rccardr 

Robbie, just a little flip here.

You're one of the very few people who've seen the Secret Underground Laboratory.

How would you rate my mechanic's skills vs. an LBS?

-holiday76

Right.

-holiday76

Customer service : tossup. My LBS guy is the King of Uncomfortable Silence, awkward burping noises while the customer browses, and unreadable emotions. But I can throw out an insult like it's my day job (it is).

Advertising : Me. My LBS guy barely knows how to operate a computer, has a horrible sign in a ghetto looking strip mall and needs me to renew his domain name every year (which has never been hooked up to an actual website since he's too cheap to get a website for free).

Over Charging : LBS guy. No competition. I mean, he has bills to pay , no costumer service skills and no revenue from advertising, so can you blame him? I on the other hand rarely charge for anything, let alone overcharge.

Old stuff : Me. My LBS guy is intrigued and confused by my love of all things vintage. He probably thinks I'm either autistic or homeless every time i show up bloody knuckled and crazed with that rusty Tibetan freewheel I couldn't remove. Then he remembers I'm his only revenue stream aside from the one actual person who found his add in the "Penny Pincher" . Wait, I guess that gives him the edge for Old Stuff...

New Stuff : LBS Guy. I just figured out how to adjust a threadless headset last year. I still hate splined BB's. My LBS guy is happy to inspect your carbon fiber stem while pinging both your aero spokes.

So..yeah. I guess it's a tie.

miamijim

With the exception of modern stuff I haven't had much exposure to I'd say I'm better than 90% of all the local guys. We still have a lot of old time shop owners and mechanics in the Tampa area who their old bikes fairly well.

Dave Mayer

For a new bike build I would only trust my work. I have the patience and time to ensure everything is right. I also have the parts inventory that I haven't seen in all but the biggest, established shops. Plus I have an inventory of decent older parts, which modern shops do not have the space or the financial motivations to stock.

The key handicap of the LBS is that they generally see the same routine crap every day. My trusted LBS mechanic spends much of his day repairing flat tires, mostly from repeat customers. Every 3 months, because this is the time in which the tires lose enough air pressure to cause a pinch flat. Another regular repair is derailleurs mangled or torn off in mountain biking incidents.

Sadly, quite a few bikes get thrown away after a visit to his shop, as the customer went too long with a worn chain, leading to prematurely worn-out rings and cassettes. Faced with the cost of complete drivetrain replacement + labor, the bike ends up in the landfill.

He rarely sees a high-end bike, and rarely gets involved with building up a bike from parts. So whereas I have built up a dozen or so bikes with Campagnolo gruppos, he will be the first to admit he does not have the time, the expertise, or the tools to do so.

JTTDF

On my bikes, I am better. I chose them, built them, and have occasionally modified them as my tastes change. I know their secrets and idiosyncrasies, every nut and bolt, every cable and lever. I know just how I like them set up and I don't mind taking the time needed to make them that way. My bikes have to be quiet and I am like a terrier chasing a rat to get them that way.

On any other bike, the guys at the bike shop are way better than I could ever hope to be. After all they work on bikes all day every day. I can't compete with that kind of experience. I go to them sometimes with questions and issues. They don't seem to need to consult me in the course of the work they do.

ofgit

My LBS is 60 miles away! The guy that owns/runs it now, was the mechanic there in the early '90s. He has done well to stay in business as the only LBS in a spread out population of around 50,000. The shop has me beat on the newer stuff. I have been an A&P since '76. Mostly on helicopters or old school Stearman ag conversions with PW 600hp and high lift wings, built/flew RC acro and sailplanes 40+ years, hang gliders from kiits in the early '70s and take care of my own bikes.

likebike23

I'd say that I'm better than some and some are better than me. We do have some good shops in the area though.

iab

Age - I am significantly older
Height - I am taller
Weight - He is skinnier
Hourly rate - Mine is higher
Speed - He is significantly faster
Looks - I am uglier
Bikes - Mine are nicer
Tools - He has a lot more, and they are much better
Location - I am in a better school district
Mad ninja skills - Him

cb400bill

I'm blessed with 3 wonderful LBS in my area. Two have been in business since the 70's and the owner of the newest one used to be the lead wrench of one of the other two.

