b dub 

Between work and family I have a pretty busy live.

So when I do have some spare time I'm always split between working on my bikes and going out riding.

Honestly I like wrenching a bit more, but of course love riding my bikes as well.

What about you?

20grit

I tinker and read bikeforums. I get to ride on occasion. Busy otherwise.

khatfull

I love both but lately I've been doing too much wrenching and not enough riding. Now that I don't have an active project (for a little while anyway) I'll ride more.

junkfoodjunkie

Rider, I like to work on bikes a lot though.
This is why I only keep 2-4 bikes. If I get more than that I am constantly working on one of them and it cuts into my riding time.

-Jake

southpawboston

i do both, but i find that there is seasonal variation: in winter i do far more wrenching, and the only riding i do is my daily work commute. in summer i wrench far less, and try to ride whenever i can. i also have a family with two small kids, and that takes a lot of my time.

norskagent

rider 1st.
There is a local CL flipper here that imagines himself as a wrencher (from his description of how great his bikes are), but he must never ride. He will post a pic of a clean shiny vintage bike he found somewhere, but the saddle will be tilted to an unridable angle, or the front fork will be bent.
I think good wrenching requires a lot of riding at some point in your life.

jimmuller 

To everything there is a season. Sunny days are for riding. Nights and rainy days are for wrenching. I have too much wrenching to do that is not bike-related anyway. So many demands, so many expectations, so little time.

phillyrider

I am a 60 mile per week commuter - so I don't do either particularly well...

I do get a ride in daily, I can tweek and tune - but prefer to have a bikeshop's help in setting up a bike.
Unfortunately, I don't have the time or tools to wrench. When I do, results are ok - but in my opinion, bike shop labor costs really are not that bad. I have had bikes built up (frame and a bag of parts) for the cost of a tune-up ($60-$70). They do a much better job, so I don't mind. I would prefer to be on a casual ride than hang out in the man cave.

hamanu23

I bought a newer hybrid bike missing spokes for 80$, and a set of drops with sti brifters for 50$. The bike shop fixed the bike for 100$ and I sold the bike for 400$. I am now addicted to flipping.
My next bike I may get on Saturday is a 531 competition frame that was only used for this specific model for 2 years as a trade! It has a heavier rear wheel that will need replaced and some touch up work but I hope for the same great results from this bike. (I bet I actually keep it, this will be my first 531C)

Now I ride 14 miles a day and 40 miles on the weekend but with winter coming I am going to be mostly learning to wrench properly.

beech333

Normally, I ride a lot more. This year, I have not had nearly the amount of time to get out for a ride so I make up for it by going out to the garage just about every chance that I get.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

I commute about 60 miles a week as well (On a C&V bike, of course), usually get an after work 20 miles in once a week and do a longer ride once a weekend.

I love to wrench too though, I just prefer not to let it outweigh the time I spend riding.

cudak888 

Wrencher, and I'd kindly appriciate it if all the local idiots would stop nagging me to do rides with 'em. I ride solo.

-Kurt

scozim 

It's a balancing act with a large family and sports activities with the kids.

I ride around 100 to 120 miles a week on C&V steel and my Klein mtb. The rides are usually in the mid-afternoon for a later lunch break.

I like to wrench also but tend to scale back during the riding season and only work on those things on the bike that are necessary - like a little longer derailleur housing, retightening a crank, brake adjustments, etc. that affect my rides. The heavier stuff waits until winter. If I do get into more serious wrenching during the riding season it may take a month or more to finish the project - I like riding too much.

San Rensho 

I wrench out of necessity, so I can ride, but riding definitely comes first. I just don't trust anyone else wrenching on my bike, so its a bit of a chore for me, althoug I do enjoy it most of the time.

Scrockern8r

I've always fixed all my own stuff, unless the tool was super expensive or something I rarely do. (Like installing car tires on rims, for example.) Otherwise, I repair and tune my bike only as necessary and ride the rest of the time.
To answer the question: I'm a rider.

banjo_mole 

I like wrenching, that's what I do at work.

I like riding, that's what I do when I'm not at work.

Also, when my bike needs maintainence, I just go to work and use all our nice tools there.


Now, it seems difficult to imagine how I got by without the Park Tools truing stand.

sauze

I'm a rider first and foremost , my wrenching skills are seriously lacking but (hopefully!) I'm going to pick up some more tools and a decent stand this weekend, it's calling for rain and cold so wrenching must be done.

redxj

Wrencher and barely a rider anymore. I work 7 days a week open to close since the spring as the only mechanic at a bike shop. A 50+ hour work week wrenching on bikes burns me out to do anything else most of the time. The only riding I have done this summer is riding around in circles 2-3 times a week playing bike polo.

kokorozashi

I'm more of a rider, really, though I do enjoy fiddling around in the garage (or, at least, in my friend's garage; at-home wrenching, for me, is done in the side-yard or basement, depending on how much room I need).

Right now, though, I just do the small maintenance-y stuff, especially on my road bike. I'm afraid of breaking components I can't afford to replace, LOL, though I recently learned I can replace the non-original 105 RD via eBay without having to sell a kidney, for example.

At any rate, my wrenching abilities are definitely riding-oriented: there aren't too many problems I would encounter on the road under normal circumstances that I couldn't at least kludge well enough to get home (unless I'm, you know, 50 miles out on a hilly century, and I totally blow a bottom bracket or break an axel or something like that), but I can say for certain that some of my fixes would be downright inelegant I did once actually blow up the bottom bracket on a super-cheap bike while 13 miles from home ... fortunately, I was only about 2 miles from my destination when the little ball bearings started dribbling out of the bike. I couldn't have fixed that way back then, and I still couldn't fix it now.

I only recently figured out that it's actually okay to be primarily one or the other -- rider or wrench -- which makes me feel much less bad about the fact that I'm about to take my non-C/V commuter and a bunch of bits to the bike shop and say, 'Swap out these bits, plz kthxbai!' and hope to come out with something more like a cyclocross bike (Knowing me, though, I will walk into the shop with my commuter and some parts, and walk out with an upgraded commuter AND a 'cross bike, and $0.03 left to my name.)

RFC

Rider first (8,000 miles last year, maybe only 6,000 this year). However, since returning to cycling about 4 years ago, I have really enjoyed the accumulation and wrenching part. Also, I have always had the bad habit of "turboing" my toys -- faster, more powerful, etc. My bike collection has been a way to link athletic/recreational interests with the male tendency towards the accumulation of "gear." For me, it can be a very relaxing to spend an evening in the mancave listening to NPR and wrenching. Since I don't play golf and watch very little professional sports (football and baseball -- too long, too slow, too boring), I have a little time.

Amani576

I wrench more than I ride. I need to ride more, but on my days off I'm usually busy and I usually work shifts like 10-7, 11-8 so riding doesn't happen much.
-Gene-

wrk101

I wrench more than I ride. Enjoy both, but until the end of selling season, I wrench more. Around here, you can ride just about year round (but most don't). But selling dies out here by mid October.

hamanu23

Guy called today so I went to see it, he failed to mention when he "broke the rear rim" it bent the frame...
I guess when it looks too good to be true it is. I was trading a golf club for a trek 560 pro series 1987. dang it!

redneckwes

I'm a wrench who occasionally rides.

Sunday will be my first ride with people since 2007!

Primitive Don

Like others, I wrench more than I ride. I work 50 hours/week at the day job and am the sole mechanic at our family's weekend-only bike shop. When you are sleeping, I'm fixing bikes.

That said, I have tried hard to ride more this year, usually with lights, on weekdays at ~10 pm.