Quote:
Originally Posted by M_Six
^^^What they said. I have my LBS do virtually all the wrench turning on my bikes. It supports them and keeps me from screwing things up.   |
As a kid, I grew up taking bikes apart (occasionally to the ire of my father) and putting them back together (usually successfully). As I got older, I started building bikes up from scratch for friends and family-- to the point where I actually thought about doing it for a living-- Lord knows I spent enough time hanging out in bike shops, and my mother despaired of ever getting me (or my clothes) clean from bike grease.
As I got older, I was the mechanic for my friend's bikes-- I'd get a bike brought over the night before a race by a panic-stricken buddy to fix whatever was wrong, and I'd be the guy with the bike mount, truing stand and tools in my truck whenever we went on a ride or went on a road trip.
But, as I've gotten older, I've found that my time has compressed more than I ever thought it would-- and the newer bikes are just a hassle to tune and trim (yes, SRAM-- I'm talking about your 1X setup-- an amazing piece of kit, but an utter bastard to set up properly). I've found that it's easier for me to establish and keep a good relationship with my LBS (beer is a good starting point) than to do the work myself. I've got one shop I go to for my mountain bikes and one I go to for my road bikes. They're all Good People, and if it's something I don't want to deal with (like taping up a tubeless conversion or properly aligning the rear derailleur on a 1X with that weird tool), they'll do an excellent job for a fair price-- and will occasionally scoot me to the front of the line if it's important (i.e. my wife's headed out for a 300 mile race or something like that).
So, I'm an enthusiastic supporter of my mountain and road LBS's-- Yes, things might cost a little bit more, but that's worth it to keep the local pro's in business and our bikes running in top form without me having to spend one of my rare days off tinkering on the bike.
In fact, I went out on a MTB ride with a buddy yesterday and spent about 40 minutes of ride time re-trimming his rear derailleur (because the bozo had "forgotten" to tell me that he'd bent the hanger and had then ham-fisted it back). I got it running enough to do the ride, but then told him to take it to my MTB LBS as I didn't have the time to fix it properly myself until at least September.
R.