Bicycle Mechanics - How many of you are actually bike mechanics

A quick poll to see how many are actual bike mechanics with worthwhile advice. I only work on my own and you should take my advice with a grain of salt, what little advice I actually give.

Really, which among you have done this for a living?

"Forum: Bicycle Mechanics

Broken bottom bracket? Tacoed wheel? If you're having problems with your bicycle, or just need help fixing a flat, drop in here for the latest on bicycle mechanics & bicycle maintenance."

I took their use of the term "bicycle mechanics" to mean bicycle mechanicals, not guys in bike shops fixing bikes for money. They're telling you the subject, not the people who post here.

If you don't want amateur advice, why don't you go to a bike shop and pay for your help?

Don't assume that advice from a professional bike mechanic is automatically better or more on point than that from a non-professional mechanic. I've been in the bike industry for 40 plus years, and my job brings me into constant contact with bike mechanics.

I can tell you for a fact that many of the folks turning wrenches in bike shops are only barely competent, and some not even that. Many are "self taught" or learned at the side of others no better than themselves. Others are fine up to a certain level, but unfortunately don't know their own limitations. This isn't intended as a general indictment of most of those turning wrenches at the LBS, but more of a "caveat emptor".

On the flip side there are a good number of amateur mechanics who work only on their own bikes, but are extremely knowledgeable. Many have crossover skills and knowledge from technical careers, others are serious hobbyists with lots of practical experience.

BTW- the problem of unqualified or borderline qualified technical staff isn't limited to the bike field. Anyone who's needed to hire out work for anything from appliance repair to home construction, or auto repair knows how broad the skills range is. As an old friend of mine always used to say, "what do you call the guy who graduated dead last from medical school, barely made it through his internship at a crappy hospital, and only passed his boards on the third try?.........Doctor"

Forums like this one are good sources for advice, but you need to take it with more than one grain of salt.

I am a Master Mechanic ,I has work in shops, I own my own shop and I still love working on bikes to this day. I been doing this for 35 years and I haven't found a bike yet that I can not fix.

My harmony professor in college was a retired NASA engineer. He held no music degrees and taught himself piano and harmony through books. He understood and taught it just as well, if not better, than our conservatory trained harmony professor.

Still, I spent a couple of years working as a mechanic for a bike shop, and many years before and after that working on my teammates', my family's, and my own bikes. Since my shop experience is now over 10 years old, there are a few things I refrain from giving advice on, like disc brakes and rear suspension. Take my advice however you want.

Also, I believe very few bike shop mechanics do it "for a living", considering the low pay. Even the head mechanic at the shop I worked at had to be an apartment manager to make ends meet for his single, small studio, car free lifestyle.

I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. :innocent:

I've owned my own bike shop and I've worked in some others. I'm pretty good with a certain class of bikes, particularly after they've had a few years of wear. That's the bread and butter of the bike business.

There's a lot of stuff that I have very limited experience with. For example, I've probably only worked on a handful of Campy-equipped bikes in my life so I don't respond to Campy related questions.

Bikes are my hobby, but I fix Fords for a living.

not me! :-)

I don't work on bikes for a living but I'm damn good.

I opened a bike shop a couple of years ago and work, along with three other guys, as a mechanic in my shop. I also do sales, bookkeeping, floor sweeping, cashier duties, errand boy duties, etc. etc. in the shop, as does everybody else here.

I get paid to work on bikes, did a two year apprenticeship before I could call myself a pro. I have learned a ton just through wrenching and encountering all the problems bikes can present you with, but a lot of my 'knowledge' was acquired through the internet. Also, i do not have a lot of advice as talking on the internet about a bike you cannot see or touch is pretty meaningless.

well I tried to do it for a living in the late '80s early '90s but then decided I need to actually earn a decent income. I worked in a few different shops, managed the parts dept of one, was a assistant manager, a 'team' mechanic for one of the shops clubs and attended some races with them, I also worked in a few neutral support vehicles.

I have assemebled bikes from boxes, from a frame and bike 'kit' and from a custom selected kit or just picking parts off the shelf. repaired a few bent dropouts and faced and chased my share of BB shells and headtubes and steerers.

