Fear of fixing it yourself

[stuflyer]

Hi All, now I can't imagine anyone here having that fear ( as far as I can tell we all like to got at stuff with spanners ) but I was in a bike shop recently and bloke bought in a singlespeed for a rear puncture repair.
"I'd do it myself but you need to break the chain, don't you?"

I blinked a few times and the guy behind the counter clued him in.
THEN the guy said: "well the other one's got hub gears and you devinitely have to remove the chain for those.." and the bloke behind the counter looked at him ,tehn went back to filling in the form.

What's hapenned to people looking at something and working out what to do? I mean, a single speed?

Mutter, grumble...Not back in my day....jumpers for goalposts...

 

[Barneyballbags]

Perhaps if that guy's knowledge was as poor as it sounds, then it's just as well he took the bike into the shop to have the work done!

On a loosely related note, it always used to astound me at the number of people who would turn up at Merida Enduros on their all singing, adjustable everything bikes and not have the first clue about how to set them up properly. I remember one guy complaining that his Fox F100 RLCs were 'too harsh' and 'needed to be tuned properly', only for his mate to point out that he had them locked out :roll:

There are a few things that I don't like to do myself, purely because I don't have/can't afford the correct tools to do it.

 

[feetabix]

i think as a general rule most of us started fixing punctures on our grifters.....(having flicked the tan dog poo out of the grips with a lolly stick).....at a young age and have messed with bikes ever since, i have people come to me to fix a problem that is normally no more serious than a gear index problem and they express a genuine fear of messing with anything for fear of damaging stuff.......to those familiar with them a bicycle is a very simple mechanical device.......now my central heating boiler!.....there is another story!......

 

[drystonepaul]

I'm constantly fixing other people's bikes for them.
Their fear and technical ineptitude is their loss and my gain. I don't mind, as I get paid in beer and bike parts.

 

[sylus]

A few things I feel causes this

Most of us come from a generation when as kids our parents couldn't afford diddley, so when we got something 1 we looked after it and 2 if something went wrong we couldn't afford to fix it so tried it ourself

Today most men in particular who traditionaly would have been builders, engineers etc are not and as such most men are not hands on and would rather pay others to do it

Credit cards, bank loans and hp seem to these days allow this lifestyle of buy it, break it, pay someone else to fix it or throw it away and get a new one rather than appreciate what you have got and what you have done to keep it

 

[dbmtb]

Puncture repairs are a very lucrative line of business in Denmark.

 

[Ernie]

A few things I feel causes this

Most of us come from a generation when as kids our parents couldn't afford diddley, so when we got something 1 we looked after it and 2 if something went wrong we couldn't afford to fix it so tried it ourself

Today most men in particular who traditionaly would have been builders, engineers etc are not and as such most men are not hands on and would rather pay others to do it

Credit cards, bank loans and hp seem to these days allow this lifestyle of buy it, break it, pay someone else to fix it or throw it away and get a new one rather than appreciate what you have goot and what you have done to keep it

:roll: :roll: this is very true of todays attitude :roll: :roll: ..

Ernie

 

[spike3]

Puncture repair grr I currently have 2 on the same bike that need doing, front and back both punctured within 3 miles of home and then the gf got a front puncture as well. We gave up at this point and pushed the bikes back.

I agree though about lack of knowldege but the bike shops I feel are partly to blame, I pointed out someones slightly rusty chain the other day, to which they relpied that they had been told by a bike shop that they shouldn't ever put oil on a bike :? :shock:

 

[feetabix]

bike shops reflect the good/bad apple thing found in every walk of life......some will be honest in their advice and understand that to take the piss with their customers is to loose them in the long run, others will only think of a short term profit........to balance my point though, as a self employed person i understand the bank wont be satisfied if i couldnt pay my mortgage, and gave them stories of doing favours to everyone. They are essentially a profit making exercise with overheads to meet........no excuses for the 'no oil' comments though!!

 

[majoreyeswater]

I don't know if anyone else remembers taking stuff to bits as a kid but never being able to put it all back together again ! I had a Dawes racer back in the 70s which I stripped and when the time came to put it all back I was clueless :shock: It happened with radios, fishing reels and all things electrical.

In later life I vowed that, as much as possible, I would learn to do the work myself and not always rely on others. This attitude seems to be missing today ! Car servicing, gardening, DIY and now bike building all learned because of a desire to be as self sufficient as possible ( the wife and kids don't always agree though :roll: ). I also build my own computers tailored to my needs.

Buy it, trash it and then bin it. Repeat ad infinitum. Seems to be the norm these days :?