Mechanic Skills Class

[newfsmith]

I really loved the women's bike maintenance course at UBI. Socially, it was great. The participants brought a variety of bikes; full carbon road bikes to elderly MTB's, well maintained to thouroughly abused. It was a blast to see the variety of bikes and problems. They had enough work stations that you could work alone if you wanted to, or pair up if you preferred. You got to think out the problems yourself, or together. We did not, however, do any wheelbuilding or getting into fitting for women as I had hoped. Basically, the class I attended was a one-week, intensive, Park Tool School. I have no regrets about taking it, because I think the intensive approach works better and UBI had a collection of class bikes, MTB and road, so that you had a chance to work on all systems on both. The Park Tool School I attended, you only worked on your own bike. I felt I got a much broader exposure to bike repair at UBI and came out of it feeling much more confident. Even so, when I started stripping bikes at Bikes-not-Bombs, I had to figure out cottered cranks and Ashtabula cranks. If you can afford the tuition and can make it a vacation I recommend the UBI course for women. If it is too expensive, you can get very similar instruction at a Park Tool School, but you will most likely be working in groups. If that is too expensive, try googling for "earn-a-bike" programs. Most are aimed at youth, but they will often train the instructors for free, as long as you committ to instructing for a time period. You do mostly see X-mart bikes, but a fair number of good bikes get donated also. All experience is good. Good luck.

[DebW]

And by taking the women's only class at UBI, you got to avoid one guy telling the whole class how he got himself caught in his zipper, twice.