" they cant take some guy off the street, give him a robe and tell him to fix bikes"

I didn't get a robe.... I want a robe.-Rev.Chuck

Looking up the average mechanic wage does not give you the wage of a bike mechainic. See that word, AVERAGE? That means they take all the mechanics salaries(That means all the mechanics, including the guys that make 80K fixing BMWs and Mercedes), add them up, then devide by the number of mechanics. Bike mechs make the low end of the scale, more like $10 an hour. We do it because we like to work on bikes. Thanks to people like you there will be fewer of us every year, because we are here to fix the damn bike, not haggle with children. Thanks to the fuel crunch we may become more necessary to the public, and our value may climb.