Hopefully your bike doesn’t look like this, but if it does maybe an article I wrote will help out. Here is the link to the article, let me know what you think. Do you do your own bike maintenance or take it to a shop? I feel like a lot of triathletes get a bad rap for their lack of bike mechanic skills. Let’s change that!
I generally work on or build my own bikes, since nothing on a bike really usually takes very long. I work on pretty much everything myself, whether it’s my bike, motorcycles, trucks, rifles, powerwasher, lawnmower, you name it. I fancy myself highly mechanically inclined, I’m able to (and willing to take on) replace the motor in my truck, let alone run cables on my bike.
BUT…
I’d rather be riding my bike than working on it. It’s worth my time sometimes to be able to drop my bike off at the LBS on the way to work then pick it up, ready to go, at the end of the day. Working on it myself in that case might mean I lose an opportunity to ride that day.
Hey, that seat is too high!..first!
I do all my work myself except for those items that transferring the risk of loss makes sense. I don’t cut down steerer tubes, for example. The $12 I pay is certainly worth the risk of something going terribly wrong, so I pass that risk to my LBS. Same for pressing bearings. As for anything else, my Dad usually said, “unless it was put together by space men, you can do it yourself!”, meaning that a person originally put it together and since I was a person, I could dang well take it apart, clean it, and put it back together.
From my knothole, there are only two secrets to bike maintenance. First Secret: lefty loosey, righty tighty. Second Secret: except for left pedal and right bottom bracket cup.
Nice article.
I’ve gradually accumulated skills and tools over the years and now do all my own wrenching. My original motivation was to save money, but I soon discovered the pleasure in it. I love the contrast with my desk job: tangible, dirty, unhurried. Very satisfying.
I’ve built both my road and tri bikes from frames and they’ve never been in a shop. Sometimes I think I like tinkering on them more than actually riding them. Probably explains why I’m so slow.
Bike mechanic is just some fancier lego or mecano. Pretty easy and quite cheaper. Though, in doubt, I’ll let the lbs do the work.
I don’t like working on bikes so I take them in to be worked on. Also I need a place to
be seen in all my triathlon t- shirts.
Just built my road bike up from a frame. I am doing all maintenance on all our bikes. As someone else said, for me it’s a great break from my desk job.
I’ve worked on every bike I have owned since I could hold a wrench, I’ve built everyone since I was 14 and I even built my first set of wheels at 15. So yeah I do my own work.
I haven’t brought a bike into a shop in over 20 years. Originally, it was out of necessity that I did my own wrenching (broke college student trying to save for beer and/or race entry fees). After that it just became something I enjoyed doing, and I still do.
I build my bikes and do all my own maintenance with the exception of re-packing bearings and truing wheels as I dont have the patience for those.
Always work on my own… Since my teens
See look at this. Triathletes are rockstar mechanics! I think everybody should learn to work on their bike, it’s so rewarding. I remember when I was afraid to touch my bike (other than riding it) for fear of screwing something up. I didn’t even know how to replace the handlebar tape. Crazy. It’s amazing how far you can come with just a little motivation and some online resources. Knowledgeable friends help too! And being willing to make a mistake or two.
As far as wheel truing… I’m still hesitant to try that myself too.
This might help: http://blog.artscyclery.com/ask-a-mechanic/ask-a-mechanic-wheel-truing/
See look at this. Triathletes are rockstar mechanics! I think everybody should learn to work on their bike, it’s so rewarding. I remember when I was afraid to touch my bike (other than riding it) for fear of screwing something up. I didn’t even know how to replace the handlebar tape. Crazy. It’s amazing how far you can come with just a little motivation and some online resources. Knowledgeable friends help too! And being willing to make a mistake or two.
As far as wheel truing… I’m still hesitant to try that myself too.
This might help: http://blog.artscyclery.com/...chanic-wheel-truing/
you’re only hearing from the proud 1%, not the 99% like me who are pretty sure our headset is loose because the bearings are stripped or worse, but can’t stay off the bike long enough to have it fixed, but don’t have the tools, time, or patience to fix it in the garage . . .
zinn and the art of road bike maintenance at least taught me how to change out a stem. on second thought, maybe not very well?
I do it all including building wheels in the past. The only issue with wheels is that many times you can purchase a wheel cheaper that sourcing the components for a wheel and building it yourself.
i sleep with my mechanic, so…neither. i have less than 0 interest in building. however, when we’re out for a ride i am quick to yank the bike back out of his hands to try to fix it when something goes wrong. 50/50 on whether i then hand it back to him. 
Well, I do the simple stuff myself. Brakes, cranks, rear derailleur adjustments, that sort of thing.
But, I take into account that an LBS makes its money from labor primarily and the fact that I want to have an LBS in the years to come I also take it in there for yearly overhauls (that’s where a second bike comes in handy) and all the front derailleur and brifter stuff.
If no one bothers using the LBS, sooner or later there won’t be one to assist in something important.
would be nice if there were classes to learn the basics of bike mechanics.
In my area the local adult education program has such a class taught by the owner of the LBS. I believe there were optional courses a few times for wheel building. I don’t know if they actually had people sign up but they were offered. Maybe you would be as lucky?
I typically do my own work but I’m getting more lazy as I get older. I do appreciate the ability to use youtube to view pretty much any repair possible on a bike. When I switched to SRAM a few years ago I used youtube videos to install/adjust everything. I’m going to build some wheels some and have been looking at youtube videos for this as well. Being a visual learner, it is a great resource.
Buy a bike maintenance book or visit the Park Tools website. The biggest trick to doing your own maintenance is buying all of the specialty tools that you will need.
To be honest, I’ve been building and working on my own bikes so long that I really don’t trust the local bike shop mechanics to do as good of a job.