Me. Over thirty five years fixing bikes and nearly twenty five wielding a spanner for a living I prefer doing it myself.

But I have had a air of Hope brakes serviced by 18 Bikes (very good service), a few pairs of wheels built by big Al at Wheelcraft and a couple of bits and bobs done by Willie Bain in Glasgow (thoroughly nice chap).

As other have mused, can’t stand the thought of my bikes going into the hands of someone else regardless of reputation. That goes for forks and shocks, though obviously if it involved a nitrogen recharge or some such bollocks I’d be stuffed and have to yield.

Haven’t built wheels yet but can true no problem.

They’re experts, I am not….easy choice to let LBS do it.

Just wish they weren’t so variable. Trickle down in action too…. 😉

My first proper MTB (well post ’89 muddy fox that was a far too large/you’ll grow into it 22″) was bought by my dad as a frame for Xmas, and I then had to work a Saturday job for the next year to buy all the bits and build it up under his tutelage – including building the wheels.
Cheers dad 😉
In 24+ years I’ve never had anything serviced by a shop, why would I when it’s so much fun to learn how to do it yourself! Admittedly, being a DT teacher with access to a workshop makes life easier these days.

Me. Same as above; then if something fails in a race I know it’s my fault.

Nothing is hard. It’s just bolts and hammers mostly.

As a result I now have a toolbox filled with tools to remove parts I no longer own…

Basic stuff like gears, brake cables and brake bleeding me. Bike shop for wheels and suspension.

I am mechanically incompetent. Have some quite amusing stories I could share about trying to service my own car when I was 18. Anyway lesson learnt I take my bikes into my LBS, for years that was Nirvana is Wescott but recently had the bike serviced at Soho bikes who did a very nice job.

Me for everything except rear shock (beyond the air can) – although so far my only previous full susser didn’t last long enough to need anything beyond the air can doing.

😀

It generally takes less time than the double round trip to the LBS, now I think about it I did have a bit of a hand realigning a frame a year or two ago.

I worked in an LBS about 15 years ago, so I got to learn everything including wheel building then. Was a bit scared of bleeding brakes at first (everything was on V’s back when I worked in the LBS) but now I’ve done a few, I’m fine with it. Would like to be able to do stuff that requires nitrogen charging but can’t really justify buying the kit!

I also enjoy the tinkering, especially when it’s a new bike or making big tweaks to resurrect something old.

rondo101 – Member
Mostly me. I don’t like the idea of something going wrong with my bikes & having to rely on someone else to fix it. That and I’m the kind of person that likes to know how stuff works.

The only thing I’ve not taught myself yet is building & truing wheels. And due to the cost of the tools I use an LBS for chasing & facing BB shells.

^^^^ He services my bikes.

Me. Much quicker than taking it to a shop getting it back taking it back in when I find its not done properly (repeat ad finitum).

Break the dependency: learn to do it yourself.

Save for unbolting old and bolting on new….

Stif do my mtbs (2 are in warranty with them, the other the frame came from them), save for the fatboy which is still in warranty at the local Spesh concept store
Summer road bike (internally cabled/wired) gets done by chevins in Harrogate.
Winter road bike never gets any love.

All are in perfect functioning order. #supportyourlbs

Never had a shop service, not even the free ‘cable tweek’ at 6 weeks or whatever it is, the bike has usually changed too much by then lol! There are a couple of shops I’d trust but they’re still businesses, they’re not going to search eBay for mix and match SKF and cheap Chinese bearings (depending on pivot location), then flick both seals out to ensure theyre jam packed with quality marine grease.

Edit: Mind you, I might well pay good money for a shop to do that, that marine grease sticks like to a blanket and gets everywhere!

Me and I am the only one I trust. I do mates bikes as well, then they don’t mind driving to days out, as return of favour.
From full builds, to wheels, nothing phases. Its just a bike. One thing that needed doing was some forks, once, which didn’t seem right, which was a damper fault , replaced by Mojo FOC. Sleeves and leg stripping and Rockshox/ Fox are all easy stuff.

I ride it.
I break it.
I fix it.

Piece of piss compared to maintaining a Moto Enduro bike.

Me. Though I’ve got 2 really good bike shops to turn to so I’ve never bothered with wheels- I figure I could build one but there’s no doubt at all that Steve D can build them better, so why settle for less? For the sake of £10 a bike.

If forks go badly wrong I tend to hand that off too- I’ll happily service them but I can’t guarantee I’ll spot an actual defect

It’s not a tightness thing- I’d happily pay, if I didn’t enjoy it. But also, the number of times you step in to save a mate who’s discovered an issue with their bike at midnight the day before a big ride or a race, being dependent on shops or friends bites you sooner or later

Me! I only trust me.

Me too, me that is, not you.

