Bicycle Mechanics - Wrenching as a career?

I've been considering a sort of life change, I'm only 23, but don't like the path I've been on. I'm not real sure where I'm going in life, but I do know that someday I want to open my own LBS (I'm new to this forum, so that is LocalBikeShop, right?). I've started to consider going up to Oregon to the bike mechanics school up there, I think it's called United Bicycle Institute. Is the certification there actually worth anything? I know that I can learn it all on my own, but if I wind up opening my own shop, I'd want the certification to show that I actually know what I'm doing. Will the certification help much in getting a job as a mechanic in the mean time? Would it help me to make more money just as a mechanic? Or should I try to get a job as a mechanic with the very limited knowledge that I have now? TIA

nobody? Maybe there aren't a lot of profesional mechanics here. Any insight anybody has would be appreciated.

Its 2am, mechanics need there sleep. Give it a day or two. I am sure you will get the answers you look for. Have you searched the forums as well? I know this topic has come up a few times in the past.

I've been considering a sort of life change, I'm only 23, but don't like the path I've been on. I'm not real sure where I'm going in life, but I do know that someday I want to open my own LBS (I'm new to this forum, so that is LocalBikeShop, right?). I've started to consider going up to Oregon to the bike mechanics school up there, I think it's called United Bicycle Institute. Is the certification there actually worth anything? I know that I can learn it all on my own, but if I wind up opening my own shop, I'd want the certification to show that I actually know what I'm doing. Will the certification help much in getting a job as a mechanic in the mean time? Would it help me to make more money just as a mechanic? Or should I try to get a job as a mechanic with the very limited knowledge that I have now? TIA

This probably isnt what you want to hear but here goes. I am very loyal to the guy I bought my bike from. He is the only one allowed to touch my 5200 for anything. If he isnt available I will bring my bike back later. I have no idea if he is certified, didnt ask, dont care.

I was a ASE certified automotive mechanic many years ago (bad life choice for me) with 8 certs, meant nothing, still stunk as a mechanic. Now I am in the technology field and as far as I know I am the highest paid tech/programmer in this area, with no certs of any kind. As a matter of fact, the in company I work for there is one tech with an A+, none of the others have any. We actively discourage certified techs from applying for a job. When I am asked to review resumes and/or applications, anyone with cert goes into file 13 immediately. Lots of reasons for this, but it is a fact.

So in my opinion if you can do the job well, certs are a waste of time and money. If your customers know you can do the job, they wont care. If you mess up their bike no quantity or quality of certs is going to make them happy about it.

Allan

Flea I partialy agree with you, a cert does not mean someone knows what they are doing, but it normaly does not hurt either. I'm in the computer field also the reason the certs are pretty much worthless is that anyojne can get them in a couple months. YOu go pay some school $6000-10000 you will have most of the certs they basicaly cram the knowledge in you're head long enough to pass the tests. So idiots going in, idiots coming out :) There are exceptions of course, some truly study for the tests and realize that 90% of what the test covers is useless in the real world, but they need to learn the "Microsoft Way" for the MSCE tests for example. Now there are exceptions to these standards tests like the RHCE which if you don't know you're stuff you will not pass. THere is 3 portions to that test, writtten then you build up a linux box to their specs, last part they break a linux box and you have to fix it. HR on average when they do the interviewing they like "certs", but when the techies do the interviewing they just skim them.

Okie I got way off subject here, but certs do mean something to the HR personallel 90% of the time since they don't truly know the job they are hiring for. Let's say a mechanic the HR person knows papers.. filing etc (no offense to any HR people I know you know alot more), but they do not know how to fix a bike so go by what the resume says. You could go to school, or you could go to the LBS in you're area and ask to start at the very bottom sweeping floors it's up to you.

it may be different elsewhere, but making a career out of wrenching is tough. the pay just isn't there until you've had a few years experience at a shop. the head mechanic at my shop still has to take a part time job in the winter when our hours get cut back just to make ends meet. i've got no chance of moving out of my dad's house any time soon, not until i start working elsewhere. since i'm in school that's not entirely an option.

i was working pretty much full time during the summer, and i was lucky if i saw a paycheck (paid biweekly) over $450. unfortunately for me, most of that wound up going right back to my bosses as i made full use of the employee discount.

if you REALLY love bikes and have an alternate source of income, wrenching can be a very fulfilling job. i just wouldn't (i can't) count on it as a primary source of income.

i now alot of mcse's etc who know jack **** about anything, and the way they approach everything is ridiculous. You are either good at something or not. paying all that money for some crappy cert doesnt prove anything.

