Originally Posted by
steelbikeguy
To put a bit of a twist on this idea, I've found myself lamenting the number of folks who don't maintain their own bikes. Practically, a lot of folks don't have the spare time to do it, and perhaps not the mechanical skills to do so. There's also the fact that they are helping keep the local bike shops alive, so their lack of skills or time has a positive side effect for the rest of the cycling community.
The only folks who annoy me are the ones who refuse to learn the most basic maintenance skills; i.e. fixing a flat.
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100% agree. How many times do we hear "Oh yeah, I've got a bicycle - it's hanging up in the garage. I haven't ridden it in a few years because it has a flat tire."
I'll be a little misogynistic here and say that I'll excuse not changing their own tire, if it's a woman. There's hand strength, for one, and in all my life I've always been the one to maintain my girlfriends and now my wife's bicycles. My wife can't change a tire, or at least never has. But if you say you have to take it in, then take it in. Think about all of the bicycles in garages or attics, all across the world, that have been set aside simply because of a flat tire or other very simple problem.
But hey, that's good for us. Eventually these bikes show up on Craigslist or FB Marketplace.