Ahan Analytics, LLC

Over the summer my 18-year old recumbent exercise bike failed. The bike had saved me countless trips to the gym over the years, especially in the early years when I lived many miles away from a gym and bike trails. Now, with the pedaling locked into the hardest effort level, I faced an age-old decision: repair or replace?

I was hopeful that the repair would be simple and cheap. The bike has few moving parts, and the malfunction pointed directly to an issue with the drive motor. I was determined to make the best decision possible, so I referred to the decision chain. Good information was the most important of this decision. However, critically, I did not anticipate a key failure point: I received bad information from what should have been a reliable source. This misdirection cost me $200 and a heap of frustration. My bike still sits in disrepair, and I established a new, creative solution to my original problem.

Setting Up A Quality Decision

The decision chain is a classic tool for making a conducting a rigorous decision analysis that is simple enough to apply to everyday decision-making.

• Helpful Frame. I had a very clear problem to solve: repair the old exercise bike or buy a new one? The decision was not urgent, so I had plenty of time to consider my alternatives. This decision was mine alone, yet I reached out to friends to make sure I considered all the possibilities.
• Clear values. I wanted to continue exercising but in the most economic way possible. I also had a strong desire to avoid adding my old bike to the landfill.
• Creative Alternatives. My alternatives matched my problem frame. However, my decision failure motivated me to reframe my problem and uncover fresh alternatives. More on that later.
• Useful information. My information gathering task seemed straightforward: obtain from customer service a thorough accounting of all repair costs and compare to the cost of a new exercise bike.
• Sound reasoning. Optimizing for cost set the stage for my reasoning process. I expected to conclude that my decision was based on the most economical way to continue my exercise regimen.
• Commitment to Follow Through. Given my revamped health regimen, I had plenty of motivation to implement and execute on my decision.

A decision is only as strong as its weakest link. The weakest link of my decision chain was “useful information.” I would have to rely on others to provide accurate, relevant, and useful information. Unfortunately, this weakest link is exactly what failed me.

The Weakest Link: Blindsided By Bad Information

One of my friends happened to face my same decision a few years ago. He owned the same bike model, and his repair bill was refreshingly reasonable. His pricing experience aligned with the information I received from a customer agent for the bike maker:

• $140 flat fee for a visit and diagnostic
• $135/hour to repair
• $77.22 price for the most expensive part on the bike, the drive motor

Given the simplicity of the bike’s construction, and my friend’s experience, I assumed that I needed a new drive motor for a quick 30-minute repair. Thus, a repair should cost no more than $352.22 ( = $140+ $135 + $77.22) and hopefully less. This repair bill compared favorably to spending $500 to $2000 for a new recumbent bike, depending on the feature set and presumed quality.

Fully confident I received all the information required for a quality decision, I decided to repair the bike. I scheduled the diagnostic visit, and the technician arrived in a few days. He sat down, pedaled for a few seconds, and immediately, and unsurprisingly, concluded that the drive motor needed replacement. He based his confidence on accumulated experienced. However, much to my surprise and great annoyance, he did not have a replacement motor on hand. a drive motor seemed to be a basic part to carry, and his experience should have prepared him for a drive replacement based on my bike model and problem description. The technician’s omission turned out not to matter.

Customer service failed to call me back on the expected day, so I called the next day to get a status report. I was horrified and crestfallen to learn that the drive motor costs $304, NOT $77 (I also needed to pay $11 for a drive cable). Moreover, the diagnostic visit cost $200 and NOT $140 because the hourly labor charges also apply to diagnostic time. So I felt betrayed by bad information and cheated by overpaying for a simplistic diagnostic. My appeal during a subsequent call to customer service fell on deaf ears and was greeted with a templatized response.

Bad Information, Bad Decision

I had a bad cost estimate, and I made a bad decision as a result. I was down $200 and faced another $400+ bill to repair the bike. The $200 was a sunk cost and irrelevant to my next decision. Still, I burned with the frustration of knowing that a $600+ repair estimate would have easily pushed me to decide to buy a new bike. Better to apply that $600 to a new bike with new life than to repair an old bike for an uncertain extension of life. Bad information led to a bad decision. The weakest link in the Decision Chain failed.

Strengthening the Weakest Link

So how could I have strengthened the weakest link in the Decision Chain? I should have conducted quality assurance and double-checked the information. I was lulled into a false sense of security because I wanted to believe my experience would match my friend’s experience. When I heard confirming price information, I failed to further scrutinize the numbers. I primed myself to believe that the customer support agent was fully informed. Rather than believing the numbers at face value, I should have sought a second opinion by calling back and speaking to a new agent. The weakness of this part of the decision chain made it well worth my time to make the extra effort. Since I talked to the first customer agent for 30 minutes, I was primed not to call back and spend yet more time on this problem. I lost perspective.

Revisit the Decision Chain: The Creative Alternatives

My frustration added to my reluctance to pay up the additional $400+ to repair my bike. Suddenly, I realized that I had not fully explored the “creative alternatives” part of the decision chain. I could decide to neither repair nor buy a new bike. Specifically, I already own a free-standing bike. I also have a membership to a gym that owns several exercise bikes. I could change my stationary biking from every other day to a once a week (on the weekend) bike ride on a nearby trail. From there, I could ride the gym’s bikes every other day. The change in routine would include replacing my once a week leg conditioning the gym to a multiple day routine spread out over the days I am in the gym to ride a stationary bike.

Essentially, I “reverse engineered” a rationalization for accepting my new bike-less status quo. I could save money and increase the utilization of my existing gym membership. I even rationalized the short drive to the gym was worth getting out of the house more frequently for exercise! If I had made this creative alternative explicit in my original Decision Chain, I would have been even less likely to choose to repair the bike.

Conclusion

I may still buy a new bike…or at least my wife has “threatened” to buy one for me. Apparently, she does not appreciate my Decision Chain. I could always rationalize paying for a low-end bike, especially a cheap standing stationary bike as a convenient alternative for those cold winter days or when I am otherwise pressed to stay home. For now, while the weather remains favorable, my decision to stick with my new status quo is working out better than I could have expected. I am also enjoying getting out to the gym and in parallel exploring new lunch spots. (Occasionally, I force the issue on my old bike… a choice I pretend makes me stronger).

The lesson? Closely scrutinize EACH link your Decision Chain. Ask yourself multiple times whether you have really spent a sufficient (and reasonable) amount of time and resources to strengthen each link in the Decision Chain. And make sure you fully appreciate the vulnerabilities in your weakest link!

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