Going to the school will give you expanded knowledge that would be hard for you to gain in a shop. Plus, I believe, they have a frame class which expands your capabilities even further.
The certification will look good on the wall and some customers may be impressed by it. For getting a job, I don't know if it is worth much except for your own sef-confidence.

For opening a shop you need to take all the courses in Accounting, Business and Salesmanship that you can find. These things you won't learn in a shop unless you have an incredibly liberal employer who is enthused and excited by the business and is willing to share it. Most aren't.

But most of all, you need a huge curiosity of your own about all aspects of the bicycle, business in general and are motivated enough to get your local community involved through education and advocacy.

Of course, nothing is really required to open a shop except money to get started; a willingness to work for pennies and a real sense of optimism.

The twenties were rough years for me. I didn't know what I wanted to do and I was afraid of making a single decision that would determine the course of the rest of my life. It wasn't that way, but at 23, what did I know? I loved my bicycle, it had taught me to fly. I thought the world would be a better place if we all cycled. I loved their simple mechanics. Naturally, I tried to find work in a bike shop. It took about three months of slapping together Raleigh's and fixing Huffy's that the romance died. Bicycles had become work and work can be a drag. The money was good enough for a 23 year old, but I didn't have many obligations. I didn't care that there was no health insurance. I also found I don't like the type of people that work in bike shops; drug addicts (more serious than the weed we all smoked), thieves, backstabbers, arrogant born-agains, narrow minded managers desperate to keep their jobs. In most cases it's a transient job that attracks a fringe element (you've got to question anyone over about 27 that works for just above minimum wage and no insurance). My Christmas bonus?, cheddar cheese and salami; I threw it in the garbage. You don't see it as a customer, but working side by side with these guys you see their darker side. The worst part of the job was envy. On beautiful summer days people would come in with a flat tire, in need of another water bottle, brake shoe dragging, and I'd get them set to get back on the road. They were riding while I was wrenching. I soon hated that most of all. During "season" you worked long hours to keep them on the road while your bike gathered dust. It wasn't until long after I quit that my love for the bicycle returned.

At 23 I wouldn't pay for a Mechanics certification. Get yourself some tools, couple of books, and a Park workstand, you won't have to look far to find people that'll let you work on their bikes for free. Keep your eye open for bike shop opportunities, lie to get the job if you have to. See if you like it, if so, maybe the school is a good idea, if not, at least you won't have a loan to pay back. If I could do it all over again I'd try to get with a pro team, you get to work on great bikes and travel. Best of luck

ALot of times you do not want to do what you love for a living, you really start hating it because it becomes a job. Realisticaly the classes you are looking at are not that expensive, you are not going to be 20-30k in debt afterwards. Since you mentioned your long term goal is to start your own LBS, might be better idea go to your LBS take any job you can get. Also during that time go to your local college and start taking business classes.

Being a mechanic is only one part of running a LBS, there is ALOT more you will need to learn. In the end whichever way you decide to go if it ends up being a mistake you won't be seriously in debt afterwards and you have plenty of time to change your path.

Wrenching for a bike shop nearly always pays sh*t, has long, odd hours (especially in the summer), few hours in the winter, and zero chance for advancement. If you stick with wrenching for, oh, maybe 10 years, you may end up being chosen to be a manufacturer's rep, or, if your rich daddy dies and leaves you some money, you might buy a shop, then work twice the # of hours for less pay.

I wouldn't consider it a wise career move unless you are absolutely certain of your skills.

I can't speak from experience as a mechanic, but I love wrenching bikes and do it a lot. I fix neighbour's bikes, friends bikes, people I meet on the street's bikes... and I'd never go to work for a shop. I think it'd kill the enjoyment I get from it. Plus I don't now what's inside of an ergopower lever, tho I can build a mean wheel.

