As you can see, labor costs are the lions share of the estimate. I’m fairly handy with a wrench but have never worked on bikes.
by beereed
As you can see, labor costs are the lions share of the estimate. I’m fairly handy with a wrench but have never worked on bikes.
by beereed
16 Comments
That is nothing hard to do, you could do most of that with a $10 tool set from harborfreight.
Just look up on YouTube
You can get the inner tubes. They’re from Walmart in the bicycle sectionn A schrader valve two ols should also be located in that area.
Those charges seem legit, the work does take time, they need to be paid for their time.
That said if you’re mechanically inclined you could YouTube all that and do it yourself.
Do you have a bike co-op near you? Many cities have a bike co-op that for a minimal cost will show you how to work on your own bike.
Park Tool has amazing DIY videos for everything on that list. I’ve learned a ton from those videos. YouTube, too.
Agreed that you could do this yourself. I paid to have my first road bike (used) tuned up and looked over. New brake pads, chain, tubes, bar tape, and tires – $500 later I decided it was time to learn to work on my bikes.
I’ve slowly invested in tools and built a 2017 Specialized Roubaix from the frame up. I now really only take my bikes to a shop for things I don’t have the tools for or if I can’t figure out an issue.
Many are suggesting you can do this all yourself. That is true to a point. But it takes some getting the hang of. I think your best bet is to pay to get it done right and learn as you go to keep it that way. When they get done with it, it will be a way better bike than you could hope to buy at a box store.
You could do all of it yourself extremely easily. That is all part of what I consider to be the easiest level of home maintenance that I would expect any cyclist to know how to do.
You could probably do all of it with minimal experience except the derailleur adjust
Post pictures of the parts they’re suggesting replacing. Brake pads seem like a frequently over-recommended maintenance item.
Really depends on your mechanical ability. As a former bike mechanic, it was pretty funny to see the YouTube folks come into the shop and ask for help after completely butchering the set up. Sometimes spending more than it would’ve cost to just have the shop do it right the first time.
Something’s, like tire and tube install, should be a basic skill to have anyways. Maybe try to do that at home.
Things like chains and cassette require specific tools that are not really worth buying unless you are regularly working on multiple bikes.
Derailleur adjust on lower tier spec bikes are sometimes harder than setting up higher tier stuff. Not impossible but, again, I think it really depends on your mechanical engineering logic.
If you are naturally good at tinkering with stuff, reading manuals, some of this might be doable. I think about how many years I spent on working on bikes. 0 to hero bike mechanic is probably not as easy as you would think.
I’m sorry but what bike shop in good concussions is SELLING USED tires?! Both gross because they’re free to the shop, plus potentially dangerous.
You’ll spend the labor costs acquiring the tools to do all this work. Then you’ll have a very frustrating day doing the work. You’re paying for time, tools, and knowledge. If you want to acquire tools and knowledge yourself and you have enough spare time nothing here is that hard to figure out. But you’ll probably break even and spend a whole day on it.
$10 for a chain install is honestly not bad. I charge $30 for mine. I do strip and wax for that price though.
i always told people to add $200 onto the price of a used bike fwiw
The charges look legit.
Basically if you drop it at a shop, you’ll get it done, right, fast.
You could spend a lot of time and money on tools and knowledge and do it yourself.
My guess is that you’d end up spending $100-150 on this project if you did it yourself. And probably a lot of hours. And it would never…be…just…right…
Which can be annoying.
If you want to be riding your bike, use the shop. If you want to monkey around for the next 4 weeks, not riding it, give it a spin.
When you look at spending money at a shop, don’t think of it as spending money, it’s more about buying time.