I do the majority myself except…

Wheel building – I’ll lace it, but get my LBS to finish it off (I can’t quite manage the true and round conundrum)

Rear shock service – I tend to get this done once every 18 months or so (air shock), but make sure its protected with a lizard skin when fitted – the shock is over 4 years old now – it’s been to Mojo & TF, still on the original shock shaft – service report always indicates good condition

The headset used to be something I let the LBS do, but after they made a complete mess of it in May this year I invested in the tools to sort it myself

Having helped to fix mates bikes while away in locations where a bike shop is unavailable the ability to sort most things has proven very useful

Never been into this “take it for a service” thing – stuff gets done as and when needed.

Me for everything including spoking wheels and brazing frames from a pile of raw steel tubes 🙂

I pay someone for powder coat and the good folk at Ride-On in Rawtenstall generally ream / face the headtube for me (foc if I’m buying bits from there). And a local fabricators plasma-cuts the dropouts for £5 a pop if I can’t be bothered cutting them by hand.

There is only one rear shock in the household and not yet needed to do anything to it – hmmm, I’ve got a nitrogen bottle at work…….

I fail to see why a DIY approach could be seen as less satisfactory. It’s only a bloody bike. Since my dad stopped helping me, about 40 years ago the only things I haven’t done my self were a few wheel builds before I learnt to do my own and a single rear shock which was sent to Mojo.
I regard a DIY job as likely to be better as there will be no time constraints. I can redo the job as many times as I like if I fancy it. Unlimited cash wouldn’t see me hand the bike to another any more than the wife!
Why, nothing takes very long?

Tim, at Sideways.
And very good he is too.

I’ve always been spoilt with LBS mechanics. Now my good friend who is a Meister frame builder to boot fixes my bikes for nothing more than a few beers. It is handy riding for the shop team sometimes!

I clean, lube it and replace brake pads but I’ll get it serviced once before winter and once in the spring. Costs £80 plus parts.
Same goes for motorbike, I don’t have time to faff about.

Until this year me.

First time eve I gave my bike to a shop. The back brake was squeaking, I didn’t have time to work out why, and I needed the wheels trued as well.

Cost me about 4 quid for both wheels trued and my caliper realligned.

Apart from things that need an expensive specialist tool I do everything myself 😀
But there’s no shame in having a lbs do everything for you. I know loads of people who work hard and value their time, and choose to delegate bike maintenance to proffesional’sl

I trust the shops I use, the only thing I can’t do at home is build a wheel or recharge a shock. I can (and have done) everything else on my bikes for a long time now/ But I still use my LBS, it can be quicker, easier and simpler to get them to do it. They built my last bike up from a frame as I was away on holiday, I was going racing but was away with work so they did a fork service and changed the chain and cassette for me. I popped in to swap out some pedal bearings yesterday and we had a laugh.

I’m obviously not that precious about my bike…. but it works perfectly.

I’m amazed how many people don’t do their own maintenance. It’s a push bike. It’s really easy and quite cathartic too 😀

I do most stuff myself. My mate was a mechanic at my LBS so I’ll normally give him my forks to service, he does them quicker than me and has better facilities.

But I’ll happily build a bike up and don’t mind bearing changes, fitting headsets, cutting steerer’s etc. Bleeding brakes is quite new to me but if you take your time it’s not bad at all.

Me.
My LBS have taught me how to maintain my bike . I buy the stuff from them and fit it myself in the shop.
When I get stuck, they help. Very cool shop.
The biggest problem I find ,is that if I don’t often do a certain job it’s easy to forget the order of how to do it…… 🙄
Compared to a pro mechanic I am soooooooo sloooooooooow.
And I’m in engineering you know. 😉

Like most, I do it all apart from rear shocks. My work is certainly better than a bike shop’s. I’ll shortly be putting in two wheels for new rims though as it takes me a couple of hours to do a wheel properly but the lbs only charges £20 a wheel. My time’s worth more than that so I’m happy to let them do it instead.

Bikes need such regular attention it doesn’t make sense to put them in to shops all the time. My bike always runs properly; if it doesn’t then it gets sorted pronto.

I’m amazed how many people don’t do their own maintenance. It’s a push bike. It’s really easy and quite cathartic too

I’m not amazed. I get why people can’t or won’t work on their own bikes. Space, time, aptitude, being bothered, you need all of that.
I started because I couldn’t afford to pay someone and I have that aptitude. I can fix stuff. I understand mechanical things. Always have. I’ve tried to teach some people basic stuff and you can see they simply don’t have that wiring in their brain that enables them to understand mechanical things.

A lot of posters in this thread need to hand back in their man cards. Its a bike – 2 triangles and two round things in its simplest form. Even full suss isn’t complex they are not Saturn 5 rockets.

Very disappointed.

I do it myself. It all started when I was a kid, building bikes out of bits that other people threw away..

I don’t really understand why people get so patronising and snooty about doing their own bike maintenance. I work on all my own bikes bar nitrogen charging of rear shocks and it’s mostly logical straightforward stuff and I enjoy doing it. But I can see why some people choose to use a professional mechanic.