I've never been a paid mechanic, but I understand the logical bits behind why certain things will work and certain things do not.
I don't understand every single aspect of bikes (mainly genres that I have no interest in), but what I do know, I have tried myself or read up on how it works.

not me! :-)

Not me, too! :-)

I was an auto mechanic for 10 years before I was a bike mechanic. Just as I never met a good auto mechanic who went completely 'by the book', I've never met a good mechanic who fixes bikes by a manual. Cars and Bicycles both require problem-solving skills that don't involve a 3-Step process. If a person has good spacial-relations sense, good mechanical aptitude, and a good imagination, they tend to be a pretty good mechanic. The 'good imagination' tends to be the most important, and the least evidenced, aspect of being a good bike mechanic.

Now I have my own shop, but I'm still a bike mechanic. I've always tended toward "hands-on" jobs that produce a result from my labour. Auto mechanic, bike mechanic, web designer, web developer, computer technician, etc. I like fixing problems.

Hey, Platy - how's the business going?

I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. :innocent:


very funny

I don't even know what a bicycle is

I'm actually a mechanical engineer (now retired). I've been wrenching on bikes for 25 years. What helps me is the 30 years I spent in the field of small machined metal components (mostly for nuclear weapons). That gives me a good feel for tolerances and fits. I'm also interested in auto mechanics, but only as a hobby, not a profession. I was swapping engines when I was 16. When I give up cycling, I'm going back to building street rods. I've got that planned for late 2012.

I'm actually a mechanical engineer (now retired). I've been wrenching on bikes for 25 years. What helps me is the 30 years I spent in the field of small machined metal components (mostly for nuclear weapons). That gives me a good feel for tolerances and fits. I'm also interested in auto mechanics, but only as a hobby, not a profession. I was swapping engines when I was 16. When I give up cycling, I'm going back to building street rods. I've got that planned for late 2012.

You plan 2 years ahead?

Hey, Platy - how's the business going?

Starting to pick up a bit. The DePauw kiddies are starting to get ready for their Little 5 now. Hopefully I'll be completely swamped in a week or two. :p

Not me. Its a hobby; but my wife sent me to mechanic school (UBI) as a b'day gift so I have some training. That said, I only feel comfortable commenting on issues I deal with regularly with my own bikes.

I haven't worked professionally as a bike mechanic for many years now, but I have worked in many shops and built bikes for nationally and world ranked competitors in my day.

I'll second FBNY's point about actual-bike-mechanic work not necessarily correlating with quality of bike-mechanic knowledge. I worked for three years as a shop mechanic in high school. But now I know WAY more than I did then. But it's all self-taught (and forum-learned) stuff, and mainly within the range of stuff that I've worked on for myself and my friends.

@Doohickie - awesome.

I don't even know what a bicycle is
Here's a crude representation.

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/photos/2006/tech/reviews/cervelo_soloist_carbon/cervelo_soloist_carbon11.jpg

Done it for a living.

Top lessons learned that are relevant here:
- Most riders who call themselves mechanics will have only wrenched on a few dozen bikes max.
- A shop mechanic will wrench on that number in a few days.
- Anyone who can read and turn a wrench can make a nice bike with Dura-Ace work well.
- It takes a real pro to make a 30 year old neglected Peugeot work well.


Or as our lead mechanic Patrick used to say, "Anyone can work on a nice bike. It takes a real pro to fix junk."

-Z

Does anyone else think the title of this subforum implies you have to be a bike mechanic, or is it about the mechanics & mechanisms of bicycles?

Here's a crude representation.

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/photos/2006/tech/reviews/cervelo_soloist_carbon/cervelo_soloist_carbon11.jpg

Wait, I thought they were blue? *goes to check*




Hopefully I'll be completely swamped in a week or two.

Ahh yes, the springtime Tidal Wave Of Repairs :) Get your overflow parking ready.


Regarding the original topic, yeah, lots of good points have been made. Being an LBS mechanic, or never having been one, isn't necessarily indicative of how good or bad peoples' help & advice is here.

- It takes a real pro to make a 30 year old neglected Peugeot work well.


