Life as a bike mechanic one month on.

So one month ago I jacked in my shitty low wage job for yet another low wage job but the difference this time round is it’s doing something I like. Never before have I done a job I actually have an interest in, it’s a revelation.! There are two schools of thought on this one though…

Never turn your hobby into a job because you’ll end up hating it or…
If you do a job you love you will never work another day in your life.

At the moment I am firmly with the latter.

A few things I have learnt…
Working on a relatively new bike with Deore/sora + is a doddle.
Working on a un-maintained BSO that’s been abused then left in a garage for the next 10 years is a whole world of pain but the satisfaction of that heap of shite rolling out the door like new is well worth that pain.
Customers (most) want everything done yesterday.
People don’t like cleaning bikes at all.
Some folks literally know nothing about bikes or bolts or life in general really.
New BSO’s are shocking right out of the box. Wheels untrue, cranks loose and wheels bearing too tight.
You get what you pay for.

Every day has been a learning curve and the mechanic I work with is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the bike mechanic world. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of bikes and is teaching me the black art of wheel building.

In short it’s beats the hell out of working for Asda.

Cool. I like this, glad you are enjoying yourself, I’ll be expecting other updates in 6 and 12months, hope they are just as upbeat 😀

Sounds like you’re having fun, good stuff!

Customers (most) want everything done yesterday. Some folks literally know nothing about bikes or bolts or life in general really.

These two things are not unique to the bike industry 😛

How many “i’m an engineer and normally i’m good at this sort of thing” comments have you had when people bring in their bikes to you after bodging a repair?

glad to hear it’s been worthwhile. I’d much rather work in a bikeshop than be stuck in this office all day.

Slightly off topic…

Am i right in thinking you work for Halfords? Any chance i can email you/obi-wan for some info about my boardman fs?

How many “i’m an engineer and normally i’m good at this sort of thing” comments have you had when people bring in their bikes to you after bodging a repair?

Not had that nugget yet but will keep an ear out for it.

spawnofyorkshire

Email in profile and I’ll try my best.

nice 8)

My favourite ” I’m an engineer ” comment was a customer telling me how to rebuild his engine and complex fuel system. When I pushed him to elaborate on what type of engineering field he worked in he very sheepishly replied ” I repair washing machines” !!!

Great post. Alan Watts is smiling in his grave – Zen and the art of bicycle maintenance 🙂

well done surviving a month with paying customers. Don’t tell them what you think of them…or their bikes.

Can you give me your shop address, I have a wheel that needs truing

😀

Hora will drop by in a minute saying it should be strong enough to withstand crashing and it has’nt met his expectations……..again.
It does’nt happen overnight.
Just incrementally over the years all your faith in humanity gets gradually stripped from your soul, until one day you wake up and you realise that you’re a hollowed out husk filled only with disgust and hatred for your fellow man.

@DezB – that’ll polish out

I loved being a bike tech, but Christmas could be a testing time. The flurry of parents trying to buy a boxed bike at 5pm on Christmas Eve aghast that you can’t ‘just put it together’ in 5 minutes.

Then on Boxing Day all the shame faced Dad ‘engineers’ return, having bought the bike boxed and ‘got into a bit of a mess’.

BSO?

BSO = Bike Shop Owner?

“New BSO’s are shocking right out of the box.”

“Working on a un-maintained BSO that’s been abused then left in a garage for the next 10 years is a whole world of pain but the satisfaction of that heap of shite rolling out the door like new is well worth that pain.”

BSO = Bicyce SHaped Object. Also known as a Catalogue Special

I was an LBS mechanic for about 10 months after a ‘forced sabbatical’.

It was a breath of fresh air to begin with, and it was brilliant to finish at the end of the day knowing that everything could be parked and picked up in the morning.

I had to learn how to get faster at the work than I would spend on my own bikes, and just as I was starting to build a tiny bit of a reputation I left for a job that paid 10k more out of the box.

In the end, I got bored. and this:

Just incrementally over the years all your faith in humanity gets gradually stripped from your soul, until one day you wake up and you realise that you’re a hollowed out husk filled only with disgust and hatred for your fellow man.

+1.

I honestly don’t know how a fairly respectable percentage of humanity actually remembers to breathe for as long as they do.

How do people get through their lives knowing so little about the most fundamental things, or indeed, anything at all?! Its against nature I tell thee. Unnatural.

“Do you think it will need a new chain”.?

In short it’s beats the hell out of working for Asda.

There should be a forum prize for people finding the true path to happiness. Enjoy it and always keep a spanner handy!

I honestly don’t know how a fairly respectable percentage of humanity actually remembers to breathe for as long as they do.

Think about it for a minute. Half the population are of below average intelligence.

Think about it for a minute. Half the population are of below average intelligence.

Actually, half the population are of below median intelligence 😉

Actually, half the population are of below median intelligence

Is it not, ALMOST half the population are of below median intelligence?

