Bicycle Mechanic

[maklabouhlel]

Can anyone recommend me a good bicycle mechanic in the Bolton area? Cheers.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Can anyone recommend me a good bicycle mechanic in the Bolton area? Cheers.

Geoff Smith on St Helens Road is excellent, but he's a busy man so he can be a bit short with people! Green Machine in Horwich is meant to be pretty good as well.

 

[maklabouhlel]

Geoff Smith on St Helens Road is excellent, but he's a busy man so he can be a bit short with people! Green Machine in Horwich is meant to be pretty good as well.

Green machine quoted me £25 to change front inner derailleur cable

 

[Berger]

Green machine quoted me £25 to change front inner derailleur cable

Including the cable? Sounds fine to me.

£5 for the cable plus labour to change and re index the front derailurer, maybe 30 mins.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Green machine quoted me £25 to change front inner derailleur cable

Yeah - sounds about right as well. I charge £20 for one gear cable or £35 for both - and I'm not a shop. My labour rate is £35 an hour (min 30mins).

 

[One More Solo]

Don't know why I bothered with accountancy when I could earn £30 for changing a derailleur cable! Indexing a front derailleur takes all of 5 minutes.

 

[neil_g]

DIY, grab a cable for a few quid and learn for future use as this will come up many times.

 

[FrenchTart]

Don't know why I bothered with accountancy when I could earn £30 for changing a derailleur cable! Indexing a front derailleur takes all of 5 minutes.

To be fair it's an odd job so you're paying as much for someone taking time out of doing other things as you are for the job itself being done.

 

[PhillyDee]

Don't know why I bothered with accountancy when I could earn £30 for changing a derailleur cable! Indexing a front derailleur takes all of 5 minutes.

So what are you going to do for the other 7.5 hours in the working day? Its hardly fair to say that you will be doing that for the whole 37.5hours of your working week.

I charge Between £30 and £150 an hour for my laser cutters time, depends what they are doing, what quantities, what job etc. But they are not running all the time. This includes my unit rates, electric, rent, insurance, machine cost. websites, my time, my staffs time etc. Surely you as an accountant would know this?

 

[One More Solo]

So what are you going to do for the other 7.5 hours in the working day? Its hardly fair to say that you will be doing that for the whole 37.5hours of your working week.

I charge Between £30 and £150 an hour for my laser cutters time, depends what they are doing, what quantities, what job etc. But they are not running all the time. This includes my unit rates, electric, rent, insurance, machine cost. websites, my time, my staffs time etc. Surely you as an accountant would know this?

I was being a bit facetious, £30 is probably a fair amount to charge and if people are willing to pay it then fair enough. Free market economics and all that.

I would strongly recommend learning how to change a derailleur cable yourself though.* It's straightforward and you'll save time, money and learn a new skill. Unlike a lot of bike jobs it also doesn't need specialist tools.

*unless you have SRAM shifters in which case threading a new cable into the shifter is pretty much the worst job in the history of bikes

 

[Jonny ///M]

Sounds like I should come down south!

We're about £3-5 depending on the cable and anything from £5 if it's an easy fit like exposed cable tiagra. £10 labour if you have to disconnect front gear cable to drop the bottom bracket cable guide to deal with internal cables.

I hate internal cables.

 

[FrenchTart]

I hate internal cables.

Me too. Despite being completely confident with cabling/etc I made my LBS redo my internal gear cables for me a month or so ago

 

[topgun06]

I say learn to do it yourself. It really is quite simple. Saves money now, saves money in the future. And its fun messing with bikes.