When I got back into biking and bought the tour bike so much was new with bike repair from my days as a kid when a flat blade screwdriver and an adjustable wrench was all you needed to build a bike. Things like adjusting STI shifters had me a little worried. I wanted to drop the granny from 30t to 26t and went to the LBS to get it done and they wanted $50 including the ring. I figured for 50 bucks I should at least get some free advice from the guy doing the work as I watched. I was asking lots of questions about gear theory and getting no answers just some annoyed looks. When he got the new chain ring on and handed me the old one as a souvenir I got the only free advice I have to date from my LBS. I thought it was good enough advice to quote him in my signature.


I bought every tool I needed from then on and figured out how to do the work myself. In most cases the cost of the tool was less than the labor to have someone use it once. There is a big advantage to being able to do it yourself if you want to experiment.