Originally Posted by
Eyenigma
It's fair to say the people on this forum are avid cyclists, probably at the sharper end of the spear when it comes to overall cycling population. I'm curious – do you work on your own bikes or entrust the LBS to do it? And to what degree do you get hands on? Changing group sets? Doing your own tune up and maintenance? Building your bikes from scratch? Ethically and logistically I struggle with what the right thing to do is. I (somewhat) buy into the whole "support your LBS" thing, but when you're out of a rig for a few days it's no fun.
Sometimes I just drop off the bike for a tuneup, other times I do it all myself. I bought the Trek Care when I got my Domane so I'll just drop the bike off next week; it's about time for some replacement parts which will be covered by Trek Care.
I've built several bikes from scratch and fixed up several others for friends and coworkers that needed a cheap bike.
When I finished building up my
'84 Pinarello, I had my LBS mechanic go over it just to make sure everything was okay. I don't have any wheelbuilding tools so he made sure the used wheels I'd bought were true and evenly tensioned. He also got the DT shifter cables a bit tighter than I was able to do.
My bike shop has no problem with me doing my own repairs; I support them in many other ways.