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!!!