And as far as bike shops being ‘better’, technically all ‘professional’ means in this context is that they do it for money – essentially a competent home mechanic is doing exactly the same as a bike shop one, but without being paid for it. And yes, there are good and bad mechanics in both areas, you can’t really make sweeping generalisations.

Very disappointed… 😉

glasgowdan – Member
Like most, I do it all apart from rear shocks. My work is certainly better than a bike shop’s.

Really? I’ve met plenty who will put most home mechanics to shame and very few home mechanics who could cut it in a bike shop.

RustyNissanPrairie – Member
A lot of posters in this thread need to hand back in their man cards. Its a bike – 2 triangles and two round things in its simplest form. Even full suss isn’t complex they are not Saturn 5 rockets.

Sexist pig….. in life there is a balance, some people don’t have the time, some have the money, some just prefer a professional job on something that cost them more than some peoples cars. A bike shop with all the tools and backup and experience is worth a lot. I’ve seen miracles happen, my LBS does race support for 4 day races at one point they made a mech hanger for a very obscure bike.

I think there is a big difference between maintenance and servicing.

The former being perfectly manageable at home with a multitool and for those confident enough bits for the brakes/chain (TBH I wouldnt be comfortable doing those without having been shown, its a bit subtle to learn of youtube).

Proper servicing on the other hand would require at minimum a work stand, wheel stand, vice, casette tools, hub tools, bb tool and plenty of space/time. Imo the outlay for tools could only be justified if you had at least 2 very active mtbers or a whole family riding regularly. For 1 person it doesn’t make sense, if you look after your bike it shouldn’t come over £100/year for parts and labour + a good shop will give you a warranty on work done and the knowledge that someone much more experienced than you has been over it.

Ofc if you fall on a shit shop that all goes out the window and i really don’t know many good bike shops, most random encounters ive had were laughably bad.

Im very fortunate in that my one of my best friends owns a bike shop and is a wizard mechanic 😀 He got me back into MTB’s about 4 years ago and built/serviced my first bike while i watched. By the time i upgraded to the Soul a year n a bit later i was confident doing general maintenance and all the basic parts of the build.

Now i just abuse his tools and bring him lunch or beer, still get him to do the indexing and spoke tensions as i doubt I’ll ever be that good 😛

Really? I’ve met plenty who will put most home mechanics to shame and very few home mechanics who could cut it in a bike shop.

Depends where you live I guess.

There was a time I used the LBSs for everything, I spent a damn fortune in there, but over time I had disappointing experiences with all of them around my way and started to DIM. I actually had a specific problem with a draggy Hope brake that 2 “proper” LBSs looked at and told me they’d fixed, only for it to drag again after a few minutes ride. (I’m talking proper bike shops, names that come up frequently, not Halfords). So all they’d both done was move the calliper and give it a spin in the frame and say to was fixed, when really the calliper needed stripping & new seals. So I thought “*** it I’ll do it myself”, figured it out and rebuilt the brake perfectly. Having done that it was a small step to a full build of my own choice.

Truth is it wasn’t my choice, they drove me to it. But I’m glad they did, because now I buy frames (new or 2nd hand) and built what I want rather than what they happen to have to sell.

Having a go yourself, it’s no loss is it? The shop is still there if you get stuck!

I’m not amazed. I get why people can’t or won’t work on their own bikes. Space, time, aptitude, being bothered, you need all of that.
I’ve tried to teach some people basic stuff and you can see they simply don’t have that wiring in their brain that enables them to understand mechanical things.

He’s right, good post. 🙂

One thing I’d like to pick up on … how many of you folk come from families where there was someone with practical skills that you were able to learn from?

Me, but I’m a bike shop mechanic..
We have a lot come in for regular maintenance from people who will no doubt have the ability to do most things, but just don’t want to or have the time.
We also have quite a few who think they’re great home mechanics, but come in for repairs they can’t manage, but when you look at their bike’s they’re often on the edge of being dangerous with how they’ve been ‘repaired’

I’m amazed how many people don’t do their own maintenance. It’s a push bike. It’s really easy and quite cathartic too

Plenty of reasons why people might not do it, none of them necessarily to do with how hard it is or isn’t.

While I will happily work on my bike, there are probably people on another forum who are amazed that people don’t (say) build their own computers because it’s so easy. I’ve cobbled a few bits together in a PC before and while it’s not too difficult, to me that sort of thing is just a tedious chore that makes me think my time is worth more, even before I’ve started laying out for tools. Same thing I guess.

One thing I’d like to pick up on … how many of you folk come from families where there was someone with practical skills that you were able to learn from?

Nope, figured it out myself. It ain’t rocket science.

I mean no disrespect to professionals by the way, if you can build a business by looking after your customers and meeting their needs with your skills then all power to you.