Do you ever amaze yourself what a competent mechanic you have become?

[Manonabike]

I was thinking this weekend that when I started looking after my bikes 7 years ago I was very please to be able to do very basic bike maintenance. For anything more complicated I'd take the bike to my LBS. Nowadays the thought of taking the bike to the LBS would not cross my mind.

I'm sure many of you feel the same way..... perhaps never intended becoming a bike mechanic and yet you now are.

I know that some of the members here, due to the number of bikes they look after or simply because they have been building/ fixing/ maintaining bikes for a very long time, are now fine bike mechanics.

I think it was last summer when I was at my LBS buying some oil when I saw a guy been handed a bill for nearly £300. I automatically looked at the bike and I made a mental calculation of how much it would have cost me to do the same job . The bill was for a full service + new cassette, new chain, new tyres and rear wheel truing. I reckon most of the savings would have been made by buying the parts on the Internet.

Besides the money one can save I think the feeling of riding a bike that one builds, maintains and fixes from time to time, is a great feeling indeed.

Looking back through the years I think the hardest problem I had to overcome was removing a 15 years old bb.

So, what things do you think should be best left to a professional bike mechanic? Also, what is the biggest problem you have overcome?

 

[MattHB]

I'd really like to have a go at wheel building, but the thought of it makes me nervous! Other than that there's nothing I'd not do myself. The problem though is sometimes to buy the tools is so expensive it's hard to justify it if its a once off job.

 

[Tribanite]

ask me in a year or threeeee

 

[youngoldbloke]

I have always done my own work on bikes - being a Meccano Boy helped I'm sure - and I was amazed at the figures quoted by a couple of guys on the Sunday ride discussing how much their bike shops charged for routine services. The big problem hasn't happened to me yet - touch wood, fingers crossed etc etc - maybe because servicing my bikes is in effect a continuous process, and if you do it yourself you are very aware of problems as they develop and can deal with (most of) them. However, I would probably leave bottom bracket facing and similar work, and frame repairs, to the LBS.

 

[Brandane]

Bicycles are easy to strip down and rebuild, in comparison to Yamaha motorbikes.
Even the simplest of jobs require a frustrating amount of dismantling to get at the part you need to reach. All bolts and fasteners are made of cheese, resulting in a lot of rounding of heads and snapping of studs. And I haven't even mentioned balancing carburettors yet . Oh, and if you decide to take it to a franchised dealer for service or repairs, prepare to re-mortgage your house. They make car dealers look charitable!

 

[Glow worm]

No- I am absolutely bloody useless at anything more than a puncture repair or replacing a cable. I tried to true a slightly buckled wheel once- ended up with a figure of eight! Reckon if I had a garage or shed, somewhere to store tools and with a proper fetttling stand etc I'd be a bit better.
Anything like cassette / bracket changes among other more major stuff - its straight to the LBS.

 

[Sandra6]

No, but other people are constantly amazed at how useless I actually am.
Surely they should be more aware of it by now?!
I did mend another puncture today though.

 

[vickster]

Me? No hahahaha I like to support full employment amongst LBS staff I have had one fairy visit, fortunately 2 mins from the LBS

(although I can pump up tyres, attach a bottle cage and change a saddle - I shall be having a go at fitting a computer at the weekend and possibly a rack )

 

[Gary E]

There's no way I'd ever let anyone else touch my bikes, for any work required.
I'm sure there are some fine mechanics out there but none of them have the same incentive as me to do a thorough job. When I'm doing 50 mph down a hill I'm happy in the knowledge that I know, first hand, that everything's been bolted together properly
And besides, very few bike shops show the level of OCD in their maintenance that I do (exactly the same amount of wraps of the bar tape, starting and finishing in the same place, soldered and then capped cable ends, grease applied evenly to the threads before torque loading, the 'K' in Kenda lining up perfectly with the valve caps to name but a few ).

 

[subaqua]

I was many years ago when i realised what i could do, but i was always good with my hands . currently deciding if i buy a spraygun to repaint sons frame or pop it into the body shop at the end of the road.

head sets would be the one thing that scares me as i don't have a press. i could do it other ways but thats a job for the LBS if i ever buy a bare frame. next on the list is a wheel jig for wheel truing/building need to learn truing 1st though.

 

[MrJamie]

When I took up cycling again a couple of years ago, my old MTB kept falling apart on me 1 thing at a time and bought the parts online and replaced them myself following guides and videos, in just a few months i'd replaced pads, tyres, tubes, bottlecages, cables, bottom bracket, pedals, seatpost, saddle and a rear wheel which was the sole purchase from a LBS. I've not done much to my newer bike, replaced chain and cassette, fixed bottlecage rivnuts, replaced pedals, bar grips and saddle and installed front disc brakes.

It does seem it's got a lot easier though with things being more standardised, cartridge BBs, hyperglide cassettes, quicklinks on chains etc. My dad used to be into club cycling in the 60s and is always surprised how easy the repairs I've been doing are.

I don't necessarily think my work is done to a better standard or with more care than a bike shop, but by understanding what's been done and learning how the bike parts work I get more confidence in taking it farther afield and recognising anything that needs adjusting so I can keep it working perfectly. It would drive me mad if I had to keep going to a LBS for things like indexing gears or adjusting brakes as they wear. As you say it's also vastly cheaper a lot of the time

 

[Cubist]

I always enjoyed working on bikes. Maintenance was always a job to be done at home. When I got back into cycling five or so years ago many tasks were a bit of a mystery. Sorting a front mech was beyond me. Riding mtbs means you learn to do it yourself or spend a fortune. I've now built three bikes from scratch, only the expense of bearing presses sending me to the lbs nowadays. I can cheerfully strip an air fork to service it, but haven't yet learnt wheel building.
Cubester, 15 , has just bought himself a new frame. He has, under my tutelage, stripped all the components from his old frame and we will spend the rest of half term with him building and learning.

 

[Manonabike]

I'd really like to have a go at wheel building, but the thought of it makes me nervous! Other than that there's nothing I'd not do myself. The problem though is sometimes to buy the tools is so expensive it's hard to justify it if its a once off job.

The tools are certainly expensive but you don't have to buy too many at once. I started buying the odd tool and then I got myself one of those Lidl tool set which is OK while you replace some of the tools with better quality tools, ie cone spanners.

When I bought my headset presser I thought it was a bit too much for one tool but since then I have used the tool 3 times. When you consider that my LBS wanted £15 to fit a headset, now the tool doesn't look so expensive after all :-)

If you want to buy a wheel truing stand to build wheels then my advice is to go for something good right away. I started buying a jig that wasn't really very good, I felt I would have been better off putting the money towards a good jig from the start. Since I got my Parker professional truing stand building wheels is easier, at least it feels that way to me with enough experience one can build a wheel using any jig I guess, even a bike fork.

 

[Dave 123]

I try.... and that's when the trouble starts! I always have been mechanically challenged. I changed the v brake on my wifes bike last week, but had to refer to youtube first of all which I suppose is ok.
Moving parts translate as gobbldygook in my head yet I can finger pick complex tunes on guitar, design and build gardens from scratch (professionally) and be married for over 20 years.
I guess it depends on what you find complex.

 

[addictfreak]

I will usually do most things, especially on the road bikes. Having a little bother with disc brakes on MTB at the moment, but they should be fettled by the end of the week! (Or thrown out the window)