them (odd given the £250 of other work done)
2. They chose not to inform rider they were missing.

Hang your heads in shame Cycle Zone in Early.

Not sure what they have done in response yet, will update.

Do those pins thread in or do they rely on pins? (mine are threaded but also have jesus clips, I don’t use the clips though)

TBH either way, it doesn’t matter if they were missing when the bike went into the shop. What’s the point of a service that doesn’t fix things that were wrong? I’m not even a professional but if I saw a bike with missing safety-critical bits I’d tell the owner

The black and gold Hope mono minis. So pin and r-clip. I checked the hole and no thread.

Disappointingly poor response 🙁

if they made him aware of that when he came in, (which he would remember?) then surely the conversation would have been more like

“I noticed those pins are missing the clips and likely to fall out, do you want us to sort that?/We’ll sort that for you”

And if they really did notice them, and for some inexplicable reason didn’t sort it, then I’d expect them to make double sure that whoever picked the bike up was made aware of it again as it left.