When I dropped out of art school, I got a job working in a record store. I loved music when I started. When I was fired four and a half years later, I hated music and didn't listen to any for a couple of years. Retail type environments pay lousy, your hours are set by someone else, benefits are non-existent or just plain suck. I make more drawing cartoons than I ever did working retail, and that's basically what a wrench job is.

Perhaps if you worked for a superb shop with a good owner, it'd be a blast, even for low pay. But my experience with retail suggests that Satan is a part owner of nearly every retail establishment in existence, and it's best to run away fast from such "careers".

Heck, I've considered taking the certification classes, just for fun. I get craploads of vacation time now...

The bike industry is like a pack of incestuous cheetas. Even at the highest levels, it doesn't pay ****, because everyone there WANTS to be working on bikes. What's worse, get ready to see people high up on the food chain who have absolutely no reason to be there except that they were with a company for a while. How many bike designers have ANY engineering background?

Anyway, I worked as a shop mechanic and also as a team mechanic on the road. Here's some pros and cons of each:

shop mechanic:
pro: low stress
con: **** money, beating on crap ass bikes more often than cool ones, does anyone REALLY want to keep assembling low-price-point bikes for any period of time?

team mechanic:
pros: be part of a team (from a morale, personal, and sporting standpoint), if it's a well sponsored team get to work with decent stuff
cons: pressure-cooker environment, stressed out riders, **** pay, getting dragged all over and being one of THE most overworked members of the team (we're talking 16 hour+ days regularly).

My time as a team wrench taught me alot about myself. It also gives me an amazing frame of reference for stress-levels in jobs. I have a pretty high stress job now (youngest engineering manager in my company), but it is NOTHING compared to my time as a team wrench. Having the CEO screaming doesn't even come close to having something go wrong with a rider's bike (your fault or not).

Interesting stat: what type of business has the highest % of failures? bike shops.

My bit of advice(passed on from my father): keep cycling as your hobby, keep enjoying it. Get a real job to pay the bills and let you enjoy your hobbies.

if your rich daddy dies and leaves you some money, you might buy a shop, then work twice the # of hours for less pay.

that's funny, most of the shop owners i know of are hardly ever there...(see my friend's shop's owner back in boston, and my prospective employer here in berkeley, and most of the other shops in the berkeley area).

Certification is good but experience trumps it every time. If you are just a mechanic, the pay is low, stress depends on how much you care about the work you do. If you make it to service manager, the pay is better but plan on a frugal life. You will have more stress, all the repairs, no matter who does them, become your responsibility, you will work more and ride less, deal with irate customers, handle ordering/inventory, stay late, try to keep the slacker partimers your boss has saddled you with doing something(anything!), clean the bathroom, and you still have to hit the floor and sell stuff.
All that said, the job is, overall, a good one.

^
Basically what Chuck said...after a while you learn whether you really love cycling or if you just kind of like it, because there's not many economic incentives to be employed at a shop. Plus, as has been mentioned, you get to work on others' bikes more than on your own and get to help others ride while you only have your commute. That can grate on you and I find sometimes leads to me postponing work on my bikes.

The twenties were rough years for me. I didn't know what I wanted to do and I was afraid of making a single decision that would determine the course of the rest of my life. It wasn't that way, but at 23, what did I know? I loved my bicycle, it had taught me to fly. I thought the world would be a better place if we all cycled. I loved their simple mechanics. Naturally, I tried to find work in a bike shop. It took about three months of slapping together Raleigh's and fixing Huffy's that the romance died. Bicycles had become work and work can be a drag. The money was good enough for a 23 year old, but I didn't have many obligations. I didn't care that there was no health insurance. I also found I don't like the type of people that work in bike shops; drug addicts (more serious than the weed we all smoked), thieves, backstabbers, arrogant born-agains, narrow minded managers desperate to keep their jobs. In most cases it's a transient job that attracks a fringe element (you've got to question anyone over about 27 that works for just above minimum wage and no insurance). My Christmas bonus?, cheddar cheese and salami; I threw it in the garbage. You don't see it as a customer, but working side by side with these guys you see their darker side. The worst part of the job was envy. On beautiful summer days people would come in with a flat tire, in need of another water bottle, brake shoe dragging, and I'd get them set to get back on the road. They were riding while I was wrenching. I soon hated that most of all. During "season" you worked long hours to keep them on the road while your bike gathered dust. It wasn't until long after I quit that my love for the bicycle returned.