I do my own C&V wrenching of basic to medium stuff, but am not above taking one of my C&V bikes to them if I'm out of my comfort zone.

I don't have the schooling or precision tools to properly take care of my modern bike, so I leave anything higher than basic stuff up to them.

Sixty Fiver

I am the local bike shop here... although a lot of people think I only deal with vintage bicycles and do custom work I am also up to date on current equipment and specifications and am fast enough to work as a team mechanic (which I have done).

I generally don't work on low end bicycles and send folks to the co-op (where I volunteer and tach) to get work done at a much lower rate.

There are good shops here and many of the wrenches are competent and fast but most are stuck in an environment where the owners dictate billing rates whereas I work under the Mr. Scott school of being able to do things in less time and work a few miracles from time to time... but I only do repairs and custom work so my overhead is very low.

One customer came to me because she had been quoted $200.00 to replace a chain and cassette on her 9 speed equipped bicycle and the rate indicated that they were charging her a 1 hour minimum and charging a high markup on parts on what was a 15 minute job.

She enjoyed a cup of my excellent shop coffee and by the time she was done that, her bike was ready... even then I know that for some people, they think that we are some kind of wizards to be able to fix things so quickly and efficiently but that just stems from experience and a lot of time at the stand.

Being a small shop customer loyalty is very important and I have been seeing the same folks for many many years as well as a lot of new customers who generally come by referral from those customers as I do not advertise intensively.

ericbaker

i meant that I am in fact a pro wrench. I am the vintage expert but also competent at changing the flat tires on your Magna as well as reprogramming the electronic shifting on your 14lb wonderbike.

I might also add (not to anyone in particular or even specifically in regards to this question) that a persons opinion of themselves can only be as good/bad as their own ignorance (or lack thereof) allows. Ya dig?

Wileyrat

I don't really know, since none of my bikes have been to any of the LBS's here. When I was in Seattle I took my old Trek 850 mtn bike to an LBS when I was working out of town for BB work, and that was only because I didn't have time or tools to work on it myself.

That was the only time any of my bikes have been to an LBS for repair work, so I suppose I can hold my own.

jimmuller 

There are a few LBS guys I'd trust and some at the same shop I don't want anywhere near my bikes with a tool of any sort. If I had their tools I could probably match most of them and easily beat some of them for vintage bikes. I don't know what a modern bike looks like so I have no idea about working on them, but I suspect it isn't rocket science.

Amesja

Are you really "reprogramming" the Di2 system ericbaker, or do you just know how to enter the micro-adjust mode? Because I'd really love for someone to reprogram a Di2 system to 8-speed...

OldsCOOL

It is having an eye for detail combined with experience of riding and a love for working on bikes that makes a good bike mech. Maybe some of you read my thread on buying my Grail Trek ('86 Pro Series) recently. The bike had a fresh tune and put away. Here is what I am finding about the bike shop the PO took it to. Bar tape is high quality SRAM but was not stretched properly and left with the big lumpy overlaps. Non-aero levers had no ferrules on cable ends entering levers so they were pulling into the lever and one big hill away from a panic attack. Cables were routed in a strange unorthodox manner. Tires were not indexed on stems (again, detail). On the plus side, rims are true but probably due to the bike being in like new condition. I have yet to open the hubs and BB to see what's up but have found bearing noises in the front hub.

I would not take a bike to a local shop in that area. However, there are 2 good shops in our town I would trust to do the expected work.

RobbieTunes

Superior, no doubt, and I think you and your receptionist have a thing going on.

