Delving into my experience as a Bicycle Mechanic

 When I first attended Winterborne my goal was to immediately open my own Velofix franchise, to the extent, I was looking over the franchise agreement and considering financial backing. I was dissuaded quite early on after a bit of independent investigation and debates with people in the industry so I applied for a position at Freewheel Cycle. I was about to learn just how much I didn't know about bikes, which was a lot. They teach you the basics at Winterborne, I saw that, as I had been working on bikes since I was a kid, but the course gives you the solid base required to succeed. I hadn't touched a bike in a professional manner in my life. What an awakening that was. But I learned everything I needed to know along with the confidence required to help me move forward into a more prominent role in another shop and which is why I made the tentative move to Pieriks Cycle. In terms of proficiency and wrench skills I have worked on everything from your 50yo basement find clunker to your 10k Di2 to your modern e-bike, they are all bikes, but that's where the similarity ends, each require their own unique set of skills to repair each, and this I am confident in my skill set. As you know these last 2 years have been difficult getting parts so repairing things became the only option in most cases. I can bleed any brake from any era but typically a 20yo Hayes that has no operation and the telltale corrosion from DOT fluid evident calls for immediate replacement, but I found myself with no options but to disassemble the brake completely and rebuild it. Surprisingly, I found success in this more times than not. I am proficient in all drive train systems, and their bottom bracket assemblies, I’ve rebuilt headsets and replaced all manner of wheel bearing ball or sealed. Being right next to a bike lane and offering free air I found myself gaining the proficiency of a F1 pit mechanic when it came to flat fixes on the spot. I enjoy the bustle of a modern shop and I miss this from Freewheel where I began. There we used Lightspeed and ended up with Ascend, both of which I’m quite comfortable using. I learned wheel-building at Winterborne but I’m far from being a master wheel builder, I do however replace spokes and can true wheels with ease and precision. Wheel building is something I hope to hone in the future, but it is an animal all in its self as far a skill set goes. I have worn many hats in large corporations and one edict that I still try to follow is, continuous improvement, I do my own research and attempt a new skill in the offseason, last off-season I had planned on taking the Professional wheel-building course but due to Covid this was impossible so I learned to become proficient in shock and air can service, diving in and learning lower service as well as full rebuild and seal and oil replacement, it was a fun and fruitful endeavour as we now were able to service these items without the S4 wait and cost. Tubeless setup has become very prominent and I have done countless tubeless setups not only on customer bikes both mountain and road, but also my own bicycles. When it comes to customers I try to give them the most information they require for them to have a great experience without overwhelming them with too much technical jargon. How many times are miss-shifts simply a bent hanger and a conversation about bike storage and dropping it? I invested a lot of money into my own tools and found I was using them more often than not as the owner of Pieriks didn’t see the value in expensive precision tools; I even used my own tap set for repairs. I am looking for an experience where an investment has been made not only in a POS but the tools required to do a job beyond the expectations of the customer. I don’t think where I was there was a value seen in the skills that I honed over the last 4 years and I hope to make a move to a shop that recognizes that it takes money to make money and that respect goes a long way in this industry.