House calls? Well I guess it's the kind of relationship you develop with your bike shop. When I was recovering from shoulder surgery, I put one of my bikes on the trainer to a) see if I could, and b) to see if I could even ride the thing before venturing outside on a bike. Well I got past a & b, but when it came time to take the bike OFF the trainer that was a different story. The rear seat stays are a little farther apart on my Dolce than they are on my Pilot, and the knob to adjust the trainer was too tight for me to adjust, so I assumed it was fixed in place. Anyway with or without a shoudler problem, there was no way I was going to be able to remove the bike, nor could I carry the bike attached to the trainer to the shop to get it off without damaging something expensive.

The service manager cheerfully came to my house and removed it for me. It helps that I live about 1/2 mile from the store. They have gone out of their way to help me out on other occasions, sometimes leaving parts for me outside their back door if I need to pick up after hours.

Why did he do this? Perhaps because I have bought 5 bikes from them in the 10 years I have lived here. While there is no clothing in the store save socks/gloves that I would ever buy, I do buy a lot of parts, gadgets, and all my service there. It's a small shop and their inventory is geared to young skinny fast and wealthy men. They know I buy stuff elsewhere, but I do buy whatever I can from them.

Or maybe it's the cookies? I take them home made cookies at Christmas, and maybe 1 or 2 other times each year.