Apparently its a man's world: Girlfriend buys a bike

Triathlon Forum
1

We’ve been super busy lately, indicative of a strong year and a good season. Today, during our fit schedule, I was working with a female customer who is a second year triathlete. She visited the store with her boyfriend to buy a new triathlon bike. As part of the buying/sizing process we ask a number of questions about the customer’s athletic background, goals, triathlon experience (if any), what events they may like to do in the future, what their current bike (if they have one) is like, etc. etc.

One phenomenon we have noticed is the “boyfriend talker”. It is the guy who brings his girlfriend in for a bike then does all the talking for her. It is an odd behavior to witness.

Often times I will look directly at the customer and, using eye contact, ask the question “What events are you considering doing this season?” Then, over my shoulder, comes this male voice that says, “She is going to do the Tweedle Dee Triathlon and the Fumble Thumb Triathlon, but she is never Doing the WidgetMan Triathlon, that’s too hard for her.”

Then I’ll ask, “Have you ever used aerobars before?” OK, pretty straightforward question that any adult of any gender is capable of answering on their own. Again, the puppetmaster behind me chimes in, “No, she has never used aerobars. This will be her first time.”

So, here are my questions:

Why do some men do this? It seems embarrassing and humiliating.

Does this customer (in this case, the female) really even WANT to be here buying a bike?

Why can’t the female be allowed to, or be willing to, speak for herself.

We see this phenomenon with alarming regularity. I would never treat a significant other like that. It seems condescending and controlling. What’s the deal? Any suggestions on how to deal with it.

Eventually, I had another employee tag in to distract the guy with dialogue like, “Oh, didn’t you do Ironman Wisconsin last year? I thought I saw you at the expo… blah, blah blah…”

2

Speaking as a girl (because I am one)…I think your method of distracting the boyfriend is as effective as anything. Mostly because a smack and saying “Lose this guy! And speak for yourself!” might not be good for business.

Personally - I ask lots and lots of questions of my bike guru guy friends…and then I go to the bike shop ALONE.

3

That’s a good strategy. Unless the b/f knows the value of silence and butting out, and especially if he’s a “know it all” who hasn’t even done a triathlon then she should probably leave him home.

4

I see this phenomenon all the time although in the reverse. In my medical practice I will ask a point blank question to the silent, eye contact avoiding male who is in obvious pain, like where does it hurt? From the corner of the room the dominating woman in his life will proceed to tell me when, where, how much, etc. I have never quite figured out this spousal relationship, but it is quite entertaining when it occurs. I try to lure the ‘talker’ out of the room with offers of free coffee or donuts but there are very few takers.

5

It is very sad, isn’t it? I can only guess that the women don’t have enough confidence in themselves to answer for themselves. Or, they think their guy knows more than they do and therefore can answer better. This is probably more common in the sports world than anywhere else in their relationship.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any advice for you except to distract the guy some way like you already do. Or, you can repeat the question until the girl answers herself. That might p*ss off a few guys, though, so I’m not sure you want to do that. Probably the best thing is to post what you did, so guys out there will realize that they need to lay off and let the women in their lives take the lead.

Dawn

6

Well, I hope I have never done this with my wife, but I often accompany her with bike related stuff. She feels intimidated and wants me to go as a consultant. She bought her road bike from a local downriver store (not yours). We’ve gone in several times for various adjustments here and there, and had a lot of dialogue during the buy procedure. I tried to observe the process and address issues I wasn’t sure she thought of (being a new cyclist). I’d often ask questions to the fitter as well as her if I wanted to make sure the two were on the same page.

I’ve mentioned to her several times that we should go to your shop to get fitted and possibly get a new bike. Not wanting to get in the way, I’ve asked her if it would be alright if she go on her own, and she always says she wants me there. I think a shop like yours intimidates her even more due to all the questions you ask and how much more complicated the procedure is. To be honest with you, we walked into your shop when we were bike shopping for her and a person was getting fitted while we were talking with one of your employees. Seeing the process kind of turned her away.

So, I’m sure there are definitely guys who are at the extreme of what you’re talking about, but perhaps there are guys who seem to be this extreme, but are only trying to make the process less intimidating to their SO’s. At least I’ll be more sensitive to the “boyfriend talker” phenomenon if/when the fitting takes place after reading this post.

