Just Read the Instructions

I distinctly remember the moment when I realized that most adult men follow their intuition first, and read the instructions later. I was too young to legally be working construction, so technically I was on the jobsite to sweep up sawdust and wire trimmings, and pile up cutoffs and burn them. But I was working with a bunch of lifetime tradesmen. Framers, painters, plumbers, electricians - guys who knew how to do stuff. They taught me how to cut a straight line with a circular saw, how to trim out a doorway, and how to walk on sheetrock stilts. They failed to teach me how to roll a homemade cigarette with one hand while driving, how to talk to girls, and how to keep all your fingers while using a table saw, but that’s a different story. The point is, these guys were capable, confident, and somewhat competent.

So, when I walked into the kitchen we were remodeling and found all four of them straining against the expensive new microwave we were supposed to install, I was surprised by the volume of frustration and profanity. They had it propped up on some scrap wood, while they tried to wiggle and push it into the track mounted to the wall. It was not going well. Lots of swearing, and the occasional pop of breaking plastic.

The packaging from the microwave was spread over the kitchen floor, so I started to gather it up. And there, in all its printed glory, was a large booklet labeled “Instructions.” I put it on the counter, took the rest of the trash to my truck, and headed out to run it to the dump. When I returned, the microwave was still not installed, but my coworkers had given up. I rifled through the instruction booklet, and there, on the first page was a diagram of how the quick release brackets that the microwave mounted on worked. They weren’t intuitive, you had to lift a plate off the front of the unit and use a long screwdriver to pop them open, but the instructions had illustrations, and didn’t seem that complicated.

So I popped the brackets and used all of my pubescent strength to hoist the microwave up to its place, where it snapped into place with a satisfying clunk. Done and done, back to sweeping sawdust and marveling at how messy the electrician was.

That was the first time that I became fully aware of the power of reading the instructions, but it’s returned to haunt me many times since, and is a core part of my relationship with writing about gear.

Premium mountain bike gear is expensive, complicated, and often unintuitive. We, as an industry, don’t do a great job of reading the instructions, and making those instructions available. There are a few products with important, but easy to ignore instructions that stand out to me over the past year: SRAM’s Transmission “ tighten, loosen, tighten” installation sequence. Manitou’s “inflate the IRT before you inflate the main chamber” recommendation. SRAM’s “Do the friggin piston massage before you complain about how your Mavens feel” situation, and most recently, the detailed “tighten to 5Nm, then do the other side, then take both to 10Nm” sequence of the RockShox Boxxer crown installation.

If I had been handed any of those products, without instructions, or more importantly, without an exhortation to read the instructions because they matter, I probably would have flubbed all of these installations, and been frustrated with their performance. Those products aren’t outliers, most mountain bike parts need to be installed and maintained by someone who has read the instructions. Some brands do a really good job of this (SRAM’s excellent technical videos come to mind) and others do a much worse job of making their instructions both available and digestible.

At the end of the day, most premium mountain bike gear needs to be set up the right way to function properly. I’m sure brands could make gear that’s easier to set up, at the expense of performance, but right now, that’s not the mainstream paradigm. So, if you want your bike gear to work right, read the instructions, and try following them before you get mad at the people that made that gear.

The flip side of this is that reading the instructions often gives riders an opportunity to bend or break the guidelines around how those products are meant to be used. You’ve got to know the rules to break them effectively, and the best way to get to know those rules is to read the dang instructions. They’re the most accessible window into how a product works, and a great jumping-off place for future modifications.

So excuse me, I’ve got a thick booklet in multiple languages about how to use a bike computer that I need to go digest. And next time you’re having trouble installing a microwave, consider reading the instructions.

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