RobbieTunes

Sounds like what he is to the bike population, you are to the older fixed-wing and the general rotor-wing population.

If I ever find that piston-engine helo I've been looking for, off and on, I'll let you know. I'd have to truck it down and back, as I stopped renewing my ticket about 5 years ago. That would be a real cool barnstorm, though, giving rides to raise the fuel money on the way there and back.

Not sure I can pass the physical now, but I can ride a bike.

RobbieTunes

That just reminded me, people down here either know of, or have heard of Billy.
I did not ask them why, but I presumed it had to do with bikes.

Velognome 

My LBS has a cave full of Vintage steel, he builds frames when business slows in the winter, brazes broken frames, replaces dropouts, strightens forks and frames and eve fitted a BB to my '47 British roadpath that produced a perfect chainline while we discussed Belgian Triples & open kask brewing. I can assemble a bike & make repairs, he makes them sing!

noglider 

I just remembered one thing a local mechanic could not fix. I had an ancient TA crank, and I was unable to separate the chainrings. Neither was he. I stopped in to Larry's Freewheeling, far from me on W 110 St, the shop that employed me for a few weeks this summer. Larry is a freaking genius. I've never seen him stumped. He took the crank from my hand and laid it on the anvil of the vise. He tapped the bolts with a ball-peen hammer, one of his favorite tools. Then the bolts unscrewed easily. He said the threads were compressed. Well, that made perfect sense to me once he explained it, but I had never heard of it. Larry has been a mechanic for over 50 years. His formal education went only to sixth grade, as he grew up poor in Jamaica. That never stopped his intelligence or learning. Interestingly, one result of working with his hands all his life is that his hands are huge. He's only about 155 pounds, and his hands look like they're from a monster movie.

Amesja

There is a tool that is perfect for this situation, but rarely is necessary in bike mechanics -the manual impact driver It's a helpful and inexpensive tool to own IMHO.

Tapping the fastener is an old electrician's trick as well. Not only can threads be "compressed" (deformed) but the metals are often seizing/welding to each other because of galvanic corrosion. They don't want to pull apart past each other without micro-galling which binds them up even further. Striking them helps break that bond. We get this a lot in the electrical trade with fasteners that are under an electrical load between copper/aluminum buss bars and at lugs that connect to wires coming off buss bars and breakers/fuses. They get "dry" and seized. Experiencing many heating/cooling cycles, as loads turn on and off, doesn't help either which can actually stretch the threads and deform them if they were torqued too much when initially installed (shark teeth) so that when they get unscrewed they want to pull threads right out off the fasteners as they are unscrewed. Over-torquing fasteners is all too common in many trades and in the electrical trade we get our share of Gorillas who think that "tighter is better." This couldn't be further from the truth.

Striking the fastener helps break the bonds between the metals on old stuck fasteners and sometimes will bend the threads back into more of their original V-shape that they are supposed to be in. Striking while also turning does all of this while also keeping the head of the fastener firmly attached to the wrench/driver so it doesn't want to strip or round-off.

This issue is rare in bicycles compared to motorcycles where many of the fasteners (especially engine cover and case bolts) are made of cheese and are actually designed to strip and deform before the expensive engine cases strip themselves which are much harder to fix or replace than the fasteners. Older-style Phillips head fasteners are notorious for rounding off, but even the newer Allen heads will do this as well. Pulling off a clutch cover or a magneto cover on a motorcycle pretty much demands an impact wrench or the fastener will strip. For taking apart engine case halves to full service an engine's guts demands it. Those bolts are not coming apart without an impact wrench and trying anyhow will only destroy them.

fender1

I thought your LBS guy's repeated CL posting/spamming, for the same 4, $9000 Serrotta's from the early 90"s, was the marketing plan you taught him?

-holiday76

ha!
i wish i could take credit for that.

KonAaron Snake 

I thought that was your LBS...I'm pretty sure those are bikes on commission. At what point does the owner think this strategy is not working?