Damn, I must be pretty good then, because I've done 2 of them.:p Just kidding, I really don't know much at all about newer bikes. Brifters? Carbon fiber? WTF?:lol:

not a real mechanic, never really will be. I learned most things well enough for my own use by having to service every part of an old Raleigh that was my first road bike. Much of the time, I had to redo what I had done, because it wasn't quite right or the parts were too old and worn, or just garbage to begin with.

I tend to only chime in when a newb has a question I had at one point (and other people are tired of) and wrestled with it enough to solve it.

The biggest thing is that I am competent enough to fix my own "nice" bike with confidence that it'll get done right, and I don't have to pay for every little thing that goes wrong.

Does having your LBS ask you to do their work for them count?
I'll be back to this forum to brag when I can finaly get a job, portland is just overly saturated with crappy mechanics that get jobs over me cause they're trendy, its unfortunate I get terrible instructions from some of the local wrenches all the time and if I didn't know better I know I would have ruined a good number of components, why do bikes have to be so trendy here??? The ability to put together a brakeless fixie does not make you a mechanic. A friend of mine was told his fork was "Not designed for removal" by a quite reputable shop and yet I had zero trouble.

You plan 2 years ahead?

I planned a bike tour 2 years ahead.

I taught myself about bicycle mechanics after repeated experiences of "professional bike mechanics" at various shops who screwed things up or didn't know things.

I spent many years volunteering as a mechanic with several large organizations and have worked on thousands of bikes (of every type) for nothing more than the joy it brought me... I started working on my own bikes when I was just a tyke as my father encouraged and pretty much insisted that I be able to fix my own bikes and later, my own cars.

He was a master mechanic (he could fix anything that rolled) and a very good teacher and the owner of our local shop was always generous with giving advice on how to fix this or that.

Getting paid to do this is just a bonus and after working as a paid mechanic decided to open my own shop where I still volunteer some time for those who cannot afford repairs and continue to volunteer at our co-op as a mechanic and instructor and do a lot of on site workshops for other organizations.

The basics are pretty easy to pick up if you have a willingness to learn and an aptitude for the work but becoming very good at this requires a lot of study, precise attention to detail, and lots of experience. I figure what I know is still a little drop in a much larger bucket and appreciate the experience the other amateur and professional mechanics bring to our little table.

Some of the best mechanics I know are amateurs which to me means they do this for the love of the work and their depth of knowledge, usually in a particular area, can be stunning.

A professional mechanic should be able to repair any serviceable bike but we all have our strengths... I farm out a few jobs at my shop as I am not set up to handle suspension work or frame repairs (yet).

And my Peugeot is 53 years old.

I have worked as a mechanic for a few years in the 70's and 80's. Now I just work on my own bikes.

I do like to have varying opinions on how to fix a problem.

Done it for a living.

Top lessons learned that are relevant here:
- Most riders who call themselves mechanics will have only wrenched on a few dozen bikes max.
- A shop mechanic will wrench on that number in a few days.
- Anyone who can read and turn a wrench can make a nice bike with Dura-Ace work well.
- It takes a real pro to make a 30 year old neglected Peugeot work well.


Or as our lead mechanic Patrick used to say, "Anyone can work on a nice bike. It takes a real pro to fix junk."

-Z

I've never done it for a living.

I do not call myself a bicycle mechanic.

But I refurbish bikes as a hobby, I do a lot more than a few dozen a year.

I've never worked on a Dura-Ace bike, definitely out of my price range.

Pretty much all I work on are 30 year old neglected bikes. That's what I like to work on, so that's what I buy. My main ride is 26 years old, started as a neglected, dirty, and non-functioning thrift store bike.

I work on bikes that most mechanics would not waste time messing with. Here's one of my current projects in as found condition, with severely stuck seat post, stuck handlebar stem, etc. I would like to think hobbyists like me do a service resurrecting old bikes. And such a hobbyist can share insights with others that would like to do the same. And I will rehab most of the parts in this picture.

The last professional shop mechanic told me that it was a waste of time to work on anything over about five years old. The technology just changes that fast.

So I guess I waste a lot of time, as I have yet to work on a bike that new. Good thing I am retired....

