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Cycling industry needs 45,000 mechanics right now, and it's an AI-proof job
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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
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micromobility - Bikes, scooters, boards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
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micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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I don't know if I believe that 90% of people use the shop for their repairs.
I tried adjusting my own derailleur once.
Shop for me from then on.
That shit is black magic.
No it isn't. Read Zinn's repair book or watch any video from Park Tool by Calvin and once you understand how simple it is, adjustment is trivial.
I've watched a dozen videos and completed as many alignments but it's just never right.
Rear derailer is usually trivial; only gets tricky if you're adjusting the body screw and/or messing around with the chain. Front derailer sometimes necessitates adjusting the position on the bike frame. And especially with cheap 3x bikes can be tricky, or even impossible, to get it just right.
Calvin alone has taught me so much.
It's not. Derailleur is set once when it's installed onto the bike and you should never need to adjust it again. If the shifting is crap the issue is the twisted hanger and no amount of adjusting the limit screws is going to fix that.
I had to re-index my gears ~2 years after I bought my new mountain bike... It's not "hard" but if you've never done it before and don't have a place where to properly work on your bike I can see why people would rather pay whatever the fee is at a shop.
Like with most stuff you do it a couple of times and it becomes easy.
Well maybe (even though I do think a bit of a bent hanger can be compensated for) but even then it’s only true until you change cassette/chain or the shifter cable, which you will have to do at some point.
A new chain or cassette doesn't affect the derailleur. A new cable does, but the tension is adjusted from the shifter, not by messing with the derailleur adjustments. It's true that god-awful shifting due to a bent derailleur can be mitigated to some extent by messing with the adjustments but it'll never be good. It can't be because the derailleur is bent. Then when you replace the hanger with a straight one the shifting goes to shit again.
Whenever my derailleur catches on a rock or a stump and the shifting goes to shit all I do is remove the derailleur from the hanger, use the hanger adjustment tool to straighten it out and once I re-attach the derailleur it shifts perfectly again with no adjusting at all.
It does tho. Not all cassettes are built on the same tolerances and different brands might have different interpretations of the standards, so always check the limits.
Cable tension more often then not can be dialed on the derailleur as well.
Worn chains can impact shift performance, and sometimes adjusting tension or derailleur height can improve things.
These are things that aren’t noticed when everything is new and clean, but can slowly creep up as an issue.
So yes. I agree with your sentiment that a well set up derailleur should keep shifting, in practice it’s more nuanced.
Shit like this is why I will never own a derailleur bike again. Too much maintenance. I was constantly catching the derailleur on rocks and curbs and things like that, then having to do the finickiest mechanical work known to man. All just so I can go uphill slower?? Crazy technology!
So you're saying it's impossible to bend the derailelellueur enough for shifting to fail?
Why is it every time someone starts a sentence with "So you're saying.." it's then followed with misrepresentation of what was actually said?
No, that is not what I said. What I did say is that in the vast number of cases when your shifting is shit it's not because of bent derailleur or badly adjusted one but it's a bent derailleur hanger. That part is designed to bend specifically so that the derailleur itself doesn't.
Because we're trying to clarify what it is you're saying.
Really? Gears are easy, mounting rays is hard.
The full quote is, "A lot of them now will come to cycle shops for pretty much 90% of bike repairs." So not necessarily that 90% of people are coming in for every issue, but that there are people who rely on the shop for almost every issue.
I've learned a lot about bike repairs this year, and I've been volunteering as a mechanic at free bike repair events. It's been interesting going from the clueless customer asking for a "tune-up" to being the one asked for a tune-up. If you ride but don't have maintenance background you know that it's possible there might be some problematic, or even dangerous issue; but you have no idea what that might be. And if you can identify a problem, as far as you know any work you do might brake something in a way you don't understand. So I can understand people going to the shop frequently.
When my kids were younger, I got them to advertise bike fix Saturdays on my driveway. I got 10-12 bikes to 100% typically. Most popular bikes were just neglected or more commonly, not assembled correctly at the big box store by Todd. Fucking Todd...
But, most kids had no interest in learning how to fix a bike. These people will grow up and depend on others for everything, overpay or get ripped off.
I'm surprised when I talk to people and almost always hear that they bring their bike to a shop for maintenance and repair. I'm usually the strange one who do his own maintenance and repairs. So I can believe that most people bring their bike to a mechanic. The 90% figure still seems high though.
More than half of the guitarists I know take their guitar into the shop to change strings. That seems crazy to me but it’s been my (anecdotal) experience. I didn’t even know guitar center offered that as a service till I asked someone what gauge they preferred. The folk at the table were like, “whatever guitar center puts on”.
That’s bonkers! I learned how to change my strings from my guitar teacher when I was, like, 12? I thought everyone did that? Wowee, I gotta get a job at guitar center or something
I think it is fairly common for the average rider in a bikeable area. Like a car sure a lot of drivers know how to change a tire, a lot fewer change the oil or brakes. Computers arent hard to build but 90% of people buy something premade.