At 23 I wouldn't pay for a Mechanics certification. Get yourself some tools, couple of books, and a Park workstand, you won't have to look far to find people that'll let you work on their bikes for free. Keep your eye open for bike shop opportunities, lie to get the job if you have to. See if you like it, if so, maybe the school is a good idea, if not, at least you won't have a loan to pay back. If I could do it all over again I'd try to get with a pro team, you get to work on great bikes and travel. Best of luck

This thread is extremely redeeming in light of other post here on this board. You're ok.

Hey, guys. Thanks for the insight. I know there's a lot of stuff to consider before doing something like this, that's why I thought I'd see what other people thought. I really need to call around and see what people actually make as mechanics and such. I'm ok with living a simple life. I'd like to say that money isn't important to me, but I do want a family some day,so it is still important. All of the things you've brought up I will take into consideration. And I must admit that I posted this here pretty quick after the idea sort of came to me, so there were a lot of things I had not yet considered before posting. Thanks again. Anybody else have something to add?

The only professional training worth paying for is the clinic at www.usacycling .com. That training will allow you to wrench at sanctioned events. The best training is hands on...if you want to learn how to fix bikes work on the junk. Expensive bikes are nice and all but they are easy to fix.

Those of us that trained in the pre-index, pre-cassette, pre-suspention days and continued to wrench through the (re)-introduction of it have skills that cannot be taught. Your 23, you have lots of years left. A year wrenching will not hurt.

I really need to call around and see what people actually make as mechanics and such.

six dollars per hour.

i've made more money stocking shelves at a pet store.

I'm 24 now and working in a LBS as a salesperson. Spent 4 years in high school as a wrench as well so I've been working in bike shops a good portion of my working-age life. What have I learned? That there is no better place to work if you enjoy bikes and don't care about making money. The pay isn't great, though for a current part-timer in school it isn't bad either. Of course that all depends on the shop you work at too. The shop I currently work at is great, employed almost entirely by college students and we have a nice store manager as well. It's one of the only jobs I've ever had were I enjoyed going to work and enjoyed what I do.

Around here a mechanics pay can be anywhere from $6-$10 depending on experience and time at the shop, maybe a little more for a shop manager. I've heard that in areas where cycling is really popular and larger cities that mechanics pay can be quite a bit more then that though, not sure if it's true or not. It's not enough to raise a family off of though, unless you put in your time and earn a higher salary.

Basically you could make a carrer out of it if you really wanted to and didn't care about the money too much. Otherwise it's a great job to have while your going to school or something like that. Especially since your off school during the busiest time of year at the shop.

Oh, and the employee discounts are great.....but also dangerous. It's so easy to spend all that you make at the shop.

Certification is good but experience trumps it every time. If you are just a mechanic, the pay is low, stress depends on how much you care about the work you do. If you make it to service manager, the pay is better but plan on a frugal life. You will have more stress, all the repairs, no matter who does them, become your responsibility, you will work more and ride less, deal with irate customers, handle ordering/inventory, stay late, try to keep the slacker partimers your boss has saddled you with doing something(anything!), clean the bathroom, and you still have to hit the floor and sell stuff.
All that said, the job is, overall, a good one.

Very well put Rev. Chuck.

-Ryan

Yea, I second Rev.Chuck, a guy at my shop just got certified, and can name every threading on any bolt on the bike, as he just came back from Barnetts, but still cant actually perform the repairs super well. Ive worked at a shop for about 1 and a half years and its a fun part-time job. However, seeing the manager of the shop would sometimes make me think again before runing a bike shop. However if you really love bikes, and have the energy to run a shop and deal with customers, id say go for it, its quite a rewarding feeling.