The Mountain
Active Member
Until last month, there was a dedicated alignment shop up here that did chassis and front end alignment only. They typically did track/race bikes and other high-performance machines but could do others. I had been waiting for the end of winter to get my bike over to the guy, because I've needed an alignment since last year. I had taken it to a Yamaha Dealer up in Manchester NH in 2019 where I bought the bike, to have an alignment done, and the "alignment" turned out to be a shop "mechanic" making sure I wasn't looking, and then almost certainly just jamming the front wheel against something solid and yanking on the bars until they were more or less straight (it took him somewhat less than 10 minutes to "align" the bike).
Needless to say, that didn't really do much. The front felt mostly straight for a little while, but after doing part of the Hamster, it was back to being out of whack.
Unfortunately for me, the guy I mentioned at the beginning shut down after 30 years in the business, and all his alignment gear is being shipped to a guy down in NYC somewhere to do exclusively race bikes. So I need a shop here in Central/Eastern Massachusetts that can be relied on to do a *proper* front end alignment with the right tools to ensure that not only do they do the alignment correctly but are equipped to identify if anything got jacked up by the idiot up in Manchester.
With gas prices set to climb even further than they already are (betting we'll see $5+ within a month), I figure I should get the bike on the road sooner rather than later.
Needless to say, that didn't really do much. The front felt mostly straight for a little while, but after doing part of the Hamster, it was back to being out of whack.
Unfortunately for me, the guy I mentioned at the beginning shut down after 30 years in the business, and all his alignment gear is being shipped to a guy down in NYC somewhere to do exclusively race bikes. So I need a shop here in Central/Eastern Massachusetts that can be relied on to do a *proper* front end alignment with the right tools to ensure that not only do they do the alignment correctly but are equipped to identify if anything got jacked up by the idiot up in Manchester.
With gas prices set to climb even further than they already are (betting we'll see $5+ within a month), I figure I should get the bike on the road sooner rather than later.