Never feel bad about paying someone for work you cant, or don’t want to do yourself.

It’s your money, spending it how you wish.

As I’ve got older, there’s more I can do, but there’s a lot I just can’t be bothered to do. I’ll quite happily work on my motorbikes, but the car just goes to the garage. I might work on it in the summer, but who wants to save a few quid changing brake pads on a cold winter’s Saturday morning. Not me!

I recently picked up an alpine five after looking for one for ages, the paint work was shocking but the frame was in great condition, after speaking to the Lbs about the costs of stripping it and rebuilding it Inc brake bleeds and swing arm faffery with bearings and cables I was stunned

So I stopped it over 3 days got the frame sent off re sprayed and built the bike back up over a week Inc all the rubbish faffy bits.

Saved over 200 quid and totally enjoyed every bit of it.

As for the garden.. Sod that someone else can do that

there are only 3 people i trust to work on my bike.

any time ive let someone other than those 3 people try ive been let down badly.

I received a new built bike from an independant shop earlier this year – was sounding them out for repairs. I wasnt impressed simple things like bar clamps closed up on one side , The hubs were over tightened by a long shot almost indexed – not a drop of grease or antisieze on the whole bike – not the seat posts not the QR Skewers etc.

I also paid 140 quid for the guy who mots my car to wire a button into my horn so it would pass mot . i was in a bind he was helping me out to an extent

when i got it back i found twisted wire pairs in insulating tape – not even a scotchblock or crimps (which had i found id have removed and soldered it as due course anyway)

Great if you have found someone you can trust , I’ve yet to find those people where i live now.

yes i’m a nightmare customer 😉

When we moved to our last house which had a MASSIVE garden, I realised a life long ambition and bought a ride on mower. It used to take about 2 hours to mow the lawn and in summer it needed doing weekly ideally. Did it religiously for 2 years, often with a child on my lap before someone pointed out that for the price of the mower I could pay someone to come and do it for the next few years and spend the same time with my kids doing something more fun! I work far too hard to spend my precious spare time doing jobs someone else can do and now happily pay for lots of things to be done by others. The gardeners get nice stripes on the lawn too which was never possible with my ride on, so every time I look at the lawn I am reminded that I made a good decision one day!

Happy to spend money with my LBS for the same reason. I love to tinker and took great pride in building up most of my Hightower build myself, but didn’t think twice about taking it to them to finish off the tricky bits like chopping down the steerer and carbon bars.

On the flip side, I once spent £150 at a different LBS getting my bike serviced and felt thoroughly fleeced as they fitted a cassette badly with one small cog the wrong way round with a spacer, so I ended up fixing it myself at 6am before driving to an uplift day. There is nothing worse than paying someone to do something you can do yourself and they make a mess of it.

With the exception of press fit bearings and wheel truing carbon bling after (another) race crash, I do all the bike work myself.

With the exception of putting out the bird seed and jetwashing the decking, I have a gardener who makes our garden look fantastic. Worth every penny for the 50 hrs/year I don’t have to tend the place. “We only have a garden because it came with the house”. Actually Mrs tired takes the Victorian head gardener role for our Victorian house.

Hardly ever get bike stuff done by a shop. Wheel builds and headset fitting is pretty much it.
I actually like working on my bikes, it’s proper hands on activity with a defined goal (a properly functioning bike), plus it’s a bit of time purely to myself and I find it very satisfying.

I do most things on the bike except headsets, fork servicing and I don’t touch hydraulic brakes.

I’m happy to change the pads, but I don’t have faith in myself to bleed em. In a car at least you can go through the gears to slow you down if brakes fail, on a bike you have no metal around you either…….

Rim brakes I can do but I’m getting to the stage now where I’ve more money than time sometimes it’s easier to just get someone else to do it. Pity really as if I had more time I enjoy tinkering.

Apart from building my own bike up from scratch, which I quite enjoyed, fettling gives me no sense of fulfilment. Plus my time is very precious to me and I would much rather spend it riding than weilding a set of allen keys.

I like doing it myself, if I didn’t I’d pay someone else tbh…

I did give up on my shifting in Wales one time, nothing I did stopped an occasional jump under load. Fannied about with it for ages, nothing. Eventually took it to the shop at afan and the chap put it in the stand, took one look and said “You’ve got half a link missing”- the outer plate had snapped in half so it was just held together by bloodymindedness, and had been for about 2 days. Cheers, shop man!

As someone up there said, the different sizes and standards don’t help. When I needed a new headset for my Zesty, I got the LBS to do it. They did all the research, ordering and fitting, so that I didn’t have to worry about ordering the wrong size and having to send back. As it was, the job took longer than they expected, as they ordered the wrong part from Hope.