Originally Posted by
Bekologist
I suggest if a bike shop people use for the maintenance of their carbon fiber bikes isn't using a torque wrench to do things like stem swaps, crank installs and the like, they should find another shop.
Mechanics proud of their inherent torque abilities and that scoff at torque wrenches might have bluster, but they're not professional.
Your shop should do it, but...
Carrying a torque wrench on tour is a different matter. FWIW, back in my motorcycle racing days I experimented with checking torques of fasteners attached by feel and found that it wasn't that hard to hit them pretty close by feel. I mostly stopped using the torque wrench at that point, except for things where I thought it was especially critical.
Bottom line, while I don't think that is the right answer for someone who is being paid to work on other folks bikes, I personally would definitely not carry a torque wrench on tour.
On a side note... While not necessarily relevant to touring, I wonder how often the professional wrenches who maintain the bikes on the Pro Tour use torque wrenches. I would be willing to bet they don't use them at all for repairs during a race, but have no idea what they do in pre-race prepping.