Who Does Your Upgrade?
January 17th, 2008 by Guitar TedWith bicycles it seems to be one way or the other. Either no one touches your sweet rig but you, or no one touches your rig but your trusted mechanic. Who does your upgrades? It isn’t as easy a question as it sounds like at first.
Take for example the special tooling required for some jobs, or even the proprietary tools/knowledge it takes for some high end parts. Then you have the dark art of wheel building, which some won’t even touch.
I’ve heard of some instances where a normally competent home mechanic turned over the job to a professional because the home mechanic was afraid that he might screw the part up. If the pro fails, it’s on him!
So where do you fall in on this? Who does your upgrades?
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I install, my mechanic tunes it
Only I get to lay hands on my baby. I haven’t needed to build a wheel yet, but with wheels it’s more economical for me to replace the whole thing if something gets broken.
I do all my own work, not because I don’t trust a mechanic but because I like doing it and it’s quicker, well that’s except building wheels and playing with my head shock (don’t have the tools for either YET) but I’m happy to true wheels.
I do all my own work for many of the same reasons listed already…but most importantly because I haven’t met a mechanic I trusted in many years. Too many hacks out there, in my opinion!
I still get someone to build wheels for me, though…haven’t learned that skill yet beyond simple truing.
I do all my own work. It drives me nuts when I’m at Blue Mountain (our local chairlift park) and I have to get someone to fix my bike. They won’t lend out their tools (understandably) so sometimes I have no choice.
For those of you who do your own truing, you should try building a wheel. If you can true a wheel, and you have some patience, you can more likely than not handle building a wheel. I was surprised how easy it can be if you have a good reference (like Jobst Brandt’s “The Bicycle Wheel”) and you are methodical about it. I would suggest not building up your dream wheel first, (my first was my wife’s new rear wheel) but you may be surprised that it isn’t such a dark art after all.
Depends on what it is. I do most, but things like wheelbuilding that I just haven’t had the time to learn yet are handled by a not completely local shop. I’d rather make the 30-45 min trek to get to them than something closer because they are the only shop I’ve found with the greybeards my bikes (a ‘74 Schwinn Speedster 3 speed and a ‘76 Raleigh Super Course) require.
Being one whose worked in the retail industry, I do my own work… except for wheels. It’s not that I can’t, and it’s not that I don’t have the basic tools for it. I just don’t like it. I’d rather just drop it off to someone I trust and pay them to do it.
For the year after I got out of auto mechanic school, I didn’t care the $ I was sick of grease and grime, then just this past Christmas, I got a bunch of bike specific tools and now I do 90% of my own work.
Depends what it is….if it doesn’t require special tools I do it and for now I have Ebby at ProVelo Cycle Sport do the hard stuff. Sometimes I just drag my bike in there, put it on the work stand and start to attempt it myself. Sometimes Ebby lets me have a go at it on my own but usually he just says “Hey let me do that” and then its done. But I’m learning how to do a lot of it too.
As a mechanic and bike shop service manager, I obviously do my own work and build my own wheels. Before I started working in shops I was leary of just anyone working on my bike, just like my car or house. I want someone I can trust that has a good reputation.
I agree with GhostRider, there are alot of hacks out there. It drives me crazy when people come in and want me to look at thier bike because another mechanic screwed it up. Hacks working on bikes are the fault of the manager/owner or the shop. I would suggest you take the time to find a mechanic that you trust, that has a good reputation and years of experience. Before I started doing my own work, I drove over an hour to another town for a certain mechanic.
…and building wheels is not hard if you are patient and methodical.
I do all my own work, but what I didn’t learn from books I learned from my mechanic friends. Basically there were years of me attempting something I read about, screwing it up, then taking it to the shop where they steered me straight. So, while I take great pride in being the only hands on my bikes these days, I am thankful that I had some patient guys at the shop up the street to teach me, bit by bit.
I’m going to Amazon that Jobst Brandt book and learn wheel building. I figure lacing pattern, tension, dish…how hard can it be?
i actually went to barnetts and got certified, so ya of course i do all my own work. anyone else here taken classes at barnett’s?
I dink around with my rides. Tune ups, cleaning, changing out worn brakes, etc. I have found one guy who loves to take stuff apart and put it back together right. He is patient, kind, helpful, curteous, I dont know about brave and reverent, definately not too clean most of the time. He is currently rebuilding my brakes and replacing hoses; I used DOT 5.0 silicone based brake fluid. It kills the gaskets and hoses. Yet, I buy tools, take a crack at most stuff and if it costs me to have a pro go back and mend my messes, that’s the cost of education and I love to learn.
I have everything i need except for the thread chasers.