lol, good one.

I work outside on the balcony of my apartment. I can't wait till I have a garage!

You're supposed to use the kitchen.

I work outside on anything messy. I cannot imagine cleaning the drivetrain indorrs.

in the summer, yes. but last night it was 3F when i was installing my new fenders.
had to put a painting dropcloth on a chair to catch the spray as i cleaned the salt off. good times

The key is patience and the desire to learn. I do not consider myself mechanically inclined, but I willed myself to learn how to work on my cars, bikes etc. The expensive labor rates helped make me want to learn.

It is important however to know your limits.

OP, if u can find a bike co-op nearby, then you are in luck.

Interesting. I had always figured the big mail order companies would eventually take over the retail end and only mechanic based LBSs would survive.

depends on whose manning the shop. I get great advice from some of the guys and others just know how to ring up your purchase. you need to learn who to talk to. I've been known to go to 5 or 6 shops until i find someone who will understand what i'm trying to do

No i do not need to learn how to talk to them. Anyone who is a cyclist knows what repacking a hub means. The moment someone says "what do you mean", i know that person is unlikely to be competent enough to repack my hubs. I can say it pretty please with sugar on top but he is still a clueless mechanic.

The thing with bicycle repair is that it takes a lot of practice, and if you only have 1 or 2 bikes, you don't get that practice like the techs at your LBS. I know I can do it, but I may not get it right the first time, or maybe the 2nd or 3rd time either. That's why I tend to take my bike to the shop for certain things that way there I can HTFU and ride. For instance, the last time I tweaked any of my drive train, I put 7 miles on the bike riding up and down the 1/8th mile street testing out my changes. In the end, I took it to the shop, the tech turned 2 screws, and wallah, it was perfect. Over time you will start to pick things up. I have only been back on a bike for the greater part of 2 years, and finally this year I started to learn some little things, though not enough to be all that competent yet. Patience young grasshopper

He didn't say "how". He said "who". You need to know who to talk to. When I was a mechanic, the salesmen in the shop barely knew the difference between a handlebar and the plunger we kept in the bathroom. They would frequently ask me which component was better, sometimes after they had already answered the question with a guess in order to make the sale. Of course, many customers just assumed that we all knew the same as each other, while the savvy people knew to only ask the people in greasy aprons turning wrenches.

And yes, as you're experiencing, some shops are full of people who know a lot, and some are full of people who only know how to push one foot down as the other comes up.

My apologies. I misread it.

As to speaking to the mechanic, they should be fielding the service requests. I've noticed that I have to first speak to the shop kids who then look blankly at me, then I have to ask for the mechanic but the kids always go and get the manager who then gives me the same spiel and try to sell me something and then i have to explain to him what exactly I mean by repacking the hubs and then he looks blankly at me and then i ask to speak to the mechanic and the manager gets all defensive and then he calls the mechanic who is buried down in some pit and he eventually comes up and listens and knows what I mean immediately. Then he says "that's not something we normally do" and there isn't a price for the service on the price list and he can't give me a definite price, but he will do it but will only let me know the price afterwards depending on "how complicated" the task turns out to be. It could be anything from £30 to £50 plus bearings. This comes to about the price of the wheelset.

I give up. I ordered the bearings online and I'll do it myself.

Absolutely agreed there. That's how it worked at my shop, and in the cases where a salesperson or manager happened to be behind the service counter when a customer walked up, the customer was handed over to one of us unless it was something like a tube change or seat height adjustment.

Isn't it funny how successful the UK online bike retailers are? When you get such poor service in our shops, no wonder the online is booming. Shame the little shops that actually do service are going under.

There is nothing to difficult for me...there are just situations where it is more convenient to pay someone to do the work than do it yourself.

Dining room table works too... (cleaned up tools and junk for the photo op)

amen. i just don't like the idea of messing around with filthy wheels. I never clean them.

Online bike retailers in the UK are thriving b/cos of two things. One, no middlemen/distributors like QBP and cohorts, and two, they could locate in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere and ship anywhere they have potentially profitable customers.

Oh man! I can tell you right now that if I ever set my bike, ever so gently, down on our dining room table, even for a 10 second photo-op, I would be a DEAD MAN! That's the price of marriage. Well, my marriage at least!

I once sold a saddle to a guy whose marriage failed principally because he liked to clean his bike in the house, and his wife was horrified.

Fixed. No married man would live through that ordeal, not even the ones who would lie and act like they run the house. Sure they run the house, the vacuum cleaner, the dishwasher...

i think this is a problem in every industry. the following has happened way too many times to count
salesman: woo-hoo, i made the sale
us: great, what do they want?
salesman: something that will <insert technology that doesn't exist anywhere except scifi movies>
us: yeah, um. that's not technically possible
sales: but... I told them you guys could have it done by next wednesday

no offense to any sales folks reading this, but you tend to mess things up for the people who actually do the work. better to let mechanics, engineers, designers, etc. talk to the client before anything is finalized

I was just about to post this (in a shorter and not-as-inspiring way, of course).
Learning, for example, what the limit screws and the barrel adjuster of the RD does helps a lot in adjusting it, instead of just turning screws as the online video you watched said.

A good motivation for learning mechanics stuff is to know that you will be able to fix (or at least partially fix) your bike in the middle of nowhere, when, for example, touring or doing a long ride

I usually keep my bike tuned up etc, but then have the mechanic shop guys do the big stuff for me like hubs, cutting and inserting fork etc. They often accept beer as payment if it's done after hours. I have a workstand and bench set up in my grungy basement with a piece of plywood on the floor underneath b/c of the crappy floor.

I think the mechanically inclined often underestimate how difficult these things are for those of us with less talent. I can generally figure most stuff out, but I mess up as much stuff as I fix, and I have some friends who are great riders and racers and have no business being anywhere near a wrench. It's easy enough to say "oh bikes are simple anyone can figure it out" when it comes easily to you.

I'm married. My wife just wanted to know when I was going to build her one...

I know, I'm lucky