won’t get you anywhere – they don’t stretch, they wear

Pointless Pedantry of the thread award right there! Are you an engineer?

When I walk into my favourite LBS I get asked “Is it a wheel, or is it a pain in the arse”. Because I only take them 2 things, wheels, and things I can’t fix myself which are always a total pain in the arse. Sooner or later it’ll be “wheels, or gtfo.”

We learn from our mistakes and I will be checking the chain stretch on a regular basis from now on

This. Half of the fun of cycling for me is the fettling. I’ve lost track of the number of things that I’ve screwed up / broken teaching myself to work on my bikes. The thing is though, they’re all mistakes that I’ll never make again and in the long run I’m saving myself a small fortune on workshop fees.

EDIT: Pointless oversensitivity on my part, ignore.

My LBS won’t work on my road bike because it has a Campagnolo groupset, and “Campagnolo is shit”, apparently

Or more truthfully “I’m not properly trained and shouldn’t really call myself a bike mechanic”.

Did I read this right? It takes cack-handedness of the highest order to cross thread the pedal threads. The pedals will be cold hard steel whilst the cranks are probably softer aluminium.

Which actually makes it quite easy, hard steel threading into soft alloy. Would be crack handed if both were the same material tbh, and it’s pretty easy to do. Late for a night ride, forgot to switch pedals over, do it quickly in the back garden by the security light? Not exactly improbable.

To be fair, bike monkeys must get really pissed off with have a go heroes coming in expecting their abortions to be put right. Would do my nut in.

My LBS won’t work on my road bike because it has a Campagnolo groupset, and “Campagnolo is shit”, apparently
Or more truthfully “I’m not properly trained and shouldn’t really call myself a bike mechanic”.

The first thing they train you (If you get a decent Cytech teacher….) is that if you don’t know, find out! It’s not hard these days, it’s all online. There’s simply no excuse, although some Campag does require specialist tools…
I don’t turn any job away. Can’t afford to do that, it’s just dumb to even try it. I’d fully expect a bollocking if I turned work away. Yeah, I’ll fit your internet bought parts for you, or build your internet bought bike.[/quote] I’m gonna charge you top whack for it as detailed on the labour sheet, but I’ll do it.
The ONLY thing I won’t do is half a job and put a potentially dangerous bike back on the road without fixing all the faults. For instance – Fix a puncture when the bike’s got no working brakes or sort the gears if the frame is half sawn through (Yes, that did happen) I don’t want your safety jeopardised, at my risk, because you won’t pay to have the thing properly fixed.

That’s why it has turned into a saga, started with replacing the chain & worn jockey wheels, then the cassette and now the crankset.

We learn from our mistakes and I will be checking the chain stretch on a regular basis from now on
I’ve probably misunderstood this, but you ended up needing a new chainset, not just chainrings, because of a worn chain? Or was there some other unrelated problem?

Quite often a new chainset set only cost a little bit more than the chain rings.

The insurance line is more common in garages rather than lbs. in garages in can be true. If the third party fails and destroys something expensive the insurance co may not pay out. I cannot believe it would be the case in a bike shop. You’re never going to do enough damage to make it worth an insurance claim. Maybe it’s more to do with the public liability insurance.

If it was halfords or a similar chain store then it is about increase the sale. Ie selling customer parts and labour. As above watch YouTube videos and learn to fix!

“although some all Campag does require specialist tools…” yes and they bloody expensive! 👿