Being a Bike Mechanic

I want to be a Bike mechanic. Not the sort who tinker endlessly with motorbikes (wrong sort of bike for this blog!), but the kind of mechanic who can look at a bicycle and know instantly what is wrong with it and what needs to be done to fix it. Someone who has the right tools in his workshop to help another cyclist get his or her machine back on the road again and leave the cyclist feeling confident the bike is safe to ride. I want to be that man who can restore an otherwise defunct machine back to its former glory, to make it whole again so it can see the road and feel the wind in it's proverbial hair one more time!

Bikes were made to be ridden, right? Not left in some skip somewhere to rust and get forgotten about?

I am (or rather I was) the man who would rather take his bike to a local bike shop and pay someone my hard earned cash to get a pair of new brake pads fitted, rather than buy the bits and have a go myself. That should give you an idea of the mountain I have to climb to achieve my goal!

I don't have career aspirations to become CEO of some major corporation, or to go into politics. My needs are relatively simple and involve being happy with what I am doing, spending quality time with my family and earning a crust doing something I love and enjoy, rather than something I need to do to pay the mortgage. I know this is everyone's dream, but lately I have started down a path to try and make my dream a reality!

My aim is to one day leave my high pressured job in IT and replace it with some form of a job working with bikes. I'm not sure yet whether that means opening up my own bike shop, or maybe being a mobile bike mechanic, or perhaps running my own bike tour business, but what I do know is that I am not going to achieve my goal without knowing a thing or two about fixing bikes!

I've done the standard evening course in bike maintenance, learnt a thing or two about fixing bent rims and what those little screws do on the front and rear mech! That's fine and all, and quite exciting in a bike geekery sort of a way, but you need to get your hands dirty (literally) and actually have a go if you want to learn how to be the man I describe at the top of this blog post!

I now volunteer as a part time bike mechanic for a local bike recycling centre. They let me go down for a few hours every Saturday and help out fixing up the unwanted bikes people drop off, to make them work again so they can be re-sold for a reasonable price in their shop. Their workshop is like the pic at the top of this post - it's a bike mechanic's heaven with all the tools, stands, spare parts and grease you could ever need!

Week 1 was last week and although I was only there for 2 hours it gave me such a buzz and I did so much in a short time. I'm back again today to hopefully do more of the same and gradually improve my bike mechanic skills so I can feel confident in what I am doing.

Not sure where the path will lead or if I will achieve my goal, but one thing I do know is I am not going to be taking my bike back to a local bike shop for a service any time soon!!!

Winter motivation

I'm sat writing this thinking up all the reasons why I shouldn't go out to the garage and get my bike ready on the turbo trainer for a 6.30am session in the morning. My lounge is nice and toasty, I have my shiny new MacBook Air to write this blog on, and I've no doubt there is some quality programmes on the planner I have yet to watch, so why would I ever want to go out into the cold dark night.

And not to forget, tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off at 6.15am I'll no doubt be tempted to hit the snooze button, roll over and go back to sleep. Pretend I forgot to go on the turbo and think, oh well, there's always next week instead!

This is what my body wants me to do. It likes safe, it likes warm and it doesn't like getting up at 6:15am on a Friday morning when it's probably minus 4 outside, to go and sit on a stationary bike in a cold garage, wearing a bunch of layers and listening to Metallica, Swedish House Mafia and Nils Petter Molvear when the rest of the house and most of my street are still in bed!! My brain on the other hand, that's the Daddy, he's the one the rest of the body listens to. Getting it going though, and kick starting the will power area of the brain to overrule what the body wants to do, that's the tricky part.

It was the will power bit of my brain that got me back on the bike half way to Brugge last September in the pissing rain and wind, on my own, probably lost and on the verge of giving up the London to Brussels ride I'd trained so hard for. It is also the will power bit of my brain which has kept my legs moving and feet pedalling up lots of seemingly too steep hills, while my legs cry out in pain to stop and get off. My brain pisses itself laughing at the mere concept of giving in, tells the legs to shut up (all hail Jensie) and carries on powering the guns to the top of whatever 16% or 20%  hill 'The Bike Geek' has got me riding up that day!!

So, after a few weeks off the bike apart from the odd hour here and there with my body ruling the roost and trying to hibernate for the winter, it's time my brain started doing some of the work and took over the training schedule! After I publish this blog and share it on twitter, I am going to get off my very nice warm sofa, take off my slippers and put some shoes on and probably a wooly hat, to go up to the pain den which is otherwise known as my garage, and I am going to get the turbo ready and the bike prep'd for the morning.

Then, I am going to lay my kit out downstairs ready for the morning, and when the alarm goes off, at 6:15am tomorrow, my brain is going to kick in straight away, stop me hitting snooze and make me go downstairs and get kitted up and out on the bike for 45 mins to an hour of pain, sweat and suffering before work!!

Every minute I stay sat on the sofa being safe and watching TV only makes me fat, and ultimately slower in spring than 'the other guy' who has done his winter training. I don't don't don't want to be fat, and I love, absolutely love being quick come the spring and dropping the guy who missed his winter training and just got his bike out for the first time in March, while I have been on the road every week since November getting fit and lean!

So it's a no brainer, right? Get fit, not fat. Kick in the will power bit of the brain, fuck the cold and the pain, and definitely don't hit snooze on the alarm in the morning at 6:15am. You know you'll feel better afterwards and your guns will thank you for it come the spring, when everyone else on the road is getting dropped and you're powering up those 20% hills and smiling all the way to the top!

.....that's my view anyway!!

#BringThePain