Depends on whether there’s an odd or even number of people in the country, doesn’t it?

It’s even, trust me.

Great post and keep them coming. Many wanna be bike shop mechanics here I suspect.

how much does a bikehut meachanic earn?
and how much are saturday and sunday hours compulsory? like do you have to do 1 in 4 or 2 in 4 or what?

Customers (most) want everything done yesterday. Some folks literally know nothing about bikes or bolts or life in general really.

I spent a year in call centres after graduating and decided very quickly that the Great British Public were not so great after all. A lot of grownups haven’t actually grown up, despite external appearances!

Think of your job satisfaction as coming from fixing bikes rather than making customers happy and you’ll hopefully continue to enjoy it 🙂

how much does a bikehut meachanic earn?
and how much are saturday and sunday hours compulsory? like do you have to do 1 in 4 or 2 in 4 or what?

We didnt have an official ‘mechanic’ working, as between the 5 of us we had enough experience to fix anything so we were all on, or close to min wage, then performance related after that. i enquired about doing halfords inhouse training to be that mechanic, boss basically said ‘Why would I send you on that? It means i’d have to pay you more (£1.50/£2 an hour) for what you already know.’ I left soon after this chat.

Weekends were you did Saturday, Sunday or both every week, rarely neither.

I believe the aim now is to get at least one fully qualified mechanic in every store as they are trying to focus on repair and servicing a lot more than they used to. If qualified through their “gears” program then I believe the going rate is £8.50ph or near as damn it. They have had some good mechanics in the past who have gone elsewhere because of the money. I think they have realised that if you want the experience to stay then you have to pay the going rate.

TBH Neil, I wouldnt be surpised its changed, this was getting on for 10 years ago now.

As for customers….

‘Sorry sir, if you go just give us another 10 minutes, we are just giving the (new, cheapest BSO model we sold) bikes back wheel a bit of a true as they come machine built and sometimes they arent as well built as handbuilt ones.’

‘I dont want you to fix it, I want a new wheel putting in. I’ve been cycling for 40 years and I know that machine built wheels are much better than handbuilt ones!’

First time I’d ever been speechless with the level of idiocy from a punter. Sadly not the last.

£8.5p/hr = 16.3k p/a eeek, not great then.

£8.5p/hr = 16.3k p/a eeek, not great then.

Better than the warehouses are paying round here, I would have to work a night shift to get that rate. Welcome to the world of an unskilled bum who chose to play on his bike all day instead of pursue a career.

Good on yer Neil’s.

I wish I enjoyed my work a bit more.

And I guess the people who take their bikes to the shop to be fixed either have no clue or no mechanical sympathy. So you will se the worst.

Hope you keep enjoying it and it leads to a nice career for you. Race team mechanic at Fort Bill in the future.

Better than the warehouses are paying round here

Pretty much how I became a bike tech, one too many 6-2/2-8 shift patterns order picking in a soul destroying warehouse whilst dreaming of riding bikes.

If your anywhere near Birmingham, Liverpool or Manchester you could look into doing a bit of freelance cycle instructor work on the side for Bikeright. I did it for a while and it was a really rewarding job, Bikeright were really flexible too, so I did the odd evening and weekend to fit around my day job.

£8.5p/hr = 16.3k p/a eeek, not great then.

Halfords offered me minimum wage plus 51p/hr because I was Cytech qualified. I don’t think they were too happy when I accepted (I was about to be out of a job) then turned them down a week or so later after being offered a far better job 25 miles away.

I’ve been a mechanic since last March now and I can honestly say I still love it. Sure, there’s bad days, but I remember standing outside at 10pm in January, ankle deep in mud/slurry warming myself round the exhaust of a compressor when I worked on Limehouse Link in London. Now THATS what I call a crap job.

You have to take the positives and roll with them. For instance I serviced a bike for a lovely lady who’d had it in storage for 14 years. A lovely old ladies bike made by Panasonic. Wonderful quality and some unique design touches. It came up beautifully and I really enjoyed reviving it. I chatted to her for a while, a Doctor of Philosophy from the Middle East originally who’d lived for a while in New York where she bought the bike before settling in the UK. The people that brighten your day are more memorable than those that try to drag it down.

To be honest it’s worked out perfectly for me so far because the manager took a punt on me as I don’t have Cytech. I have a mountain of experience but not a scrap of paper to prove it. He already has full time mechanic but he is pimped out a lot to other stores for training and he also spanners for Halfords sponsored events, something I would love to do. If nothing else it’s a foot in the door.

People don’t like cleaning bikes at all.

This disgusts me. It says the customer has zero respect for you as a person. Even if its un-thought they don’t see a problem. Like most idiots when they are in the position of customer they want everything done/lord it over and cheap to boot.

Even if they expect the mechanic to wash the bike first- what are they a valetter?