I do my own wrenching on all my bikes (road & MTB) for everything but the suspension on my MTBs, and truing wheels. I don’t do the suspension because they all seem to require one expensive specialty tool, and no two rigs need the same tool! The ROI on the tools doesn’t make sense. Or, in the case of my Scalpel, Cannondale reserves all service of the Lefty for itself. I don’t true wheels because I haven’t really needed to do it often enough, or urgently enough. It is on my list of things to learn.
Doing nearly everything myself gives me the freedom to do whatever level of maintenance is required, without fitting into the shop’s ability to get it done. I have far fewer days without any particular bike. Annually (sometimes more often) I take each bike down to its component parts & bare frame. Service & clean everything and put it all back together. It costs me nothing but time & consumables, and gives a fabulous sense of independence and accomplishment. Plus, I always know the maintenance state of every bike, and can spot issues before they become major problems.
One thing I’ve found very helpful is whenever I get a new bike, I immediately get all the service information I can for it, and all its components. I download everything I can get from the 'net, and keep it locally. Not every manufacturer keeps info on older products available once they’ve been superseded.
A word of warning, though. Once your riding group gets wind of your mechanical competence, you risk becoming the go-to for every mechanical issue that arises! And if you’re even remotely OCD, your tolerance for someone else’s clicky gears will plummet, it’s so easy to fix!
GCN have some brilliant videos on gear indexing and a super tricks to doing it, took me no time to index my rear derailleur after loads of messing about
I do nearly all of my own work too. Youtube is your friend! I ride with some of the mechanics from my LBS and feel a bit bad for not letting them look after my bike, but they are only open when I’m in work. It takes me 1-2 weeks to drop something off there and retrieve it, wheras I can fix it the same day or within a couple of days myself. Last winter I crashed and bend both wheels, I couldn’t find time to drop them off in the shop, so after trying to get out of work early for about 10 days I just rebuild them myself with some rims I already had. I couldn’t get the hang of wheel trueing before, but after the wheel building exercise I’m now ok with it. (The wheels are still running true and never gave me bother, in case you are wondering!)
Just to stay old school I usually go for the ‘How hard can this be?’ take apart, followed by cursing and a YouTube to try and get it back together and working…
I am automotive mechanic but I used to be client of a lbs, tought that it was fair an experimented mechanic revised my bike and spotted some things I could miss, like lubrication or component wear. At the end the one who repairs cars dont has to know how to repair watches.
One day I brought my wheels to true, ok perfect, next ride one spoke was loosen and wheel going crazy, could have crashed. Bought a tension meter and a spoke wrench and did myself the job, 30 kgf more in each spoke and trued the wheel without problems. Also bought more tools and changed my chain, cassette, bearings, one cable.