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4010/4313342639_29e0a4592d_o.jpg

I was swapping engines when I was 16. When I give up cycling, I'm going back to building street rods. I've got that planned for late 2012.

Why wait?

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=3324890&id=794583838

Al's deuce.

started working on my bikes since middle school. started volunteering as a wrench at a non profit shop a few months ago. we cut locks off of abandoned bikes on campus and fix them up and sell them. lots of rusty heaps but they all get loved in the end. i got a paid position starting monday at another shop.

I've never done it for a living.

I do not call myself a bicycle mechanic.

But I refurbish bikes as a hobby, I do a lot more than a few dozen a year.

I've never worked on a Dura-Ace bike, definitely out of my price range.

Pretty much all I work on are 30 year old neglected bikes. That's what I like to work on, so that's what I buy. My main ride is 26 years old, started as a neglected, dirty, and non-functioning thrift store bike.

I work on bikes that most mechanics would not waste time messing with. Here's one of my current projects in as found condition, with severely stuck seat post, stuck handlebar stem, etc. I would like to think hobbyists like me do a service resurrecting old bikes. And such a hobbyist can share insights with others that would like to do the same. And I will rehab most of the parts in this picture.

The last professional shop mechanic told me that it was a waste of time to work on anything over about five years old. The technology just changes that fast.

So I guess I waste a lot of time, as I have yet to work on a bike that new. Good thing I am retired....

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4010/4313342639_29e0a4592d_o.jpg

I would totally rock that bike...

(I fix up old bikes for resale in my shop. Guess I waste a lot of time, too.)

.

I work on bikes that most mechanics would not waste time messing with. Here's one of my current projects in as found condition, with severely stuck seat post, stuck handlebar stem, etc. I would like to think hobbyists like me do a service resurrecting old bikes. And such a hobbyist can share insights with others that would like to do the same. And I will rehab most of the parts in this picture.


It's amazing what some folks will throw away. A bit of TLC form someone with good hands and that's a serious quality bike. A perfect step up for someone who otherwise couldn't afford to get serious about the sport or even racing.

Your work demonstrates the difference between a mechanic who can make a bike work, and someone who can assemble a bike to work to the mfrs. spec. It isn't a matter of whether one is a pro, meaning getting paid to wrench, it's a question of the skill set he brings to the task.

Haven't got a paycheck for it since 2001, but about to get $20 or some beer, or something for the job of adjusting derailleurs and trueing rear wheel on an olde Schwinn World Tour. I can do a lot of things, but don't know much about carbon fibre stuff, wheels with fewer than 28 spokes and drivetrains with more than 8 cogs.

No, but I play one on TV!

Papiere bitte!

Papiere bitte!

Papers please?

A quick poll to see how many are actual bike mechanics with worthwhile advice. I only work on my own and you should take my advice with a grain of salt, what little advice I actually give.

Really, which among you have done this for a living?

I have, and I find most shop mechanics are hacks.

I am a guitar repairman and working on guitars is much harder than bikes. Within a reason a bike can be handled by someone with skills in a relatively short time. To repair guitars requires much more study. Not to down grade any bike mechanic at all they are great people. The difference lies in the price to get repairs done. I charge to repair guitars much more than any bike shop in town for anything. The key is neither of them will make someone a decent living unless you really "get" into all apects and devote your entire professional life to the practice. From what I see bike mechanics may do this but it still pays almost nothing.

I only work on my own bike and could do things for others but it would be the most simply and anybody here could do. I would like to build a wheel sometime rather than simply true one so someday. The only thing that pays less is the Deacon job but the bishop did not promise any pay either so I should not expect huge checks.

Im a mechanic at the LBS. I've been at it on and off for the last 12 years. Things will change when I finally get out of school and move on with life. I love the job but there is no way in hell someone can make a living at it.

In the real world I was a boilermaker, pipefitter, machinist helper, and weldor. I work on bikes because I like to. Except for the fact that there are almost no standards, they are reletively easy to work on.
. I know a few very good bike wrenches and quite a few duds. It's not a job that pays a lot for most folks.

A quick poll to see how many are actual bike mechanics with worthwhile advice.

136?