7

Hey Jack, Now see, your conduct strikes me as reasonable and helpful- not overbearing and controlling. I appreciate that. It makes our job easier.

I am interested that your wife was intimidated by our process of fitting. It is simple, pretty streamlined and straightforward. It is also often specifically oriented to toward entry level riders with little or no experience. Those are the ones who may benefit the most from some input on fit and positioning. Interesting.

Thanks for ther info. Any thoughts on how she might have prefered us to appear less intimidating?

8

Why do some men do this? It seems embarrassing and humiliating.

More importantly, why does the woman tolerate this? It happens b/c it’s tolerated.

Shoot, my wife would give me the “Was he talking to you?” remark, and I’d catch the hint and go look at cycling shoes or some other component I have no idea about. =)

9

Why do some men do this? It seems embarrassing and humiliating.

More importantly, why does the woman tolerate this? It happens b/c it’s toelrated.<<

No $h1#! But maybe that’s why I’m not married. :wink:

clm

10

Tom,

Why do some men do this? It seems embarrassing and humiliating. The girlfriend may have asked him to do it. Or he feels he is “looking out for her” yet if the boyfriend was capable of really “looking out” for his girlfriend then he should just listen to the salesman/fitter and determine if fitter was steering her in the right direction and if so just made sure you kept your hands off of her butt.

Does this customer (in this case, the female) really even WANT to be here buying a bike? Maybe not, maybe he wants her to be involved with his sport and she is just doing it for him, if this is the case then you got a double edged sword situation.

Why can’t the female be allowed to, or be willing to, speak for herself. read my answers to the above questions.

I have had to deal with this before and it pretty much sucks, In the case you talked about its hard to get the properly sized and equiped bike in her intended price range with puppet master giving his oppinion. Good luck.

11

I gotta say, I see this differently. I’ve worked retail, including bike and run shops. I don’t think this has to be a gender issue. I’ve seen women do the same thing with their guys in a bike shop, though admittedly not in the same numbers. Women in particular are often more uncomfortable with bike issues.The situation was most often reversed at the run shop. I think it’s just a case of one person being more knowledgeable, and being asked to help. I’ve been in situations where I’ve been shopping and allowed a girl to do the talking for me. For example, when I needed to purchase makeup and the time I needed to dye my hair.

This may not have been the case in the particular case you mentioned(this could have just been a case of an obnoxious guy), since she’d been doing tri’s for a year, but in some cases a customer new to tri may *not *have any idea what races they are going to do or have any idea about aerobars, including what they are.

There are certainly cases where there is a particularly shy or submissive woman with an agressive, overbearing man(and vice versa), but you have to understand that those types attract one another. They operate on a certain level and may be very comfortable with that. My aunt and uncle are an example of this. My aunt prefers my uncle to do most of the talking. Someone on the outside might be uncomfortable with that, but what they wouldn’t know is that my uncle treats my aunt with total respect, adores her, and admires her intelligence. There are circumstances, however, when my uncle will take the lead for her and my aunt will make it known that she’s got this one by speaking up. My uncle then lets her take it from there.

13

Tom, I recently had the opposite happen recently. My wife just bought a new Kestral Talon SL, but when we went to one the local shops the salesman just wanted to talk to me about her bike. Now she’s really savey on bicycles, wasn’t sure which bike she wanted, but knew what she wanted in a bicycle, but this guy kept asking me the questions. She is also a much better shopper than I am so I just walked away and looked at the DeRosa’s he has on display. My wife didn’t buy the bicycle from him, she made a great deal somewhere else.

14

Weird to see it go to quite that extreme. But I can be a painfully shy person in real life, and hate to feel like I’m sounding like an idiot. So it’s nice to have someone who is going to do the yakking when I’m making a major purchase in an area I feel like I don’t have expertise in, whether it’s my husband or a female friend.

On car-buying, I probably said ten words to the salesman before we got my Corolla. I let spouse do the talking since he’s the one who likes to pour over the Consumer Reports auto guides, and he is genuinely good at negotiating a very fair price. Let him take care of the dirty wrok, I’ll have fun on the test drive, and then write the check.

When I bought my bike, I did the talking because I knew more than spouse did, but I would have loved to have had a friend who really knew bikes who could have gone with me to the bike store since they would have known the right bike lingo to explain in the best possible way what I was planning on using the bike for.